# How has Folding@home affected your electricity bill?



## dna1x (Apr 10, 2009)

Aloha TPU Folders!

Please post here if you know how much your folding has affected your electric bill. My previous monthly bills here in Hawai'i were $69 and $67 _before_ i started folding. The new bill which reflects my folding 24/7 for 34 days continuously is $97. You can probably conclude that it costs about a dollar/day to fold 24/7 on my pc here and that I don't have many electrical appliances and lights running in my house given that electricity costs here are the highest in the U.S.

Please only post if you have an electric bill to pay or at least know what it is and can estimate the electricity cost of folding on your machine(s). Also post the frequency in which you are folding (ie 24/7 or 8hours/day, etc). Please also post your current specs of your folding machine(s). Also state specifically where you are folding from. (ie Alaska, USA or Gold Coast, Australia, etc)

The purpose of this post to estimate the electrical costs of the TPU Folding@home team. I'll will then use the data for my research and present it to my class. 

Thanks for your help!


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## El Fiendo (Apr 10, 2009)

I'm not sure, I guess I could go ask my neighbor how his bill has changed but he might get suspicious.


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## Kursah (Apr 10, 2009)

None fortunately because it's part of the covered utilities in my apartment building. But we are planning on moving eventually so that will definately change.


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## WhiteLotus (Apr 10, 2009)

i have stopped folding for other issues but the bill didn't effect me. i just compensated by living in the dark, not watching tv etc.


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## Haytch (Apr 10, 2009)

El Fiendo said:


> I'm not sure, I guess I could go ask my neighbor how his bill has changed but he might get suspicious.



ROFL!!!

I think im closer to $2.50 au a day. Ive been folding for so long i forgot what a normal bill was like. Melbourne, Australia.    Origin Electricity.


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## BUCK NASTY (Apr 10, 2009)

Kursah said:


> None fortunately because it's part of the covered utilities in my apartment building. But we are planning on moving eventually so that will definately change.


Let me know when you move so i can set up my farm in that apartment.


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## DrPepper (Apr 10, 2009)

BUCK NASTY said:


> Let me know when you move so i can set up my farm in that apartment.



I can imagine it being like walking into a data centre if you got a hold of that place. 

Kursah you should grab yourself some batteries and sell that electricity for cheap


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## mmaakk (Apr 10, 2009)

Going from *900 kVh* before folding to *2.353 kWh* with 9 rigs folding (not anymore). YES my pocket still has a hole. 

I cropped this image from my elec. bill:


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## jagass (Apr 10, 2009)

I'm not really sure about this..Is this your homework?...


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## Athlon2K15 (Apr 10, 2009)

my bill went up 60 bucks..


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## mmaakk (Apr 10, 2009)

jagass said:


> I'm not really sure about this..Is this your homework?...



Yes, is kind of a homework. Not imposed by a teacher but still


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## kiriakost (Apr 10, 2009)

From an article that i had read before few weeks ( sorry no link ) , 
the average power consumption got up, about 50 - 80W per hour. ( Per single computer )  

24x80 = 1920W per day = 2KW/h  x 30 = 60KW per month  ---->  60 x 12 = *720KW
*

Yes its costly ... very costly .... because you have to work hard in order to pay the price . 
You have to loose funds , that could be spend for getting other things , or having vacations.

I consider folding , as a waste ,  and the  folding points collection , 
as a hook deliberately made , to take advantage of the need of the young ones,
to compete then selfs .


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## twilyth (Apr 10, 2009)

You don't have to guess.  Just get a kill-a-watt or other elec. usage meter and measure with an without load.  I think your estimate is a little high.  I do WCG not F@H but it's an issue there too.

I think the big hit comes from overclocking and cooling - both of which ramp up your cost.  I got a figure closer to 50watts extra, but that was on a mildly oc'd rig (2.8ghz q6600 iirc).  But if you're going up to 3.2 or higher, the cost must be higher.  Plus those high end card run hot to begin with.  My first 4850 self-destructed and was too hot to touch.


