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Miscellaneous Debris => Tech Corner => Topic started by: Mark / Ohio on April 29, 2009, 01:19:44 AM

Title: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on April 29, 2009, 01:19:44 AM
This is a question I've been tossing around for sometime.  As of this past week after recently running 34 days without a reboot or error, my desktop that is just a few months shy of it's 10 birthday has been giving me some problems in the form of random errors and BSoDs.  So I figure at this point given it's age it is about time to start looking and thinking more serious just in case it's condition further worsens beyond my computer medicinal capabilities.  (Read cheap and easy fix.)   ;)

I stopped at the local shop that built it originally and was looking at their current specials and got to talking with them about what I wanted to do with it. (Which is now mainly run the weather station software and data uploads as I have an Acer 5610 laptop I bought from them a couple of years ago I use for most everything else.)  They also sell the little Acer netbook.  But the guy I talked with said it or any laptop was not really designed for 24/7 operation and over the long haul would be of a shorter lifespan under those operating conditions in comparison to some size of desktop.  (This in reply to my question if it would hold together for 10 years like my desktop.)  Which kind of backed up what my gut feeling on the issue has been all along.  But I'm sure he would also prefer to sell me a more expensive unit as well.   ;)

Knowing members here are using both from past discussions, I was curious to find out what is still the more popular way to do it.  Also if your using a notebook or netbook please take a moment to drop a comment on how long and how does it seem to be holding up?





Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on April 29, 2009, 02:01:31 AM
I've got one IBM laptop (T21) that is at least 8 yrs old.  Running pretty much 24/7 and it is still fine.  For my wx stn. I got a netbook.  Works great as it is lower power and less heat.  Netbook for sure!
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: TorH on April 29, 2009, 03:35:28 AM
For my weatherstation i use a Dell (tower) Dimension 8300 2,8Ghz 1Gb Ram and 480GB HD, it's running 24/7 and it's just for the Davis VP2 and the weathersoftware.
I used for a while a Acer laptop (which is almost not in use  :oops: ) but it noised more than the Dell that i don't hear even it's staying right beside of mee, and it runs just as fine like when it was new 6 years ago  ;)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: mackbig on April 29, 2009, 06:27:36 AM
I use a full size desktop.  Could save a bit of power using a netbook, but I also have a boltek pci stormtracker, which means no laptop/netbook option for me.  There is a an external pci solution but at over $1000 for that piece of hardware any savings in electricity cost would be out the window.........

Andrew
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: sam2004gp on April 29, 2009, 07:11:29 AM
I use a Pentium III 800 MHZ, 384Mb RAM for my weather station.  It is 14 years old and still uses the original factory 8GB HD.  So I say go with a cheap mini-tower or desktop unit.  My PC only pulls 50watts, when the monitor is off.  Perhaps part of your old computer's problem is either "bit-rot" or the hard drive is starting to fail.  Before I would buy a new pc and if you have an extra hard drive laying around, clone it and swap it out of the machine and see if your random "wonky-ness" goes away.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Downlinerz2 on April 29, 2009, 09:12:16 AM
   I am using a Dell Inspirion 530S that has 2.40 GHz processor (Intel Pentium Dual CPU) and 2 GB RAM.
It is on 24/7 and is only 6 months old.  I also run at least one, and sometimes two, BOINC distributed computing project on this computer 24/7.  It has run flawlessly so far. [-o< ;)
       Mark
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: tinplate on April 29, 2009, 09:49:12 AM
Running a tiny pc that draws 4 to 5 watts. It runs Windows XP and is dedicated to handling my weather data. I don't have a monitor or keyboard connected to it - I just use TightVNC to control it remotely over my LAN. It's been running non-stop for over a year. I like it, because along with drawing little power, it generates almost no heat, and has no moving parts, so it's totally silent. I have it, my router, and my DSL modem (all low power devices) connected to a UPS. So, the data flow is almost uninterrupted, even during most power outages (DSL still works during most power outages).

Steve
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ncpilot on April 29, 2009, 10:38:11 AM
Steve, any thoughts on what will happen when XP is really no longer available? I think I read that Microsoft will have a light version of 7 for netbooks (and by implication, that's the only thing available for those that build their own low power machines?)--and that it will have a limit on simultaneous apps that can run?
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on April 29, 2009, 10:46:40 AM
Win7 is already on netbooks.  Works like a charm by all accounts.  I  suspect once it is nLited it will work at least as good as XP.  Besides, XP will always be around... somewhere.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: lddaly on April 29, 2009, 10:52:15 AM
I am running a Shuttle SG31G2 based system I built earlier this year. Quad Core, 4GB RAM, etc. (all parts purchased from newegg.com for less than $500) It is small, quiet, and runs (headless) in my equipment closet with a Weather Envoy attached. Everything connected to a UPS of course. It is running Windows Server 2008 I got from attending a Micro$oft event last year. The system is not dedicated to weather related tasks.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: offroadjosh on April 29, 2009, 11:29:19 AM
i use a emachines computer for my weather stuff, i have had it since first week of Dec 2008 and i have sent it in to them 3 time seems to have alot of issues but when it works it seems to be a good computer.



Josh
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Garth Bock on April 29, 2009, 01:18:09 PM
The weather station is on a Dell Gx620 desktop (3.2 ghz 2gb mem 80gb O/S drive, 160gb second drive) which I got on eBay for $175. I have a second Gx620 for a MySql server and a Gx620 Tower for developement and soon to be my Boltek station.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: blackjack52 on April 29, 2009, 07:25:48 PM
Running a Toshiba Satellite L305D, 3g, 320g, AMDx2. Runs much cooler than hp laps; even w/ Milestone netcam server plus all the other wx software.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Davidb on April 29, 2009, 11:18:12 PM
Question-

How do you measure the power usage of different computers?
-
can it be put in a lower power state overnight  ( we run four webcams on ours as well - I suspect they use most of the power )
-
David

Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: tinplate on April 30, 2009, 12:53:53 AM
Steve, any thoughts on what will happen when XP is really no longer available? I think I read that Microsoft will have a light version of 7 for netbooks (and by implication, that's the only thing available for those that build their own low power machines?)--and that it will have a limit on simultaneous apps that can run?
They're going to continue selling XP to system builders of low power PCs for a while still. Beyond that, we can cross our fingers that they get Windows 7 right, but to be honest, I'm skeptical it will run in lower memory systems. I'm hedging my bets by moving the weather software I develop to a different development tool that allows easy  porting to linux and mac in addition to windows. Linux is maturing nicely, and runs quite well on limited PCs.

Steve
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: SlowModem on April 30, 2009, 04:13:52 AM
I'm using an old turn of the century Dell  2300 desktop.  40G HD, 250 MB RAM (upgraded to 750 MB).  Win XP.  I  leave it on 24/7.  I have had to replace the modem (I use dialup).  It's hanging in there.

Greg

I make electricity, so use all you want, I'll make more!   \:D/

Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: mackbig on April 30, 2009, 06:38:55 AM
I use a UPM Dual Rate Energy Meter.
http://www.sears.ca/gp/product/B00115PP76/sr=1-5/qid=1241087690/ref=sr_1_5/175-5495775-1453828?ie=UTF8&searsBrand=core&mqnodeid=APS (http://www.sears.ca/gp/product/B00115PP76/sr=1-5/qid=1241087690/ref=sr_1_5/175-5495775-1453828?ie=UTF8&searsBrand=core&mqnodeid=APS)

Kill-a-watt I believe was the first low price wattage meter.  Our local power co, and the city teamed up a few years ago, you can actually borrow a watt meter from the library and use it for a week at a time for free.    It is pretty cool to see how much all your gadgets use...

