The Cost of Distributed Client Computing?

ialbert asks: "I only recently decided to install SETI@home on my mostly idle home computer. It got me thinking though, are those free processor cycles truly free? Has anyone had experience with processors dying prematurely due to a constant, heavy load, or is usage pretty inconsequential? What about other components, like harddrives? And how much does a 100% processor load increase your power bill versus a 1-2% idle load over the course of a year? It's easy to think of idle computers as an untapped computational resource, but what are the costs to the computer owners?"

Comments

Mine works out to

[seanadams.com]

what are the costs to the computer owners?

$4.23

Next question?

Inherent danger

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to run a protien folding application on a spare Athlon I had. I thought it would help advance humanity. Then I discovered that the deamon I was running was spining my hard drive up and down all the time. Eventually the bearing gave out, and the disk platter came flying out of the case at high speed. It sliced through my cat and embedded itself in the oposite wall. The computer itself then caught fire when the drive motor over heated. It burnt my entire house and all of the contents, including a twelve thousand page thesis I had been working on (That work is classified, so I can't tell you what it was about). I stubbed my toe escaping, and a fire fighter died trying to put the fire out.

Just don't bother is my advice.

Universally Wrong Thinking

[tds67]

...but what are the costs to the computer owners?"

The costs will be a lot higher if we don't detect and defeat the alien hordes through SETI.

I hate penny-pinching accountant types.

Re:full speed ahead

[confused one]

running a NOP draws less power than running a calc. CPU's get warmer (and are happier -- being all warm and fuzzy) when they're doing intense calculation work because they're exercising more transistors (got to keep in shape, you know).

Re:missin the point.

[notque]

How much CPU cycles are wasted on Pr0n, and how does this help society?

You cannot waste CPU cycles on Pr0n.

Re:missin the point.

[GoofyBoy]

>How much CPU cycles are wasted on Pr0n

I have a computer and Internet connection specifically for pr0n, so my CPU cycles are not "wasted" but "perfoming its main function".

The truth

[slash-tard]

The truth is that cpus are only rated for a certain number of caculations. The exact number varies among processors but its really high.

So yes running number crunching will use more of those calculations and will wear your cpu out quicker.

Tough one

[Mannerism]

Has anyone had experience with processors dying prematurely due to a constant, heavy load, or is usage pretty inconsequential? What about other components, like harddrives? And how much does a 100% processor load increase your power bill versus a 1-2% idle load over the course of a year?

Those are all surprisingly complex and computationally intensive questions. In order to find the answer, I'll soon be releasing "@home@home", a distributed application designed to calculate the true cost of itself.