Subject: Heating with Pentiums

From: "George Newbury" <[email-masked]>
Date: 10 Dec 1996 06:06:30 GMT

This may be somewhat off the subject of homePOWER, however it isdirectly
related to heating the home.
I've got two PC's, each with about 250 watt power supplies.  My thoughts
are that in the cooler months, when my naturual gas heat system fires up,
it is more efficient to run the PC's 24 hours a day.  After all, isn't the
only thing the electricity does, after it goes through the circuits, is
generate heat.  Even though electricity is more expensive to heat with, I
would think that the tradeoffs in system longetivity (due to no startup
problems, less strain on the drives, etc) would make this a net winner.

Any comments ?

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From: [email-masked] (Gene A. Townsend)
Date: 10 Dec 1996 04:51:01 -0700

>Any comments ?

Many people, myself included, leave their PC's on all the time all
year long in the attempt to coax a bit more lifetime from their
thermally cycling components.  This does require changing the fan more
often, but most consider it worthwhile.

Their are thousands of solder bonds in a typical PC that are thermally
cycled every time they are turned on.  These are a major source of
failure.

Cheers,

Gene A. Townsend