Also, I doubt your webcams draw much wattage at all.  maybe a handfull perhaps around 5 watts....

Andrew


Question-

How do you measure the power usage of different computers?
-
can it be put in a lower power state overnight  ( we run four webcams on ours as well - I suspect they use most of the power )
-
David


Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: sam2004gp on April 30, 2009, 07:24:13 AM
Question-

How do you measure the power usage of different computers?
-
can it be put in a lower power state overnight  ( we run four webcams on ours as well - I suspect they use most of the power )
-
David



Some UPSs will tell you, the power draw of watts.... Of course this is with the monitor operating.  You can remove the monitor from the UPS power strip to see what the machine itself draws.  Which is what I did.

Or

Other folks have purchased energy monitor devices similar to the http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html
at Lowes or Home Depot.  They are also nice to have around for testing other devices besides your computer.

EDIT: Just noticed the response above but I left my original reply as addtional info.  ;) :-)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: sirhc_31 on April 30, 2009, 07:48:06 AM
I'm using a laptop Acer Aspire 5684 WLMi which is switched on 24/7 and I have no problem whatsoever :-)

www.mauritius-weather.info

Chris
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: AZmonsooncats on April 30, 2009, 12:41:49 PM
 My weather station runs on a  Dell Inspiron 530, Intel Core2 Duo processor E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB) w/Dual Core Technology and 4MB cache  with 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz  and a 320GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive it is running with Xp Professional  did not want Vista at the time I set this computer up and its has been up 24/7 since Dec 2007. It is the second weather computer as my old Dell 8400  #-o had issues after only 3 years ](*,), may it was a close lightning stike or something but I do have surge and spike protect still don't the caused the problem although I had some tell be it was the motherboard, still have this computer and only run it ocassionally as it is noisy and forgets what hardaware is installed on it.

The new computer runs the Davis Vantage Pro with virtual Vp with weatherlink and weatherdisplay. The computer also runs the Boltek lightning detector and L2k the computer runs fine and when I not around I run it with the monitor shut off because it is not neccesary to run the monitor 24/7 I do not know how much energy the computer uses ;) oh well

Jeanette
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on May 04, 2009, 12:49:19 AM
Thanks all for the replies!   8-)

Interesting reading the troubles seen even with some of the larger units.  As with anything it is sort of luck of the draw even among like models when you buy anything.   :roll:  The fellow at the store also showed me a mini tower model there he thought might be a better choice over the netbook but the caveat with it being it was not really expandable if I wanted to add anything (PCI cards) in the future.  I have had the thought of adding a lightning detector and the web cam idea that I have spoke about many times but never done yet is still rolling around in a corner somewhere too.   ;)

Originally when I bought this Acer 5610 (Intel Core Solo T1300 /1.6 GHz) I'm typing on I had thoughts of making it the weather PC when the old computer died and just getting a new more powerful laptop to serve the rest of my needs.  It does not generate a lot of heat plus I would have longer up time during power failures provided I continue to keep the DSL modem/router on battery backup.

Still though, the little netbooks and mini computers like Tinplate is using sure are tempting me.   :grin:

BTW, Took the cover off my old computer, blew out the dust, reset all the memory cards, motherboard connectors, and card the processor is on into their sockets.  Also swapped out an external 4-port USB hub that had a number of years of 24/7 operation on it, reinstalled the programs that had thrown an error, chk disk and defrag.  So far it has run now little over 5 days with no reboot and no problems.  (Knocking on wood.   :mrgreen:)  So either I fixed it or I torqued a hairline connection crack that will return to haunt me again on it's own time.  One or the other.   8-[ 
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Arthurhh on May 04, 2009, 02:20:22 AM
Oh dear I guess I am a wee bit over the top with my gear.

Celeron with a gig ram for a firewall, dual core 2 ghz several gig ram for the web server/WX machine, two IBM x31 notebooks for no2 station and dev work, two tosh 300 satellite notebooks for her indoors and I to use as main machines, a dual core 2+ghz with 1 terabyte raid 5 and 4 gig ram for my main graphics station and office work, add to that my occasional use of a dell 6400 notebook from work. Yeah I guess just a little OTT. Guess what I do for a living
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Downlinerz2 on May 04, 2009, 02:24:17 AM
Guess what I do for a living

  Bank Robber? :lol:  Kidding of course!!   Mark
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Arthurhh on May 04, 2009, 02:27:29 AM
Yep I guess the avatar could suggest that  :roll:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on May 04, 2009, 09:21:11 AM
Hey Mark, don't forget that both lightning and webcams can work on USB which the Netbooks/mincros have.  :)  Add a hub for 10-15 bucks and you can add all the devices you want.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Garth Bock on May 04, 2009, 11:10:38 AM
Hey Mark, don't forget that both lightning and webcams can work on USB which the Netbooks/mincros have.  :)  Add a hub for 10-15 bucks and you can add all the devices you want.

The maximum number of devices on a USB 2.0 port is 127. Devices are rated in unit loads with one unit load rated at 100 mA. A maximum of 5 unit loads may be drawn from a USB port. Devices use a minimum of 1 unit load initially at connection and then can switch from low power to high power mode if the device requires it and can use the maximum units. A powered hub (not to be confused with Powered USB designed by NCR and IBM) utilizes only 1 unit load. So you can hook more devices up to a USB port with the hub supplying power for the devices connected to it. I believe that the limit is 5 hubs (???) and total cable lengths are factored in. However, power is not the only problem, communication is. While USB 2.0 is rated at 480 MB/s most hi-speed devices operate at an average of 10-20 MB/s. The maximum cable length allowed is around 15 feet or 5 meters because of the maximum delay in communications that is allowed is 1500 ns. When adding up the USB device response time, delays from using the maximum number of hubs, and delays from the connecting cables, the maximum acceptable delay per cable turns out to be 26 ns. So if you have a usb web cam, and are writing constantly to usb hard drives and have other usb devices transmitting, communications can slow down. This is USB standards and mileage can and will vary in the real world.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on May 04, 2009, 11:15:58 AM
Technically correct, BUT... get a  USB extender and 50 -100 meters is no prob at all for a webcam.  BTDT.  :)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Garth Bock on May 04, 2009, 02:33:51 PM
Yes an extender gets you over the length limit BUT there is still a limit because of response time and communication timers. I worked with a DJ who had 2 USB Hubs with one chained off the other and had 3 hard drives connected to them and a couple of pen drives. She couldn't understand why there was a delay in cue'ing songs compared to my system that used no hubs. 
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on May 04, 2009, 04:33:03 PM
All I can tell you is that a Sabrent USB extender (USB 1.1) will reliably stream full motion video over 50 meters of cat5e cable.  YMMV
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on May 05, 2009, 05:39:57 PM
Killer deal on SSHD Netbook:  http://www.computertrends.com/product-zoom.asp?productId=877&categoryid=26  What's that $140 US?
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DanS on May 05, 2009, 05:50:28 PM
Killer deal on SSHD Netbook:  http://www.computertrends.com/product-zoom.asp?productId=877&categoryid=26  What's that $140 US?

