Loosing Power

jbaello

I feel like I am loosing power with multiple power hungry PC/Server that I have, some of my DC is malfunctioning and doesn't work properly when I have a lot of my stuff turned on, on one of my desktop PC I noticed the mouse not working at all, but when I limit turning 2 server and 1 laptop, the DC starts acting right, and this is causing me major headache, Is there anway I can monitor my power output somehow?

I don't know anything about electric, but I feel like I need to start getting some lessons about this, since it is another hindrance on my studies, dang it...

astorrs

Do you know any electricians, etc who could lend you a clamp-on ammeter? (You probably don't want to buy one just for this one thing.)

They look like the pics below and are super easy to use; you just clamp them onto the cable (hence the common name "digital clamp meter").

If you do need to buy one, a quick Google search shows you can get a cheap household one from Sears for about $40 here.

jbaello

astorrs wrote:

Do you know any electricians, etc who could lend you a clamp-on ammeter? (You probably don't want to buy one just for this one thing.)

They look like the pics below and are super easy to use; you just clamp them onto the cable (hence the common name "digital clamp meter").

If you do need to buy one, a quick Google search shows you can get a cheap household one from Sears for about $40 here.

This looks scary... but I think I'm going to need one, I am hoping there will be a manual on the reading, on what is preferred and not.

If I do I will try to get it off Ebay...

astorrs

They're really straight forward to use, don't worry.

A typical circuit in your house will be 15 amps, so anything above 12 is probably overloaded (since the PCs will take extra power during startup, etc).

tiersten

You should get an electrician in if you don't know anything about electrical systems. Better to fork out the money than to potentially electrocute yourself or damage something.

How many servers you got anyway? If you're that borderline anyway then you need somebody qualified to come install extra circuits.

astorrs

I was under the impression this was at his home.

hypnotoad

Whats the amperage on a regular PC anyway? Our consultant just 25 amp circuits for 4 computers put in.

Yes, this is the consultant who owns the electrical company.

eMeS

Another option is:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3psuhl

This is a device that will tell you the power consumption details of whatever is plugged into it.

If I were having this problem I would look at the consumption characteristics from the source of the load.

Start with nothing plugged into a surge protector attached to the Kill-a-Watt and then add devices until you trigger the failure. The Kill-a-Watt does some recording of information I think.

There are also probably different versions of this device that will do more than the one that I have. I bought a simple one just to figure out how much energy some things in the house used over time, mainly so that I could prove to my wife that a cell phone charger that is plugged in without a phone connected to it still consumes an equal amount of energy as if the phone were being charged.

MS

astorrs

nl wrote:

Whats the amperage on a regular PC anyway? Our consultant just 25 amp circuits for 4 computers put in.

Yes, this is the consultant who owns the electrical company.

Obviously owns the electrical company.

I use 2.5 amps/server as a rule of thumb to not load things too high (but others use 2 amps), but it greatly depends on the specifics of the server. APC has a great calculator that will give you specific loads of lots of different servers, etc.

http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm

Pick your country, then under Servers, Telecom and Storage Arrays click Configure by Device.