Heya folks.

I and a few others have just completed a project where we tried to figure out the power usage of distributed.net's dnetc application when running on your computer, so that people could figure out how much it "costs" to run it (besides the obvious wear on your computer's processor).

The distributed.net application, in case you don't know, is a client that essentially crunches numbers on your computer in small packets, and sends these back to a server that analyzes the outcome. This is done on a mass scale, hence the word "distributed." This is sort of similar to other projects such as SETI@Home and United Devices Cancer Research (grid.org). The goal of the project(s) can be read more about on distributed.net's website.

So, it is now posted over at ReadyResponse for any of you to read if you like. I'd have to say it's a good read (I wrote it, how could it not be? :-p), and would appreciate any and all feedback from you all.

Link to the tutorial: http://www.readyresponse.org/index.p...pt=6&Itemid=52

Small excerpt:
This article will serve as an informational reference for those of you who are interested in finding out exactly how much power usage you’re using by running distributed.net’s client on your computer. We chose the distributed.net RC5 clients because it would require 100% CPU usage. Most other distributed projects require the same workload and, as such, were not tested.

...

There were various different computer processors that were used in this analysis. There was a PowerMac G5 dual-processor 2 ghz, a P3 800 mhz, and a P4 1.8 ghz. Not surprisingly, each of these setups gave different power usage patterns, which you can read about in more detail in the following paragraphs.
Hope you all enjoy.