Yeah that does look like a good deal. I wonder what the catch is. I'm curious if the 20Gb online storage (trial) is a catch where you'd have to join or subscribe to a plan and they get the money from you there. Kind of similar to the "Free Cell Phone (with a year subscription of $299 blah blah"). That's $199 and the store is from Alaska so I guess it's U.S. dollars.  :-k
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on May 05, 2009, 07:02:40 PM
Actually, that is a chain of Canadian PC stores.  So that is $199 CAD (or about $169 US at today's rates).  The deal on the online storage is via Asus - you don't have to sign up for anything unless you want to extend your online storage.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Garth Bock on May 06, 2009, 02:59:47 PM
I have a Dell Mini 9 and have gone from Ubuntu to WinXPPro and kicked up the memory to 1gb and changed out the 8gb ssd to 16gb. This Asus is very much like the Mini 9 but has a better keyboard. Don't expect it to run like a rabbit. The Atom processor is good but not that great. The price is really good but I would order upgrades to memory and replace the SSD to make it fly better. The price plus the cost of the upgrades would make it less expensive than the Dell. Couldn't find on the website if you could order online. One thing to think of though....it has to come across the border and would have some tariffs tacked on which could kill the savings.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Garth Bock on May 06, 2009, 03:04:21 PM
Actually, that is a chain of Canadian PC stores.  So that is $199 CAD (or about $169 US at today's rates).  The deal on the online storage is via Asus - you don't have to sign up for anything unless you want to extend your online storage.

While the free storage is offered....would you want to put your data on a strangers server ???? I bought a 500gb usb powered hard drive at Worst Buy and it is good fit next to the Mini 9.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on May 06, 2009, 04:54:26 PM
No tariffs involved; MFN and all that.  I think that netbook actually comes with 1 BG memory; no real need to up it to 2 GM (20 bucks if you want to though).  4 GB  is enough for XP Pro (nLited), MS Ooffice and all the weather SW you could want.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on May 11, 2009, 12:19:43 AM
... So far it has run now little over 5 days with no reboot and no problems.  (Knocking on wood.   :mrgreen:)  So either I fixed it or I torqued a hairline connection crack that will return to haunt me again on it's own time.  One or the other.   8-[ 

It's back.  All I did was click the 'X' to close task manager after checking the memory usage and POOF!  Blue screen.   #-o  Back to the drawing board.  The error shown lead to a number of possibilities.  The event viewer gives no clues.  Today I set it to record a mini dump log.  Provided I can figure out how to read it and it actually gives a clue, maybe that will lead to something.  Also still need to run a RAM test on it when I have time.  Gotta love random, intermittent, non-re creatable problems.  Like I don't see enough of them at my day job.   :lol:

This did start after running Boinc for a few days.  For some reason it took a couple of tries and reboots to get it to run.  Can't help but wonder if something flubbered during that in the graphics setup.  (That was the first program I removed to see if it was the cause.)  One of these days I swear I'm going to start logging time and date of every install, update, and setting change I make as a troubleshooting reference for issues like this that popup later down the road.  Sure would make it easier for backtracking to troubleshoot provided it is software rather then a hardware problem then relying on my aging memory.    :roll:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DanS on May 11, 2009, 01:26:57 AM
"Gotta love random, intermittent, non-re creatable problems.  Like I don't see enough of them at my day job."

Definately the hardest to locate but if it were a recurring, localized type of problem there would be no challenge for your troubleshooting abilities. :roll: (yeah like that makes you feel better).

Guess you tried reseating all the boards and relocating the RAM SIMMS to see if the problem changes in it's nature.?
Check the power supply voltages as well?
Not much help but thought I'd ask anyway. Man, good luck if it does turn out to be a hairline fracture or a cold solder joint.
Dan
   

Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on May 11, 2009, 10:08:57 PM
...Guess you tried reseating all the boards and relocating the RAM SIMMS to see if the problem changes in it's nature.?
Check the power supply voltages as well?....

Yep, tried reseating the RAM SIMMS but have not measured the power supply voltages or took it to work to scope them for noise.  I'm still leaning toward either the hard drive or a bad stick of RAM.  From the errors I've seen it appears to be a data corruption issue either in writing or reading files.  Probably next pull one stick at a time and wait to see what happens.  Generally I've found in switch mode supplies of TV's and VCRs if caps start going out of tolerance or other parts are breaking down they tend to be worse about it on cold startup rather then once up running and warm.  Thus a crash on bootup or shortly after when the supply would be under heavier load rather then after running for several days on end would make more sense.  But with electronics you never know until it's fixed.   ;)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DanS on May 11, 2009, 10:56:28 PM
"I'm still leaning toward either the hard drive or a bad stick of RAM."

Wouldn't either of these possibilities give different results? That is the RAM stick give an indication while booting during the earlier BIOS reading stage vs. the hard disk giving indications after all the BIOS reading is done and it goes on loading the OS?  :?:  Of course being intermittent in nature I guess it can "blue screen" you any time it feels like it, huh.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on May 13, 2009, 12:39:44 AM
...Wouldn't either of these possibilities give different results? That is the RAM stick give an indication while booting during the earlier BIOS reading stage vs. the hard disk giving indications after all the BIOS reading is done and it goes on loading the OS?  :?: 

Beats me.   :lol:  Bootup would be the most stressful for more then just the  power suplly looking at it that way.  Thinking back I did twice get an error on a corrupted registry file on boot up and it automatically reverted back to a saved file.  That was right after I uninstalled Boinc.  I run the registry cleaner in CCleaner and that one went away.  At the time I passed it off since I had trouble installing Boinc to start with as something related to the bad installs.  But it all may be very well related to the BSODs.

 
Of course being intermittent in nature I guess it can "blue screen" you any time it feels like it, huh.

That would seem to be the case.   :lol:  Two days, 13 hours up time and all's well for now again.  I even logged in from work this afternoon on it.  That pretty much maxes out the CPU usage enough to the point I can cause StartWatch to begin shutting down and restarting some of the software as they appear to it to be hung from the slow response time.  Still no blue screen even doing that.  Changed a couple settings in VWS, logged back out, StartWatch brought all the software back up without issue.  Oh well, once it took me the better part of a year to figure out why it would not boot into safe mode.  Stupid little VGA mode setting of some sort I finally found solved that.   :roll:  This issue is looking like it might turn into another long termer.  Better then totally dead and needing immediate attention I guess.  At least for now it works most of the time.   ;)


Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DanS on May 13, 2009, 01:36:22 AM
Glad it's working (for now anyway). For me personally I think I'd prefer it totally dead and needing immediate attention. That way you could do the repairs, knowing what's wrong at least, and feel more confident with it when it's restored.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: W3DRM on May 13, 2009, 01:53:58 AM
I am beginning to set up my new Acer 10.1" netbook as my main weather pc. It should be on-line in the next couple of weeks barring any major interruptions. Will post the results once I am fully operational. This particular netbook has 1GB of Memory and a 120GB hard drive.

I'll be installing Virtual VP, VPLive, Image Salse, Movie Salsa, VWS, WeatherLink, WeatherDisplay and some other miscellaneous programs on it. My Davis VP2 (serial port) will be hooked up via a USB-Serial adapter and hopefully it will be stable without hang-ups.

The new Acer 10.1" Netbook is a pretty nice little unit. Easy access to the memory and hard disk unlike the older 8.9" model. I'm tempted to get another one for casual use around the house. The battery life on this thing is well in excess of 6-hours. The only thing that has taken some time to get used to is the smaller keyboard and the tempermental mouse-pad (it does strange things every once in a while and I don't understand why - probably just me or some obscure setup setting I haven't found yet).

Once I get this thing up and running, I'll change my vote from Desktop to Netbook...
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on May 13, 2009, 09:19:18 AM
Just got an Aspire in (for someone else) and it is nice.  I prefer my Asus FWIW, but it is nice.  Screen is gorgeous!  You are right about the touchpad - but you can go into the control panel for the touchpad and adjust its sensitivity.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on July 14, 2009, 12:58:04 AM
Bump for any of the newer members that might want to participate in this poll.   :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Cienega32 on July 15, 2009, 03:55:01 AM
Mark - how did you make out with that problem you had with BSODs?

