Vampire devices

B

Blattus Slafaly

Guest
I've been shutting off all my vampire devices including my DVR. I only
need it between 7pm and llpm. The last time the menus and all the
channel info crap would not load up. Is it broken now?


--
Blattus Slafaly ? 3 :) 7/8
 
On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:23:36 -0400, Blattus Slafaly
<boobooililililil@roadrunner.com> wrote:

I've been shutting off all my vampire devices including my DVR. I only
need it between 7pm and llpm. The last time the menus and all the
channel info crap would not load up. Is it broken now?
Click to expand...
Vampire devices require blood or they'll die. A few drops of your
blood might revive the living dead. However, if there's a wooden
stake driven through the heart of the DVR, it's probably eWaste.

Vampire devices also hate sunlight. This time of year, 7PM might be a
bit early from them to rise.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:23:36 -0400, Blattus Slafaly
boobooililililil@roadrunner.com> wrote:

I've been shutting off all my vampire devices including my DVR. I only
need it between 7pm and llpm. The last time the menus and all the
channel info crap would not load up. Is it broken now?

Vampire devices require blood or they'll die. A few drops of your
blood might revive the living dead. However, if there's a wooden
stake driven through the heart of the DVR, it's probably eWaste.

Vampire devices also hate sunlight. This time of year, 7PM might be a
bit early from them to rise.


Maybe they should call them Electric Tics.
Click to expand...

--
Claude Hopper ? 3 :) 7/8
 
On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:23:36 -0400, Blattus Slafaly wrote:

I've been shutting off all my vampire devices including my DVR. I only
need it between 7pm and llpm. The last time the menus and all the channel
info crap would not load up. Is it broken now?
Click to expand...
You have kept it from recieveing updates from it's server and delivering
your usage information because these events usually occour after midnight
and into the early morning hours. In other words you have kept it from
uploading your usage and the server has shut it down until it can sync
with your DVR.

It must be left on to do it's job or else ... well you already see the
result.
 
On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:47:43 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

If a piece of kit has a standby mode, then it
has been designed to operate this way, and should be just left alone at
night.
Click to expand...
Ummm.... my DirecTV DVR (forgot model number) sucks 33 watts in
standby. At 15 cents per kw-hr, that's 0.8 kw-hr per day, $0.12 per
day, or $43.36 per year in electricity.

I have mine on an Intermec timer. DirecTV never does updates in the
middle of the day. It's always late at night. So, I leave it powered
on all night, every other day. The timer also turns it off weekdays
between 6AM and 6PM whem I'm at work. Methinks this should be a
standard feature in all DVR's.

I'm not so much concerned about the switcher going bad due to power
cycling. The chronic power failures in the winter give my devices
enough exercise anyway. It's starting and stopping the hard disk that
has a big effect on its lifetime. All my servers that run 24x7 seem
to run forever and rarely kill off a hard disk. I have several with
10+ year old drives, still running just fine. The computahs that I
turn on and off kill drives after about 5 years.

I checked into DirecTV's policy for hard disk replacements and it
wasn't very good. I could buy their $6/month protection plan, or hope
for the best. I'm cheap. So, I made a mirror image of the Seagate
120GB drive inside and stock a spare drive. I update it erratically
just to be sure I'm not running on totally obsolete firmware. However,
I haven't bothered to test the image drive. I guess I should.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:25:03 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
<grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

Ummm... my DirecTV DVR (forgot model number) sucks 33 watts
in standby. At 15 cents per kw-hr, that's 0.8 kw-hr per day, $0.12
per day, or $43.36 per year in electricity.

What, exactly, is it doing to "justify" drawing 33 watts?
Click to expand...
It's a model R15-500. No clue who makes it.

It burns some of the power spinning the hard disk round and round.
Looking at the data sheet, the 120GB drive burns about 12.5 watts
average.
<http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda_7200_9.pdf>
Add about 3.5 watts per LNB.

The DVR also has a shopping list of shows that I want to record for
later viewing. It holds 70 hours of recording, most of which are the
Olympics, which I'll be watching for months. There are also erratic
past-midnight updates to the operating system. The box also calls
DirecTV on the phone in the middle of the night to tell them what I've
been watching so they can "better serve me" or something. I don't do
Pay-Pour-Vous but that would go out at the same time.

It would be tempting to suggest that they should not spin the hard
disk when it's not needed, but as I previously mentioned, that cuts
the disk lifetime considerably.

However, I lied. I just stumbled across my Kill-a-watt power meter.
Might as well check my numbers. As usual, my memory is defective. It
may have been from my previous DVR or when I had more LNB's on the
roof. Measuring:
Operating power: 22 watts and 42 VA
Standby power: 21 watts and 40 VA
That's only 8 cents per day or $29/year (at $0.15/kw-hr). Much
better. However, the 0.5 power factor isn't very impressive. It's
under 75w so it doesn't have to comply with EN61000-3-2.

Using the revised numbers, yields:
12.5 watts for the hard disk
3.5 watts for my single LNB
Subtracting from 22.0 watts total leaves:
6.0 watts for everything else including switcher effeciency.
I don't think there's room for much improvment (except for power
factor correction).

