do BOINC type projects do long term damage to portables
25 Jan 2007 21:57:03 UTC
Topic 192359
(moderation:
Does any one know what projects such as E@Home do to portables with long term use. I can certainly show that I use up battery up faster when E@Home is running and the default settings hit the disk every minute or so.
I have changed to a longer internal between disk saves but I wonder if the lessened battery life implies increases heat and therefore shortens the life of a portable.
Certainly the older PC that I used for Seti@Home gave me a lot of trouble but with a sample of 1, I don'tknow if seti was the cause.
Anybody have facts?
do BOINC type projects do long term damage to portables
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If you're crunching on battery power you will end up draining it more often than if you idled when not on AC. Since each charge/discharge cycle degrades the batteries maximum capacity by a fraction of a percent you will wear that out faster. Unless you bought a poorly designed system that would be your only risk since they should be designed to safely disipate the heat produced from running at 100% load continiously.
Dan... not quite sure, but it
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Dan... not quite sure, but it sounds to me as if you're talking older types of batteries here (can't figure out the english names, is it sth with metal hydrid or so?). Becaues I heard Lithium-Ion batteries get worse only with age, not usage, so that you will need a new one every 2-3 years no matter how you use it...
RE: Dan... not quite sure,
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The older ones are Nickle Metal Hydride (NiHM).
I hadn't heard that claim about LiOH ones dieing independent of use, but the relative murder rates of my roadwarrior coworkers batteries would seem to argue against it. We get a laptop and 2 batteries every 4 years. The one's I work with generally have reduced both batteries until they're too weak to last a 1hr meeting inside of 3 years. I maybe use mine on battery power an hour or two a month, and have it sleeping on the battery overnight on the weekdays and I've got a 20mo one that still holds ~66-75% charge and a virgin never used one.
I think the problem is the
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I think the problem is the adapter trying to charge the battery continously. It was too late for me, but it helps to remove the battery when you don't use it for a while. It also reduces heat, I believe.
Another hint to reduce heat load is to have air flowing under your laptop. I've heard about additional fans, but I just have put something under my laptop, such that the laptop is elevated and heat can dissipate more easily. Also, I've removed a piece of the covering of the fan to have more access to cold air for the fan. My laptop just had a too small air entrance. Of course, make sure it stays clean.
The lifetime of your harddisk is probably further limited by the number of startupcycles. If you use your laptop often, the best is to keep it on all the time.
Laptops aren't really made for 24/7 jobs, but with a little modification they can be made to be more suitable. They do tend to be more energy-efficient than desktops.
HTH,
Bert
Somnio ergo sum
Hi! I think the default
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Hi!
I think the default preferences setting is that BOINC will suspend work automatically if it notices the PC is running on batteries, and this is probably wise. You can check that in your account settings. This way you can just let it run and need not worry to switch BOINC of when you want to use your notebook "unplugged".
RE: Hi! I think the
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What helped my laptop is the
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What helped my laptop is the new throttling piece of BOINC. I put it at 90% and now my RAC has risen slightly because it is cooling off enough to slowdown or stop the processor from throttling down itself.
A Compaq Presario AMD Sempron
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A Compaq Presario AMD Sempron 3000+ on my team, has, or had an overheating issue. Running at 100%, even with a vented stand for the laptop, the Core would run up to 90 degrees celcius... Laptop's do tend to heat much more quickly while under the computational stress of projects. But, you can use a program such as SpeedFan to monitor temps, if your hardware has temperature sensors. Another option to possibly reduce overheating issues, is to download a BIOS update. At times, manufacturers find temp problems after assembly, and update automatic fan speeds, with BIOS updates. This seemed to help somewhat with that Compaq. Some signs of overheat are, sudden shut down (Automatic self-defense against possibly critical overheat) and\\or if Computer gets noticeably 'sluggish' while warm (CPU Overheat Can Cause Slowing Electron Firing).
d3xt3r.net
In general, any increase in
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In general, any increase in temp lowers the life expectancy of consumer electronics, which is only some decades anyway. However it is an inverse logarithmic relation, so in general no damage is done when you want to use a system for several years and you hardly ever reach temperatures above a certain level.
I personally believe this level is close to what on most laptops is regarded as critical and the laptop starts throttling the CPU speed (CPU's tend to be the hottest components), generally somewhere between 70 and 80 Celsius. By then you wouldn't want to have them burning your lap by the way.
I try to keep my comps below 65 Celsius and thus far they all have outlasted their 5 years. A thing that did the trick for me on a laptop was letting the fan spin faster at around 60 Celsius. My other comps never get this hot as they have good heatsinks and/or fans installed. For some I don't know the temp as they lack components for measuring them, but manual inspection reassured me the temp was OK. My guideline is that if you can put your finger on the CPU heatsink for 2-3 secs with just some minor discomfort it's OK. And currently they have lasted over 5 years anyway. But I must add they're all just parttime crunchers.
I believe it safe to say that currently only low cost models of comps with relatively much CPU power, especially laptops, are vulnerable to overheating as manufacturers tend to save on components like heatsinks and fans te make some money out of them or put in a high performance CPU but won't spare the room for a decent sink and fan in order to keep dimensions and noiselevels low. For these comps the upcoming BOINC client (to be finally released this week I believe)could be helpful as it can maximize BOINCs CPU usage.
Make tea, not coffee !