If that Boinc is anything like Folding@Home, I went thru 6 or 7 months of hair pulling with that on mine. Seemed every now and then it would get allergic to the accelerated mode in an ATI graphics card I had. More so the drivers than the card. Went back to an old version until an update came out. No more problems.

I started running the Wx on my now 4 year old HP DV1000 laptop that I had bought for roads trips/out of town house hunting. After I started "publishing" my Wx data and then realizing that the Wx was interfering with the 5 or 6 open windows during Football Sundays and finally getting rid of that FAH conflict with the ATI card on the other machine, I moved it over to the 775 type P4 3G with a meg of ram that I built about 5 or 6 years ago or so. 5 years for me is way overdue for upgrades/rebuilds but the house seems to suck me dry with projects. I did manage to replace all my drives with SATA units from Western Digital - those 'green power' units. One machine (for audio/video edit/burn) had 5 drives and I would swear the street lites dimmed when I powered it up.

But the box with the Wx stuff is the daily driver and I'm slowly using it for more and more Wx related stuff so it might be time to build a new box and push this one down the line. I still want one of those low power laptops! It's amazing how much more energy conscious one gets when they own the joint...
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on July 16, 2009, 09:50:52 PM
Mark - how did you make out with that problem you had with BSODs?....

My old 1999 466MHz steam engine is still plugging along.   At this time it has run 26 days without a reboot. StartWatch has rebooted the weather software a couple of times since the last system reboot due to the internet connection momentarily dropping out.  Setting StartWatch to monitor access to my website a year or so ago pretty well cured any FTP issues the software was having.  I still don't know what was going on with it.  Maybe I was just pushing it too hard for it's age.  The last changes I made to it was to discontinue running Cumulus on it for now and dropped back on my realtime uploads to 5-10 seconds instead of 2-3.  That brought the average CPU load back below 60%.

Otherwise while she's working I'm trying to avoid fixing it.   ;)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: kanewolf on July 17, 2009, 12:03:15 PM
I guess I would call my setup "other".  I think the Shuttle "lunchbox" computers make excellent appliances. My weather station is run on a Shuttle with an AMD low power dual core CPU.  I am one of the oddballs which uses Linux for my weather station.  This was a replacement for an NSLU2 which was just too slow for webcam work.  But by choosing a laptop hard drive, low power CPU and integrated graphics, my box runs at about 40 watts.  It is on 24/7 and is impossible to hear even in the quietest moments.  By choosing Linux, I have a local NTP server, a DDNS updater, IP webcam uploader/gif maker, etc.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Garth Bock on July 17, 2009, 02:44:20 PM
Quote
My old 1999 466MHz steam engine is still plugging along

Steam ??? oh thats right the 386 was hamster powered.... :lol:

I have been look at the MSI Wind Nettop for something smaller. Yeah they are using the Atom N series but with enough memory and XP they should have enough power for a weather site. Low wattage, low heat, fanless....sounds pretty good. One version of the box has onboard N wifi. I have seen the basic one sell for around $139 w\o SATA drive.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ryan hothersall on July 18, 2009, 06:56:35 AM
For my weather station I use a HP DC 7700 that I got from an auction.

Specs are 1.8 Ghz dual core, 1 GB Ram, 80 GB HDD and onboard video etc. I run Vista Home Premium on it and will put windows 7 on when it comes out.

All that runs on it is Weatherlink, internet radio, page that shows what is coming and going at the airport and planeplotter.
When I shut everything down at night the weatherlinkIP keeps sending updates.

Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Sigdigit on August 20, 2009, 06:55:07 PM
My little Acer Aspire One netbook sits quietly doing it's thing hidden behind my Davis Vantage Pro console.  When I got it early in the year for 299 bucks, I figured even if it only lasts a few years running 24/7, for that price I can just buy a new one.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Chris H. on August 20, 2009, 07:24:53 PM
My little Acer Aspire One netbook sits quietly doing it's thing hidden behind my Davis Vantage Pro console.  When I got it early in the year for 299 bucks, I figured even if it only lasts a few years running 24/7, for that price I can just buy a new one.

Great little Netbook isn't it? I have two. Blue and white.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Chris H. on August 20, 2009, 07:26:58 PM

My old 1999 466MHz steam engine is still plugging along. 
 

I have 1999 PowerMac "Sawtooth" with 500mHz PowerPC. It needs a serious boost in speed. Which I don't have the moola for.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: LarsWX on August 20, 2009, 09:21:57 PM
Running a 3 1/2 year old IBM laptop, vista business, dual 1.66ghz with 2 gigs of ram, best thing computer draws only 20-25 watts \:D/ verses 180 for my desktop.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: gm85 on August 20, 2009, 11:47:16 PM
I run WeatherLink on an XP Virtual Machine on a Server I have in the Basement (HP DC5000 desktop, P4 3.0ghz, 3GB memory).

I did it this way since I was already using the desktop as a file server, and so that I don't need to stay logged into the server to have the WeatherLink software run. (The Virtual Machine runs as a service and the VM automatically loads and launches WeatherLink regardless if someone is logged into the server or not).

That way, I can remote desktop into the VM from my desktop, or my laptop and check the weather data wherever I am.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Garth Bock on August 21, 2009, 09:50:45 AM
Moving my station this weekend to an Atom based box. I ran it hard last weekend as my main DJ computer at a 3 1/2 day dance  workshop benefit in Kansas City for the Shriners Childrens Hospital. Not a skip and was poked and prodded by all the other tech heads that were there. (I entered choreography competition and won 1st place).

The "shuttle" like box I got off of eBay was an Atom Dual Core, 2gb mem, 160 hard disk, DVD burner with light scribe, 6 usb ports, 1 serial, 1 parallel, SVGA video on board and 1 open full size PCI slot..... $249
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Sigdigit on August 22, 2009, 04:37:12 PM
Sounds like a good deal Garth.  My Acer is Atom based, works great so far.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Downlinerz2 on August 22, 2009, 04:55:18 PM
Moving my station this weekend to an Atom based box. I ran it hard last weekend as my main DJ computer at a 3 1/2 day dance  workshop benefit in Kansas City for the Shriners Childrens Hospital. Not a skip and was poked and prodded by all the other tech heads that were there. (I entered choreography competition and won 1st place).
The "shuttle" like box I got off of eBay was an Atom Dual Core, 2gb mem, 160 hard disk, DVD burner with light scribe, 6 usb ports, 1 serial, 1 parallel, SVGA video on board and 1 open full size PCI slot..... $249
Garth,
    Congratulations on winning 1st place in the coreography competion!! =D> =D> \:D/
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: UpstateWeather.com on August 28, 2009, 01:09:17 AM
I do not (yet) own a weather station, but I do have GRLevel3 and Weather Message running on a machine 24/7 updating to a website. I was running them on a dell latitude d600 laptop, but ran into a few problems running that machine 24/7. I found a really cheap Dell Inspirion 531S on sale at Best Buy. After upgrading the video card, it has become a great little weather computer. Small size and yet reliable. It's running Vista, but I have turn off most windows services to keep the machine running as fast as possible. It's been working for me. When I finally get my Davis weather station; that will be the real test.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on December 11, 2009, 12:05:12 AM
Bump for any new members that want to participate in the poll.   :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on February 03, 2010, 12:12:33 AM
Two month thread bummmmmmp for a new members to vote.    \:D/
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: WeatherGoose on February 03, 2010, 02:27:16 AM
Two month thread bummmmmmp for a new members to vote.    \:D/

Thanks for bumping this Mark!  =D>

I was surprised that I MISSED this thread when it was originally posted!  :-k

Since the 24" INTEL IMAC that I use is not really what you would call a Conventional Desktop rig, I chose OTHER for it since there was no option for an ALL IN ONE system on your poll list.

