[rescue] Prices... Amazing

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Tue, 03 May 2005 @ 15:39 +0000, Peter Corlett said:

> Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com> wrote:
> [...]
> > It is true that the energy has to go somewhere, it's just a bad
> > assumption to believe it all leaves as heat,
> 
> How else do you propose it leaves?

Perhaps I'm not saying what I really mean to.

For a given set of components, of course they will all release the same
amount of heat.

But not all heat comes from the components.  The power supply also
generates heat, and they don't all generate the same amount for a given
load.

They aren't all the same efficiency and there are a different kinds.

Anyone here remember linear power supplies on computers?  I remember
replacing one with a switching power supply and for the same load I got
a lot less heat.

I think one problem with this thread is no one is differentiating
between power drawn from the outlet versus power supplied to the system
by the power supply.

> Well, that's venturing into subjectivity of whether something is warm
> or not, which doesn't necessarily have much to do with physics.

No, it's still firmly in the world of physics.

How things feel is, after all, governed by that.

Two identical systems can feel different if one sits on a more heat
conductive rack, takes in cooler air, all kinds of things.

A computer system is not a closed system, at least not thermally... :)

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Star Wars Moral Number 17: Teddy bears are
dangerous in herds."]