School Computers go to waste.

PGdude

PGdude

PGdude

Soldato
Joined
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Every evening, weekend, half term and holiday, the computers are ALWAYS on. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to convince the technicians to turn them off, but if they don't, it'd be just to convince them to run F@H on them, right? There are at least 100 computers, and the more recent ones are Athlon dual cores.

I'd rather not let them go to waste like that, so do you guys think this is an agreeable idea?

I'm new to this but I'd like to start folding, both on the PS3 and the PC.
 
I'm assuming you're concerned about the environment as you say you're going to try to convince them to turn them off. Failing that, why would you do the exact opposite and try to increase the amount of energy used?

Not saying you shouldn't ask them as it could be a good idea if they are half decent specs, just questioning your motives :p
 
Well if they're not going to turn them off, they might as well be put to use. That's my reasoning. They're better off using some energy doing something than using a little energy doing nothing at all.
 
You might be able to sell it better if they setup a seti account to crunch in the schools name, then you can put all sorts of cool info about the school in the profile.

Then of course you can join OcUk to help us :)
 
Biffa said:
You might be able to sell it better if they setup a seti account to crunch in the schools name, then you can put all sorts of cool info about the school in the profile.

Then of course you can join OcUk to help us :)
Click to expand...

I was thinking that perhaps if I put forward the seti account, they'd accept it more readily, and then the school would have something else to talk about etc. The school has quite a few links with all sorts of programs and people, but I don't see why it can't take on this easy and widespread and USEFUL program to make more of a difference.

I like the sound of this. Especially the joining OcUK bit :p
 
The power delta x number of computers will be massive. No way a school should be wasting money for seti.
 
Actually, they should be turning the PCs off completely. The waste is from leaving them on doing nothing, not running SETI.
 
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Berserker said:
Actually, they should be turning the PCs off completely. The waste is from leaving them on doing nothing, not running SETI.
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Well running seti on makes the problem worse. If the choice is between leaving them idle or running seti, its an easy decision.
 
When idle, they should be using very little energy. When running seti they will be using a lot. You act as if this extra electricity will be free when quite the opposite is true. I agree they should turn them off but making them run flat out is not a better alternative.
 
Somewhat true - the difference isn't nearly as big as some of you seem to be making out. Of course, if you've got an outrageously overclocked quad-core CPU, then the difference is (comparitively) huge, but I doubt many schools will have those.

Frankly, I'm done having this sort of debate. It's been done to death more times than I care to remember. The school is in a far better place to decide what they do than we are.
 
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It would be interesting for the puples to learn about such things as folding and what good can be gained from it. if the computers are left on then I agree they should be put to use. better not to waste energy though by being left on in the first place. but if its going to a good cause that could one day lead to a medical breal through that one of the puples needs later in life the, let the kids decide
 
PGdude said:
Every evening, weekend, half term and holiday, the computers are ALWAYS on.
Click to expand...

The technicians need a kick up the ****. A simple shutdown script would save the school hundreds if not thousands of pounds not just in direct energy savings but making the air conditioners work less and reducing general wear and tear on components. What a waste. And guess who is paying for this at the end of the day!
 
When I was at school (22 years ago :o), I wrote a 'screamer' that was installed on all the school PCs.

If you left them on unused for too long, they would first start flashing the screen as a warning, and then a few minutes later would emit a high-pitched two tone siren.

Teachers who forgot to turn off unused PCs didn't tend to do it again, though I'm sure some of the pupils did. :D
 
theheyes said:
The technicians need a kick up the ****. A simple shutdown script would save the school hundreds if not thousands of pounds not just in direct energy savings but making the air conditioners work less and reducing general wear and tear on components. What a waste. And guess who is paying for this at the end of the day!
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This.

When I was at school we were all made to turn the computers off at the end of the day and couldn't leave until you had done so (including the screen).
 
Berserker said:
When I was at school (22 years ago :o), I wrote a 'screamer' that was installed on all the school PCs.

If you left them on unused for too long, they would first start flashing the screen as a warning, and then a few minutes later would emit a high-pitched two tone siren.
Click to expand...

That actually made me laugh. :D What OS was it out of interest?
 
Thats like leaving atleast 10x electric fires on doing nothing :( if that was resedential it would cost an extra 7 grand or so a year... tho I'm assuming the school has some kinda contract that may even include flatrate or banded electricity allowances... and even 7 grand isn't a huge amount compared to a schools yearly running costs.
 
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