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PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

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121–130 of 281 posts

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#121
post #110

Years ago I bought a tiny hockey puck sized computer to act as an internal web server. AFAIK there seemed to be no way for me to prevent it from going to sleep, I presume it was due to a similar regulation. This one from the EU. Had to throw the thing out. I’m not looking forward to having to fight hardware / software locks on my computer that make it go to sleep all the time.

Sounds like a user misconfiguration issue to me. I've never had an issue keeping a device from going to sleep when it's... actively doing something... like running services.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#122
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These aren't that powerful from a computing standpoint; They use low-end i5 11400F along with a low-end nVidia 1650 Super and have 8GB single-channel memory. Also, I think it's more about inefficiency when sleeping and idle.

Yeah, but for me its more about it being illegal than actually being a good laptop.

Buy a 40 Watt Inscandescent light bulb and put it in a lamp next to your current laptop. Turn it on every time you put the laptop to sleep.

Same difference.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#123
post #82

All that the rules say (yes, I read them) is that a workstation with 32G RAM (formula is 10 + 0.03 * RAM_GiB) must not exceed ~ 11W in sleep mode and a desktop with 32G RAM must not exceed 6W in sleep mode (5 + 0.03 * RAM_GiB). Basically, these desktops probably have very ancient/buggy motherboards with broken ACPI. Good riddance. Fun fact: Desktops/workstations shipped without an operating system at purchasers reque…

What distinguishes a workstation from a desktop?

Do I have to call my desktop a funstation now?

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not matter. The correct way to reduce electricity consumption is to increase the price of electricity, aka a tax. No need for politicians to selectively pick and choose which products to gimp. For those who will retort with “but those are regressive taxes and hurt the poor”, I will say that if you want to fix people being poor, then give them cash. It is unrelated to the goals of reducing electricity usage, a…

> the difficult task of enacting even more wealth transfers is the only solution there What? Haven’t you heard of tax brackets? If you are so keen to tax electricity more than it already is , and are concerned it would affect the poor, then use tax bracketing just like income tax does. The poor pay less by being in a lower bracket. Having said that, higher taxes on electricity may affect businesses in a way you don’t…

Marginal sales tax rates would be ideal, but outside of a central database of all transactions, I do not see how it is feasible.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#125
Last time I checked during a previous discussion of this on HN, there were slightly more expensive CA (and presumably the other states) shippable versions of essentially the same models that had that warning available, that meet the power regs.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#126
post #60

Honestly, now that SSDs are near universal why are we bothering with sleep mode anymore anyways? Can't full hibernate be made fast enough for no-power standby?

Hibernate has to persist all used memory, and RAM just keeps getting larger too.

A 1TB SSD is about 1/3rd the cost of 64GB Ram.

I think we'll do just fine.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#127
post #44

All those blue activists speaking their truth to power took their calling a little too seriously lol

They are destroying civilization

A policy designed to make more power available to a civilization is somehow seen as destroying it. It is honestly fascinating to watch the human brain at work.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#128
post #36

Just want to remind everyone how far California has gone in energy efficiency: > In 2018, California's energy consumption was second-highest among the states, but its per capita energy consumption was the fourth-lowest due in part to its mild climate and its energy efficiency programs. Source: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CA#tabs-4 This is an achievement to be proud of.

High energy prices have probably done a lot to incentivize lower consumption & efficiency. But mild climate does still give it an unfair advantage if trying to compare it apples to apples with other states. South eastern states are always going to eat a huge chunk of Watt Hours in air conditioning, and in some states many people have little choice but to use electric heat or furnaces.

I'd be very interested in state-to-state comparisons that exclude internal climate control usage.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#129
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not matter. The correct way to reduce electricity consumption is to increase the price of electricity, aka a tax. No need for politicians to selectively pick and choose which products to gimp. For those who will retort with “but those are regressive taxes and hurt the poor”, I will say that if you want to fix people being poor, then give them cash. It is unrelated to the goals of reducing electricity usage, a…

The objective is presumably to incentivize increased electrical efficiency in devices, by banning inefficient electrical devices. The goal wouldn't be to decrease consumption; it would be to increase the amount of useful work done while holding consumption constant.

That is semantics. The market of buyers will automatically reward sellers who develop more efficient devices once it starts hitting their wallet. If you want consumption to stay constant, then increase taxes a little. You can keep adjusting it up and down as one’s consumption goal changes.

Re: PC can't be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA due to power consumption

#130
post #105
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because it’s cool to break the rules? Does it matter to you that these rules are trying to protect our civilization from dissolving in a heap of wildfires, floods, power outages, droughts, storms, etc? This stuff is not just hypothetical any more.

>Does it matter to you that these rules are trying to protect our civilization from dissolving in a heap of wildfires, floods, power outages, droughts, storms, etc? This stuff is not just hypothetical any more. Half the issues you've listed are most certainly due to incompetence/mismanagement rather than PCs in CA/CO/HI/OR/VT using slightly more power. eg. wildfires: Gov. Gavin Newsom cut the fire prevention budget b…

Not going to get into the laptop discussion but the wildfires are 100% due to heat and drought, and those are much worse recently because of global warning. PG&E could bury ever cable, they could increase the fire prevention budget by 10 times over, and it wouldn't fix it.
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