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:57:29 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

That's an *awful* lot of power for a standby mode, and by no means 'typical'
for a modern device. Is this a quoted amount in the device's literature, or
something you believe you've measured ? If it pulls that much on standby,
then what the christ is it using when running ?
Click to expand...
I lied. See my other posting. It's really about 22 watts standby or
operating with one LNB. Add about 3.5 watts per additional LNB. Sorry
for the bad numbers (memory fault). Maybe more blood will help.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:14:05 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Bear in mind also, that the 'measured' power consumption on a consumer-type
power meter, may not be accurate with a switch mode power supply,
particularly if it's operating in a burst standby mode at the time, where it
might draw the full amount from the line, but only for brief periods, to
keep the standby supply resevoir cap charged.
Click to expand...
That's obviously not the case with the DTV DVR. It doesn't need to
burn 22 watts just to keep a cazapitor charged.

However, I have a TV that I suspect uses that method because I can
barely hear the power supply whine when it's running. Seems to be
about a 5 second duty cycle. I just plugged in the Kill-A-Watt meter
and found that the display was constantly changing between zero and
about 10 watts. Thanks for the warning. I never thought about that.
I would have expected the Kill-A-Watt meter to have some manner of
averaging integrator, to better simulate the utility electric power
meter, but I guess not. My guess(tm) is about 1-2 second average but
no longer.

Some of these meters, which
are designed to give Joe Public a 'comfort factor' reading on steady draw
devices such as lamps and fridges and so on, have some difficulty doing
complex 'area under the curve' calculations for asymmetric and burst draws
by switchers, to come up with an equivalent steady draw figure that has some
real meaning in what it is costing you.
Click to expand...
Yep.

That said, my Sky+ box, which is also an HDD based sat rx and recorder, and
which also has the capability of rewinding live TV to the start of the
programme, claims (again from memory) only around 10 watts or so in standby
Click to expand...
Ummm... the hard disk probably burns more than 10 watts. Something is
wrong here. Maybe they spin down the HD after a while of non-use?

I did a quick check with Google of what others have reported for
DirecTV DVR standby currents. Most people didn't bother supplying the
model numbers, so we have the usual muddle. Numbers vary from 10
watts to 45 watts. Sigh. Buy a Kill-A-Watt meter and measure it.
Incidentally, there are two models of the Kill-A-Watt. The later has
battery backup. I ordered one last week but it hasn't arrived.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:36:04 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

DirecTV R15-500 DVR with one LNB.

However, I lied. I just stumbled across my Kill-a-watt power meter.
Might as well check my numbers. As usual, my memory is defective. It
may have been from my previous DVR or when I had more LNB's on the
roof. Measuring:
Operating power: 22 watts and 42 VA
Standby power: 21 watts and 40 VA
That's only 8 cents per day or $29/year (at $0.15/kw-hr). Much
better. However, the 0.5 power factor isn't very impressive. It's
under 75w so it doesn't have to comply with EN61000-3-2.
Click to expand...
I hate days like this. My new Kill-A-Watt EZ just arrived. Very
similar to the previous model with the addition of battery backup
memory and a totally confusing front panel push button derrangement.
It's also impossible to read the labels in the dark thanks to the new
and improved color scheme. However, all that is tolerable. I have
both the old and new meters connected in series. The old reads as
above or about 22 watts of operating or standby drain. However, the
new EZ meter shows:
Operating power: 27 watts and 49 VA
Standby power: 25 watts and 47 VA
That's about a 20% difference.
Indicated PF = 0.55 (yech).

So, I now have an accuracy problem. Time to drag both over to some
better test equipment and see which one is wrong.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:08:04 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

I hate days like this. My new Kill-A-Watt EZ just arrived. Very
similar to the previous model with the addition of battery backup
memory and a totally confusing front panel push button derrangement.
Click to expand...
More on the Kill-A-Watt EZ. See:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/slides/kill-a-watt.html>
The unit on the top is the old model Kill-a-watt. The one on the
bottom is the new Kill-A-Watt EZ. As far as I can determine, they're
identical except for the plastic box. Therefore, the only difference
is probably software.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
Arfa Daily wrote:
You've got me thinking now about my Sky+ box. The HDD definitely does not
run all the time. You can clearly hear it when it is running. However,
live TV pause and rewind is always available. I wonder how that could be,
unless the disc is run at a much slower speed that you can't hear, for the
purposes of real time writing. If you are feeding it with a steady
compressed data stream, I guess it doesn't need to be rotating at full
speed does it ? Do HDDs have more than one speed ? Come to think of it, I
can't recall the drives in this machine ever sounding like they ramp down
to any different speed, unlike the DVD writer, which of course does. I'll
have to see what I can find on the 'net about these boxes.
Click to expand...
Just a wild guess, but maybe it has an internal RAM store that it uses to
buffer data to for a while when the HDD is not running? With heavy
compression, a few hundred megs could possibly hold a fairly sizeable
amount of video.

--
Travis Evans
[Obtain email address by swapping at sign and period.]
 
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Vampire devices require blood or they'll die. A few drops of your
blood might revive the living dead. However, if there's a wooden
stake driven through the heart of the DVR, it's probably eWaste.

Vampire devices also hate sunlight. This time of year,
7PM might be a bit early from them to rise.
Click to expand...
I was wondering if he was eating garlic bread
just before he messed with the gear.
 
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