Here is what I am running currently...

Weather Station rig:

HARDWARE:
Apple iMAC 24" Computer w/ 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor / 2 Gigabytes 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM • 1.5 Terrabytes of data storage via LaCie d2 Quadra Media Hard Drive.

SOFTWARE:
Lightsoft Weather Center of Macintosh OSX • EVOcam automated webcam software • Apple "Automator" automation software for controlling system maintenance cycles and automatically updating station home page with weather alerts as they are announced by LWC • System running on OSX 10.6.2 "Snow Leopard"

NOAA Weather Radio Stream rig:

HARDWARE:
Macintosh 1.25 GHz Power PC G4 Tower w/ 2 GB DDR SDRAM • 300 GB internal storage • Behringer FBQ800 Ultra-Compact 9-Band Graphic Equalizer (for removing broadcast "hiss" from original signal) • C Crane & Co. CC Radio Plus Weather Band Radio.

SOFTWARE:
LadioCast 0.9 Audio Streaming Software • Apple "Automator" system automation software for ALL streaming operations • System is running on OSX Version 10.5.8 Leopard.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Strgazr27 on February 03, 2010, 07:43:42 AM
How the heck did I miss this thread also. Oh well, Here's the breakdown.....

Webcam PC

Dell Inspiron 9100. It has 2 gigs of PC3200 as well as a ATI 9700Pro running XPPro "Black Edition". A 200Gb external HD acts as the storage device for the webcam machine. Big and Heavy for a LT but it runs like a desktop.

Weather PC

Modified Dell GX280 running 4 gigs of RAM, a 3Ghz P4 and a HP Lightscribe DVD Burner. This is also running XPPro Black. A 500Gb WD external HD that serves as the main weather machines backup storage drive. I just bought an ATI 9800Pro off of Ebay, supposedly still in the box which will be here today for video. The onboard video doesn't let me run 16bit smoothing for GRL3 so this should help in that department.

Image editing, Site building, daily PC

Another modified GX280. A 3.2Ghz P4, 4 gigs of ram and a HIS H467Q1GHDAP Radeon HD 4670 1GB AGP card (AGP is Old School I know but it runs NICE!). The Samsung 21" LCD is soon to be replaced. A set of 2.1 Logitechs handle my audio. A a 1 Tb WD external HD serves as the storage and backup drive for my everyday machine/media server. Both desktops run through a Samsung SyncMaster T240HD LCD Monitor :) using a Belkin USB KVM switch.

Here it all is before I picked up the Samsung....

(http://www.kingsparkweather.com/misc/desk.jpg)

P.S. You need to add a "Both" choice ;)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Feelgood Ranch on February 03, 2010, 12:40:31 PM
Just built two mini computers utilizing the Intel Mini-ITX boards.  Uses Intel Atom single or dual core processor drawing 4 watts.  One board for weather station and weather cam and other for lightning PCI board.  Both boards support one PCI slot with additional adapter allowing two slots.  Check out www.min-box.com or www.logicsupply.com for details and pricing. 
Easy to asemble, relative low price and handles the job well.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on February 03, 2010, 11:38:23 PM
...P.S. You need to add a "Both" choice ;)

Looking at some of the setups posted I'm thinking I should have included an "All of the above" option as well.   :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Lite on February 04, 2010, 08:08:27 AM
Both for me too, I have an old Dell pc in my computer room where my Davis console is and I havve a Dell inspiron upstairs. I use the inspiron about 95% of the time. I have the WLIP.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: PCDoc on February 28, 2010, 01:31:52 AM
I have a rather unique option I'm using. I have a HP workstation that runs Microsoft Windows Home Server (WHS).  In short,  it's a Windows server that backs up all of my computers and laptops and it runs my weather station software (VWS, Cumulus and Davis WeatherLink).  The Davis console is connected to it using the USB datalogger with Virtual VP handling the interface on all three apps.  This has been flawless.  Weather data uploads via ftp to my community web site every 15 minutes and it's never missed a beat.

I have several personal desktop PC's and laptops plus my wife and I both have laptops from work.  The WHS server wakes up the computers after midnight using Wake on LAN (WOL) and automatically backs up new/changed data every evening.  The server has 3 GB of RAM and 3.5 TB of storage. It also  servers as my music storage that connects up to two ROKU boxes (one in the office and one downstairs to the home stereo.  Yep -- I love technology.

Mike   www.murocdata.com/ovh
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Chris H. on February 28, 2010, 02:10:13 AM


Modified Dell GX280 running 4 gigs of RAM, a 3Ghz P4 and a HP Lightscribe DVD Burner. This is also running XPPro Black. A 500Gb WD external HD that serves as the main weather machines backup storage drive. I just bought an ATI 9800Pro off of Ebay, supposedly still in the box which will be here today for video. The onboard video doesn't let me run 16bit smoothing for GRL3 so this should help in that department.

Image editing, Site building, daily PC

Another modified GX280. A 3.2Ghz P4, 4 gigs of ram and a HIS H467Q1GHDAP Radeon HD 4670 1GB AGP card (AGP is Old School I know but it runs NICE!). The Samsung 21" LCD is soon to be replaced. A set of 2.1 Logitechs handle my audio. A a 1 Tb WD external HD serves as the storage and backup drive for my everyday machine/media server. Both desktops run through a Samsung SyncMaster T240HD LCD Monitor :) using a Belkin USB KVM switch.

Here it all is before I picked up the Samsung....

(http://www.kingsparkweather.com/misc/desk.jpg)

P.S. You need to add a "Both" choice ;)

Those GX280s are Dell OptiPlex models. Old but they work, right? Not a bad set up.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on March 19, 2010, 11:58:55 PM
Bump   :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: W3DRM on March 20, 2010, 12:13:28 AM
Okay, laugh if you must, but I just realized it has taken me since May of 2009 to get my Acer Netbook on-line as my weather station computer.  :oops:

I'm retired but quite busy with tons of other non-weather related hobbies and activities that kept me from getting the netbook on-line. When my Davis anemometer quit working and I sent the entire unit in for refurb, I decided now was the time to do it.

So, as of yesterday, March 18, 2010, I am now totally running my weather station on my Acer netbook.

I have changed my poll vote from Desktop to Netbook and all is good...
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on June 18, 2010, 12:59:48 AM
Updates and new additions to the poll are welcome.   :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ed2kayak on July 04, 2010, 05:59:13 PM
I purchased a Davis Vantage Pro 2 station in May. Replaced an old OS, as all the sensors died. Two days ago I installed weather link and VWS to my desktop. Haven't posted info to web yet, w/exception of the Davis Weatherlink site. There certainly is a mind numbing array of choices in this area. We're very energy conscious in this house as we have PV solar on roof (grid tied) so all energy use is closely monitored. Which had me thinking of a netbook, but after reading all the posts the HP home server would be perfect, if I could figure it out. I'm not in any rush so maybe by Jan 1, 11?
This might be my first post, so thanks for all the great info in this forum
Ed
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on July 04, 2010, 06:34:52 PM
Not sure how you figure a Home Server will use less energy than a Netbook...
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ed2kayak on July 05, 2010, 04:10:12 PM
It wouldn't but it would simplify my backups.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on July 05, 2010, 04:29:26 PM
Best way to backup is to use a NAS.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: PCBob on July 06, 2010, 08:08:10 AM
My vote is a Acer One netbook I picked up from Wally World as a display, it's purple but hey it was cheap and I keep it behind the desk anyway. I share out the Cumulus folder to access it from my desktop for tweaks and changes then turn off the display on the netbook to conserve power. Only thing I haven't figured out is how to get the hard drive to power down between updates.