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## WhiteLotus (Apr 10, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> From an article that i had read before few weeks ( sorry no link ) ,
> the average power consumption got up, about 50 - 80W per hour. ( Per single computer )
> 
> 24x80 = 1920W per day = 2KW/h  x 30 = 60KW per month  ---->  60 x 12 = *720KW
> ...



or its for the average joe to contribute to society.
:shadedshu
 I see lots of reasons to do it just a shame its method of doing so is so buggy.


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## kiriakost (Apr 10, 2009)

WhiteLotus said:


> or its for the average joe to contribute to society.
> :shadedshu
> I see lots of reasons to do it just a shame its method of doing so is so buggy.



Ex plane your self ...   and remove this syringe from your eye ..  its the worst signature on this forum.


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## WhiteLotus (Apr 10, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> Ex plane your self ...   and remove this syringe from your eye ..  its the worst signature on this forum.



explain how? Which bit do you not understand?

And no - i will not remove it. If it annoys you that much report it.


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## twilyth (Apr 10, 2009)

if you use firefox, get the adblock+ plugin and you can block images you don't like.  If you use IE, then you're sort of screwed i guess since i don't think they have such a plugin.

crunching (wcg, et al.) and folding (F@H et al.) do useful scientific research that no doubt will benefit humanity.  However, to get caught up in the points race is a mistake.  Any satisfaction you might get is short term and costly.  Forget the electricity. I had 6 rigs running and each one cost a minimum of $500.  Hell, I paid over $200 on average (conservative) just for the chips.

It is however addictive for those of us with obsessive and/or addictive personalities.  Fortunately I'm not so far gone that I can't see that and finally came to my senses.  Also, as a hardware junkie it was a perennial excuse to get new stuff.  :shadedshu

It's kind of weird because I worked on the old United Devices project for years and never gave a squat about points, ranking or anything else.  It wasn't until UD folded and i headed over to WCG that I got crazy.  Strange.


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## DrPepper (Apr 10, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> From an article that i had read before few weeks ( sorry no link ) ,
> the average power consumption got up, about 50 - 80W per hour. ( Per single computer )
> 
> 24x80 = 1920W per day = 2KW/h  x 30 = 60KW per month  ---->  60 x 12 = *720KW
> ...



I see your point. I've asked what has it contributed so far and I got mixed answers. I personally don't fold because I don't see results and our power bill doubled when I did.


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## BUCK NASTY (Apr 10, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> Ex plane your self ...   and remove this syringe from your eye ..  its the worst signature on this forum.


Whitelotus's sig is a TPU favorite and has complete approval from Mods and Staff. *Now let's get this thread back on track.*


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## mmaakk (Apr 11, 2009)

Whitelotus, your sig is unique and we all love it! I really can't see you with another one.


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## kiriakost (Apr 11, 2009)

In my village , the quality of a character worths more than signatures ... 

And as far it goes , she has none of it .


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## BUCK NASTY (Apr 11, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> In my village , the quality of a character worths more than signatures ...
> 
> And as far it goes , she has none of it .



Thread hijack is over. Get back to the OP. Last warning.


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## LifeOnMars (Apr 11, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> In my village , the quality of a character worths more than signatures ...
> 
> And as far it goes , she has none of it .



In your village you must be worth jack shit then. I'm sick of this guy spouting nonsense and hijacking threads with his own whimsical crap. Get rid of him. As far as folding goes, having lost my father to cancer two years ago I am all for it. I feel that the theory and implementation of it is fine and anything which is working towards a greater good can never be a bad thing.


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## Disparia (Apr 11, 2009)

My last five months have been 1306, 1332, 1467, 1335, and 1484 KWH.

Would need to find my Kill-A-Watt meter to find out how much of that is my family's three computers. I also just picked up a couple older dual Xeon boxes to be used at Home Servers. Though they might not fold (be at constant load) because of low PPD.


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## mike047 (Apr 11, 2009)

When I run my full farm [46 boxes], the bill is $500-550us.


