At 8/9/2001 01:05 PM (Thursday), Paul Schmidt wrote:

>Now a machine that runs 7/24 can use up more energy in 2-3 years then it
>costs to
>replace the entire computer, which is robust enough that obsolecence
>will kill it, long before the on/off cycle of the components could
>ever get it.

This is wildly off topic but I cannot resist.

My main personal machine uses about 200 watts (20" CRT, 15" LCD, 384MB RAM,
32GB drive). If I leave it running continuously it will cost me about
$185/year at $.10/KWH (which is about as high as anyone pays). It would
take over 15 years of usage to equal the cost of replacing the machine.

PC's for personal use have used about 100-200 watts consistently for many
years. Only servers with 10,000 rpm SCSI drives in RAID arrays and
redundant power supplies and multiple GB of RAM tip the scales due to their
power usage.