I run Cumulus and a weather cam updating every 15 minutes to all the usual sites plus my own website. This weekend I got the 12V cigarette lighter adaptor in and now it runs on my Harbor Freight cheapie solar panel system 7x24.

Next up is a small 110vac inverter to power the Vue console off of solar.

I figure with the grid power electric savings I should break even in about 71 years. \:D/


Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on July 06, 2010, 09:06:57 AM
What OS are you running Bob?
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: PCBob on July 06, 2010, 12:49:47 PM
The netbook is running Win7 Starter. It does have the WinXP compatibility mode that many have said was disabled in Starter. Thus far I have found no drawbacks with Starter for my use.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on July 06, 2010, 02:06:13 PM
I only recall that Remote Desktop is not available on Starter.  BTW, you should be able to go into Control Panel and put the HD to sleep after a specific time.    Or use  utils like Dennis Babkin's TOFF?WOSB to manage power states.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on July 18, 2010, 05:11:05 PM
Running a tiny pc that draws 4 to 5 watts. It runs Windows XP and is dedicated to handling my weather data. I don't have a monitor or keyboard connected to it - I just use TightVNC to control it remotely over my LAN. It's been running non-stop for over a year. I like it, because along with drawing little power, it generates almost no heat, and has no moving parts, so it's totally silent. I have it, my router, and my DSL modem (all low power devices) connected to a UPS. So, the data flow is almost uninterrupted, even during most power outages (DSL still works during most power outages).

Steve
Hey Steve,

Is that a mini-itx that you're using? If so, what did you go with? I was looking at several different ones and wanted to try to find the lowest power board.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on July 22, 2010, 01:00:24 AM
I made the rounds of the local stores today and the cheapest netbook I found was $298.  Still thinking about it.   ;)

What brought this on was another round of issues with my 1999 weather only computer.  Last night at 1:30 am the screen froze and all activity stopped.  When rebooted it ran for about half an hour and locked up again.  After another reboot could only get it to run in safe mode.  Come to find out it has decided it does not like the NVidia drivers for some reason.  I tried a couple different drivers to no avail.  Last time it done this several years ago the local shop that originally built it stuck in a used video card for cheap for me which solved it. So I figure that is probably the fix for it again.  The drivers when installed give an endless loop error.  Seems to be a lot posted on the net about issues with that after updates, and such on NVidia drivers.   But since it happened out of the blue with no software re configurations or additions I'm still thinking it is the card.

So anyway by uninstalling the driver I have it back up running for now.  The only casualty being I cannot run GRL3 on it in that mode.  Considering the original 6gig hard drive sounds like a mini jet engine on cold start until it warms up a few minutes, I'm amazed every time I actually get it running after any lockups or blue screens.   :lol:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on July 22, 2010, 08:13:34 AM
I like the idea of no moving parts, especially if you use compact memory for the boot drive. No fans, nothing. I'll still probably use a small 60GB drive as the main drive but still only about 10 watts of power consumption.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: 4wd on July 22, 2010, 08:55:35 AM
Just moved over from an 8 years old IBM tower to a Samsung NC10 netbook.
It seems an awful waste of the "internet anywhere" netbook to tether it there semi-permanently, but after playing about with it for 6 months I really wasn't using it as much for other stuff as expected. (Have a laptop and main desktop also)
The old PC fan used to hum away costantly, and you could just about hear it all over the house.
It seems curiously quiet now! Also the computer room - a small bedroom - is surprisingly cooler.

The netbook plays with Weather-display and could do other stuff at the same time if you don't mind the cables out of it.
Not much else is installed on it apart from Office2003
With screen automatically going off after 5 minutes it will be using well under 10watts - which considering the 24/7 running is a significant saving on the 100watts+ IBM tower.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ANPweather on July 22, 2010, 10:13:47 AM
Last week I moved Weather Display from my Windows Home Server to an Acer Aspire One netbook ($200 special from Newegg) running XP Pro. This allows me to
- run the server for a only couple of hours in the evening when I'm home, saving about 60W for every hour it's not run
- put the server out of site in a spare room, and considerably improve the looks of the area where my Davis/Acer is

I also tried moving my private Teamspeak server from the WHS to the Acer as well. It was able to handle a few players OK but once 8 or 9 had connected it would randomly drop 4 players. So Teamspeak went back to the server.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ed2kayak on July 22, 2010, 09:48:19 PM
After reading comments a couple weeks ago I bought  ASUS netbook from Newegg for $289. Also added extra 1 mb of ram, not sure that did anything. After 300 hrs or about 12 days, my avg power consumption is 9.5 watt/hr. I keep it in the basement, w/the top closed. I use realVNC to access the desktop. Any guesses as to putting it on a timer, and say letting it run on battery for 6 hrs and change for six hours?
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on July 23, 2010, 05:31:23 AM
The only thing I worry about with laptops is the continuously charging battery which I know is not great for them. Of course, I leave mine plugged up all the time (but my battery is shot too) so I don't heed the warnings.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ANPweather on July 23, 2010, 09:48:04 PM
You can always take the battery out. Of course if that's your only battery backup for the laptop....  :lol:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Cienega32 on July 24, 2010, 08:31:30 PM
Mine has been plugged in for the last 4 years or so and has just starting getting flakey. Always kept a full charge until just recently.

Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on July 25, 2010, 12:16:43 AM
I got about 3 years out of my laptop battery being plugged in 95+% of the time.  Could pull the battery and use a UPS.  But in the end have you really saved anything given the cost of the UPS and that the batteries in them go bad after several years as well?  Kind of debatable.   :-k

I made the rounds of the local stores today and the cheapest netbook I found was $298.  Still thinking about it.   ;)...

No longer thinking about it as of yesterday.  I'm typing this on an Acer Aspire One.  \:D/

 I bought it from the local owned shop I've dealt with for over 10 years.  Paid more for it but they have given me more then enough free phone and face to face tech support over the years to make up for it.  Plus keeps some local boys on a better pay scale then that of a clerk at Walmart.   ;)

Might keep it for a backup weather computer for now.  I'm too busy playing with it to dog tie it to the console.   :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: SlowModem on July 25, 2010, 12:25:32 AM
No longer thinking about it as of yesterday.  I'm typing this on an Acer Aspire One.  \:D/

(http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/twothumbsup.gif)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on July 31, 2010, 10:05:23 PM
It's official now.  The netbook is running the weather show all alone and doing a very good job of it I might add.   =D>

  I have the serial data logger but also had an old Radio Shack Serial to USB adapter that I used for awhile on the old computer after it's serial port took a lighting surge.  Seemed to work well back then and is working well now (after I found the old floppy with the driver for it.)  CPU usage is about half what it was on my old 466MHz.  Also much easier to work on settings as the response times to commands is much improved even when running VNC from my laptop.  Twice the memory compared to the old 466Mhz helps too no doubt.  That and also I was running the software on an external USB hard drive on the old unit.  I was worried about heat with the netbook but so far it does not seem too bad in that regard neither.  So we'll now see how it holds together over the long haul.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/memmurphy/NETBOOKSP.jpg)