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## Lillebror (Apr 11, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I see your point. I've asked what has it contributed so far and I got mixed answers. I personally don't fold because I don't see results and our power bill doubled when I did.



http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Papers - all those things are results of Folding@Home.
Most of em are computer related, cause thats what F@H is about! Finding new ways to use computers to find and cure diseases. And it takes years and years to get a paper approved. Most people think that after a year or 2, they sould have found a way to cure cancer, but thats not how it works. If they find something that looks like a cure, it has to get thru some tests, then some more tests, then some data research, then more test and so on. It can easily take 10 years from something discovered, till its heard about and products starts comming out.


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## Flyordie (Apr 11, 2009)

Mine doesn't go up at all. If I were to shut down the turbine then I may see an increase of maybe $4-9 on the month. (I live in Missouri and the cost for our power is 6.03 Cents /KWh and thats after the rate increase to help cover the cost of building the new Nuclear Reactor in Missouri)  We were at 5.75 cents/ KWh. Anyway hope that was useful. About 4 months out of the year I SELL power back to our Coop. In August 08 I made $91 off of the surplus. ;-)  So its a real good idea for people to build wind turbines in Hawaii and NY ect... it WILL pay for itself in 3-4 years if you don't hog energy like no other.
I fold 24/7 also. Although I am shut down for a while until my mainboard gets back.


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## DrPepper (Apr 11, 2009)

Lillebror said:


> http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Papers - all those things are results of Folding@Home.
> Most of em are computer related, cause thats what F@H is about! Finding new ways to use computers to find and cure diseases. And it takes years and years to get a paper approved. Most people think that after a year or 2, they sould have found a way to cure cancer, but thats not how it works. If they find something that looks like a cure, it has to get thru some tests, then some more tests, then some data research, then more test and so on. It can easily take 10 years from something discovered, till its heard about and products starts comming out.



I've seen the results and I know its mostly about improving distributed computing thats what I don't like about it. I've been folding since it began which was 2001 I think. Anyway its been 8 years and I've stopped because of higher power bills and because I don't really see any results.


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## Homeless (Apr 11, 2009)

There's been a $70 increase in my bill, but I recon a large percentage of that is due to electrical heating


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## stanhemi (Apr 20, 2009)

lol for 54 days i use 7010 kwh for 560$ (cdn)


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## El Fiendo (Apr 20, 2009)

Wow, how? I use 1/4 of that.


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## stanhemi (Apr 20, 2009)

i have no F$#? idea,i fold since 4 month and it the first time i got a bill like that.

before i use 3000-3500 kwh ??

i fold with 3 gpu and 2 smp can't use that much......
(i'm affraid now my new setup coming this week quad 9550 + 2x4870)


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## El Fiendo (Apr 20, 2009)

I guess its actually closer to 1/2-1/3, I overlooked the '54 days' part. But still, I've got 1 SMP and 2 GPU OC'd running 24/7. I wouldn't think there would be that much of a difference, especially considering all the background power draw from everything else in my house.


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## Lillebror (Apr 20, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I've seen the results and I know its mostly about improving distributed computing thats what I don't like about it. I've been folding since it began which was 2001 I think. Anyway its been 8 years and I've stopped because of higher power bills and because I don't really see any results.



Actualy, you do see it. In medical advances and such. And even new ways for computer tech to be made.


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## stanhemi (Apr 20, 2009)

I call Hydro Quebec later today and hope it a mistake,cause if not.....

i will not fold with my new rig and i remove 1smp and 2 gpu i can't pay bill like that just for folding i need to feed my kid and pay my other bill.

sorry guys


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## El Fiendo (Apr 20, 2009)

If you could, list all your current folding rigs (Proccy Mobo and PSU)
Also, if you could post your current in progress one. Lets see if we can pin down the wattage sucker.

Either here or new thread, perhaps to not crap this one up. (I noticed in the rig gallery you mentioned P4, just wondering if that one was still included).


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