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About LinkBacksI think it's more intended to limit the amount residents can use so they don't run up huge electricity bills by leaving multi-kilowatt heaters plugged in. Mind you, 500 Watts doesn't even allow you to boil a kettle!Originally Posted by aidanjt
I think it's more intended to limit the amount residents can use so they don't run up huge electricity bills by leaving multi-kilowatt heaters plugged in. Mind you, 500 Watts doesn't even allow you to boil a kettle!
You are joking yes?
What Uni is this?
Well I'm sure that's the case (limiting power consumption), but they should have installed a separate circuit for each room (giving them their own breaker), so if one student wants to kill themselves by stabbing a socket with a screwdriver they don't piss off the people in the same hall. But 500W easy boils a kettle, unless you want to instantly vaporise all the water on a flick of a switch, then obviously not.
what uni is it? Ive not heard of anything like this before...
Hmm... my rapid boil kettle is rated at 3 kilowatt so I'm not sure how you work that one out.
Emphasis on 'rapid', the faster you try to apply energy to a cold substance the more energy you need, get a slow boil travel kettle, problem sorted.
If it is 500W per room averaged over groups of four or so, then you will be able to boil a kettle, but not if anyone else does. Also if two of your neighbours decide to make tea at the same time you loose power, so a laptop starts looking like a good idea for it's inbuilt UPS..
A friend of mine used to used the low rating on the circit breakers to her advantage. From time to time her neighbour in halls would start playing loud music late at night, so she would just plug in the electric fire she kept for the purpose, and pop the breaker, so she could sleep in silence until it got reset the next morning.
lol, that was a good idea.
Fair enough. I was thinking more of your standard kettle, of which all must be well over 500Watts. I think standard models come in around 2KW and rapid boil at 3KW (which aren't uncommon these days). I had no idea you could even get such a lowly powered kettle - must take ages to boil and you'd end up drinking tea in shifts!
Hehe, for those who want to read for themselves, the uni's Royal Holloway, and the details for my halls are at rhul.ac.uk/Registry/sac/sh/halls-domestic-kw1.html.
Anyway, I'm in single accomodation, and the details seem to suggest the 500W applies to my own room, so I hopefully won't have to consider other people's power usage too!
Slightly back on subject, I think I see how to work out my power usage and I expect can remain well within my personal 400W PC safezone. But I'm thinking more about a good laptop... Are there any other laptop manufacturers out there that might be able to beat alienware's/dell's specs, prices, and perhaps even allow for overclocking?
How serous is gaming performace? Gaming laptops tend to be big and heavy with hardly any battery life, which will be a problem if you plan to take it to lectures & the library.
I have an ASUS A6Ja that I brought about a year ago. It has an ATI X1600 graphics card, and has reasonable gaming performance, while still being reasonably portable. Seeing as it is a year old, you can probably get a better speced machine for similar money (£1K) these days. ASUS are also the OEM manufacturer for a number of other small brands you will see, though possibly at better prices. Scan sell ASUS and Sony laptops (which are also available with GPUs).
If you do decide to take a laptop to university, then I would strongly advise you to spend £10 or so on a kengstinton cable lock, and to get into the habit of locking the laptop when ever you use it outside your home. It would only take a second for a thief to snatch it from in front of you and to run away. A spare battery, and a bag that does not look like a laptop case might also be good investments.
It makes me wonder if its even really true and not just the uni tricking people into saving money.
How many people would it affect and where is the fuse box. You could try plugging in loads of stuff in
one room and testing it out if people you share with agree and the fuse box is in easy reach.
Hmm, good points. Desktops always have been my choice for gaming, and those considerations suggest it might be best to stay that way... Additionally, having looked at current XPS/alienwares, I've been reminded of laptops' tendency to lag a few months behind desktops in terms of performance, presumably while components are developed further to reduce size and heat. And considering I could buy two bargain bin PCs off ebay for the cost of one alienware with good specs (£2300), it makes it even harder to do.
Which brings me to another question - are there any predictions as to how long it'll be before I could buy a laptop with a dx10 card? While it might be I don't get such a card in the end, laptop or not, it's something I'd hope to do in an attempt to somewhat future-proof a new system.
Thanks for the advice; I hadn't been thinking about the security aspect, but with precautions like those I'd feel ok with using one. I guess an extra fancy alienware one would be particularly attractive to a thief, actually. Perhaps insurance would be another thing to consider.
I guess money always does come first.
Last edited by megajames; 03-08-2007 at 10:40 PM.
Yes there are dx10 laptops about, nvidia are diong 8500GT and 8600GT in Go form.
http://uk.zepto.com/Shop/Config.aspx...notebookid=636
EDIT: Rock with 8700M GT http://www.rockdirect.com/viewNotebo...REME%20770 Anyone know anything about the perfromance of a 8700?
Last edited by Pob255; 04-08-2007 at 03:06 AM.
Wow, those look very nice... And, as should rightly be the case, they seem to annihilate alienware/xps on pricing... Thanks; I'll take more of a look in the morning.
The 8700GT is ok.. i've seen it running Prey on full graphics @ 1024 x 768 and its getting between 16 and 30 fps so..playable if only just.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html
this gives you an idea of how it will compare to others.
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