I've updated my vote in the poll to reflect the current setup. \:D/
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Cienega32 on August 02, 2010, 01:19:01 AM
Congrats on the new setup!  =D>

I came close to doing that myself - getting one of the Acers for the Wx station but decided on 3 Dell GX620s from EBay for about the same price instead. I still would've needed another box if I went Acer but the power savings alone still might push me there.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on August 02, 2010, 07:36:21 AM
Way to go Pat!!!! 1000 post!  =D>
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Chris H. on August 02, 2010, 04:41:53 PM
If it does begin to heat up, all you need is a notebook cooling fan accessory. Then you're good to go. You could also point a fan at the thing too..though that's all up to you anyway. Way to go! I thought it couldn't necessarily be done.  =D>

However, I could never get GRLevel3 to run on my Acer Aspire One. So I ditched the effort on that and used my Toshiba heavyweight.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on August 04, 2010, 12:56:25 AM
If it does begin to heat up, all you need is a notebook cooling fan accessory. Then you're good to go. You could also point a fan at the thing too..though that's all up to you anyway. Way to go! I thought it couldn't necessarily be done.  =D>

However, I could never get GRLevel3 to run on my Acer Aspire One. So I ditched the effort on that and used my Toshiba heavyweight.

I was unsure how or if GRL3 would work on it but was pleasantly surprised.  I loaded up the backgrounds and shape files like I have on my laptop plus turned on smoothing without any problems.  Smoothing never did work on the old computer.  I've been sorting out a few other things, bad file names, tweaking software settings, setting it for auto user log in and the like from the changeover.  I'm currently running it wireless to my DSL router.  That's also working better then I thought it might.  The only real headache I've had with it was getting it on DSL through the wireless.  I knew it worked because we had it on the net through the wireless at the computer shop.  Spent about 6 hours off and on fritzing with it to no avail the first day.  The next day I took it to work with me and drove to a couple hotels on my lunch hour parking in the lots and found I could log into their wi-fi signal with no problems.  After another half hour scratching my head back home and poking around in my router setup I finally realized I had MAC filtering turned on.  Thirty seconds after that revelation I was connected to my own wireless internet with it.   #-o  #-o

I had my wireless signal so well secured I could not get into it myself.    ;) :lol:
 
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on August 09, 2010, 05:35:04 PM
That's how I do mine.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: W Thomas on August 09, 2010, 06:01:56 PM
Congrats on the new setup!  =D>

I came close to doing that myself - getting one of the Acers for the Wx station but decided on 3 Dell GX620s from EBay for about the same price instead. I still would've needed another box if I went Acer but the power savings alone still might push me there.

Hows the Optiplex doing running your weather programs?
Reason I ask is I picked up a 620 a week or so ago and after some refurbs it seems to do fine.
Currently has 1 mb of RAM and a P4 2.5 processor. My weather server currently is the fastest thing
I own which is an Intel Core Duo with 2 b of RAM. If the 620 would work reliably I could use the Core Duo
in several other roles around here..least of which would be video rendering.

I have been seriously considering this but I'd definitely have to re read up on moving WD and keeping everything intact.

I'd consider a drive swap but Windows would likely have a heart attack :lol:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Cienega32 on August 10, 2010, 06:41:15 AM
These 620s came with P4 3.0 HT,  1 gig mem and 80 gig drives. The mem was in various flavors and matches so I just got  2 2x1gig kits and a pair of 250 gig drives for two of them. Step 1 in moving the software over for me.

I still haven't moved the Wx software over but the one has been running the 3 Oly cams with VM95 without any problem since Feb. FEB? Geez, I'm still waiting to move that stuff?!  ](*,)

I don't think the WD move is as daunting as first imagined. I installed both WL & WD to one box to test a few things and IIRC WD was fairly easy. I did it with a 8gig USB stick I had laying around. Their forum has the FAQ laid out pretty clear and still I haven't done it in full working order either  :lol:. I just started playing with its Webcam/Movie maker functions so I'll do it when I'm done with that.

And like you - I want my main box back! This Wx stuff is holding it hostage!
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ed2kayak on August 10, 2010, 08:15:20 PM
Netbbook user here. I noticed that VWS was not updating on Wunderground.  This system is only 1 month old. I did have a prior issue on 7/26.  Since then I added Startwatch, so I was hoping to avoid any further issues.. Any insight on what happened. I closed and restarted VWS, and problem resolved. I'll try and attach jpg.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: W Thomas on August 10, 2010, 09:00:38 PM
These 620s came with P4 3.0 HT,  1 gig mem and 80 gig drives. The mem was in various flavors and matches so I just got  2 2x1gig kits and a pair of 250 gig drives for two of them. Step 1 in moving the software over for me.

I still haven't moved the Wx software over but the one has been running the 3 Oly cams with VM95 without any problem since Feb. FEB? Geez, I'm still waiting to move that stuff?!  ](*,)

I don't think the WD move is as daunting as first imagined. I installed both WL & WD to one box to test a few things and IIRC WD was fairly easy. I did it with a 8gig USB stick I had laying around. Their forum has the FAQ laid out pretty clear and still I haven't done it in full working order either  :lol:. I just started playing with its Webcam/Movie maker functions so I'll do it when I'm done with that.

And like you - I want my main box back! This Wx stuff is holding it hostage!
My processor is not nearly as quick as yours but would probably be sufficent for weather data as my radar is on another machine so basically it does alot of up dates but they are small data packets and shouldn't load it too bad.Definitely something to look into..



Wayne

Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on August 11, 2010, 12:34:10 AM
Netbbook user here. I noticed that VWS was not updating on Wunderground.  ...

I've had that issue very intermittently on my old desktop and once so far on my netbook.  Unfortunately StartWatch remained unaware of that particular failure for me as well.  I suspect there might be a way to detect the loss of connection using additional configuration of StartWatch but have yet to figured out how to do it. 

Couple things to check for grins and giggles, first would be in power management options for the "USB Root Hub Properties" in the Windows Device Manager.  Make sure they are not set to allow the computer to shut them off to save power.  Second would be in VWS "Settings", "Program Settings" there is an option to "Restart program if communication is lost for 5 minutes".  You might select that option and see if it helps.

One thing I did note was the 608 MB memory usage shown in one of your images.  That seems on the high side.  I'm wondering if you might have the memory leak problem with VWS that some experience.  You might try setting StartWatch to restart the program before the memory reaches that level.  My current VWS memory usage seldom goes above 100 Mb.  At one time a couple of years ago when I had a memory leak issue with VWS once it reached above 150-200MB or so it would get pretty unstable and be only a matter of time until it would crash or do some strange things before crashing.

Just some thoughts....   :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on November 02, 2010, 12:20:34 AM
(http://www.pic4ever.com/images/connie_mini_bump.gif)  Bump for the new members to join in the poll.   :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on November 02, 2010, 08:15:51 AM
WOW! I just saw that 608MB memory usage!!! Holy crap that's a lot! You must be generating every graph that's possible! I will get up in the 150MB range but never higher than that and it's usually it's much less. WD uses more memory than VWS in my system.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ed2kayak on November 02, 2010, 10:06:56 AM
Not sure if that was an anomaly on that day. I switched to Weather Display shortly thereafter for a variety of reasons.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on November 02, 2010, 11:08:10 PM
I've been impressed with the little netbook over several months now of operation.  I used it for a few days for web surfing and forums to burn it in some before putting the weather station on it.  I found compared to my Aspire 5610 the screen and keyboard are just too small for me to comfortably spend several hours at a time using everyday.  But for quietly running weather station duties it has worked great for my needs.   I mostly VNC into it with my 5610 to make any changes or adjustments.  Here's a screen print showing the typical numbers for the vitals on my Acer Aspire One:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/memmurphy/AcerSP110210.jpg)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on November 03, 2010, 06:01:38 AM
I see you use a serial connection. Do all the Acers come with a serial port or are you converting to USB?
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on November 04, 2010, 12:12:16 AM
I see you use a serial connection. Do all the Acers come with a serial port or are you converting to USB?

No serial port, using an old Radio Shack serial to USB adapter.

http://support.radioshack.com/support_accessories/doc69/69667.pdf

I bought the adapter probably a good 5-6 years ago after a close hit of lighting cooked the motherboard serial port on my old desktop.  The original driver for it came on a floppy.   :lol:   When switching over to the netbook I found Radio Shack still had the latest driver available for download on their website.

Given all the problems some have using adapters I guess I got lucky with it.  It's several months past it's 90 day warranty.   :lol:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on January 28, 2011, 11:23:40 PM
(http://www.pic4ever.com/images/connie_mini_bump.gif)

I see netbook usage has now passed laptop usage.   8-)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: dogdad on November 19, 2011, 07:35:39 AM
I live in an 40ft motorhome RV, so space is always at a premium.  I am currently using an older 500 Mhz WinXP Sony Vaio laptop that was an eBay rescue (cracked display, no ac adapter, needed lots of TLC), but it has a serial port and 2 USB ports for my LaCrosse and Davis VantagePro.  It fits in a tight corner with just the bundle of wires to/from it, and a nearby 19” display.  Almost a year and doing well.

I had a home-grown tower pc (2+ Mhz, XP Pro) for maybe 2 years, until it just quit one day.  I suspect my wife may have sabotaged it because she was always complaining about how it was too big to fit in anywhere.

All that said, I’d prefer the larger format simply because of the expansion capability.  The machine has a 6G HDD (remember when that was a WOW! COOL! size?) and there’s nothing else on it so it is sufficient, but I’d like to have more USB ports as most/all USB/serial adapters I’ve tried have some issues when converting.  I want to experiment with VVP as well as try to build a few of the Davis-esque add-ons (solar, etc), but it’s a bear to disconnect everything and move it to the kitchen table and then back again when done.

I envy you guys with lotsa space… but then again I am in the Florida keys and am right on the water.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on November 19, 2011, 09:31:38 AM
And we envy you being right on the water in the Keys... rough life!  :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: tobyspond on November 19, 2011, 10:02:45 AM
Since I am running 24/7, I wanted to purchase a computer that does not use much energy, so I  settled on a fit pc2 to use as my dedicated weather computer.  My power consumption is 6 watts. To access the computer I use teamviewer and/or windows remote desktop.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Andy Thompson on November 19, 2011, 10:23:02 AM
I'm now running my station with a Cyberpower Gaming Computer. I don't use it for gaming, but it has much more power than the laptop I used to have. It has the Intel i5 quad core processor, and 8 GB of Ram. Plus it has a separate graphics card along with the graphics card with the mother board.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on November 19, 2011, 10:54:13 AM
Overkill?
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ryan hothersall on November 19, 2011, 04:50:50 PM
When I did the big upgrade to an i7, my old core 2 duo parts were used in my second pc for the weather station. It also has the solar connected to it to monitor how much electricity is generated each day.

Also has an SBS 1 for monutoring aircraft flying around.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on March 19, 2012, 08:44:57 PM
Bump. :)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Sigdigit on April 24, 2012, 06:37:21 PM
Still using my Acer Aspire One netbook, 100% reliable so far.  Haven't found a cheaper low power alternative.  And I use it all the time to surf the web.  Posting with it now.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: ed2kayak on April 24, 2012, 06:43:21 PM
I'm switching my vote.  Been using netbook since 7/2010, now think its somewhat underpowered. CPU is often above 90%. Will probably upgrade to small Dell tower (scratch & dent) within 6 months.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Bushman on April 24, 2012, 07:40:46 PM
Which processes are chewing up your Netbook?  Sounds like something has gone sideways.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: fadiaz on April 25, 2012, 11:09:35 AM
Hi all,

In my case, for my weather computer, I am using an old Dell Inspiron 530 (mini tower).  It used to belong to my father, but after its HDD failed we got him a new computer and I saved the Dell from the recycling and/or landfill  ;)  

This Inspiron comes with an Intel E2160 (Dual Core, Single Threaded 1.8 GHz) CPU.  I upgraded the original 2 GB RAM up to the maximum of 8 GB RAM (I did had to put the latest BIOS for the computer to recognize the 8 GB).  I also had a 500 GB SATA HDD (I had "new" changed from warranty from another computer that I replaced the HDD) around, so I changed the old failing HDD with that one.  I do use the build in graphics right now (hmmm maybe add video card later if I get one???  8-) ).

For Operating System (OS) I upgraded the machine from the Windows Vista that it came with Windows 7 Professional 64 bits (and yes is legal, is from the MS Academic Alliance I have at work).

Since the machine does not have a serial port, I added a PCI Dual Port Serial  Card, but unfortunatedly I can not make it (or any other PCI Serial Card).  I think might be the drivers, since the machine and windows recognize the card and the 2 serial ports.  They just do not communicate.  All card I have tried say they are win7 64bit compatible.  Well, so for a serial port I am for the moment using a USB to Serial Dongle, probably try to change it later to a 2 or 4 port edgeport I/O.  (and yes I need serial port, but not for the weather station).

I am running right now the following software.  I run Cumulus for the weather station and to update my weather web page.  I also run (full time) GRLevel3.  I also decode NOAA APT images using wxtoimg.  For the webcam/weathercam I use Yawcam.  Also full time I have running 2 of the satellite programs I use; gpredict and orbitron.  I also keep running from CPUID the program Hardware Monitor (HWMonitor) to keep an eye on temperature, fan rpm's, voltage, etc.

The serial port is used to control the APT radio.  I have an R2FX.  As mentioned before, the software used to decode the images is Wxtoimg (Pro version).  I also use an external second USB sound card to decode the images, instead of using the internal (keep the internal just to play the windows sounds).

Right now this machine also plays as a backup computer, since my primary computer monster is down  :sad:  Actually right now I am posting from the Dell.

Maybe in a future, I might change the computer for a Nettop, and delegate this computer to another function or duty, but except for the not so much electric economy, this machine is working great so far (knock on wood!!!).
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: SLOweather on April 25, 2012, 12:25:48 PM
I thought I'd posted here, but I guess not. My main SLOweather computer is a Dell Optiplex quad core. The server at the colo is a Colomachine running Fedora 12. And all of the WeatherElement Data Hubs are little Freescale CPU boxes with 8 megs of RAM.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Andy Thompson on May 01, 2012, 09:42:48 AM
I know its an overkill, but i use it as a multi-task computer for everyday use, along with running my weather station. Its a nice computer.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on May 01, 2012, 09:44:29 AM
I don't do squat on either of my weather computers. They just sit there working away.  :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: smorris on May 01, 2012, 12:55:48 PM
Didn't see this thread before. I'm running my WeatherCat software on a 27" iMac with an i5 processor and 16 GB RAM.
I guess that would be a standard desktop in the poll. (No external CPU. Everything is there at the bottom and behind the screen)

(http://smorris.smugmug.com/Weather/Setup/i-3q64Sqr/0/L/DSC0005-L.jpg)

Full Size Image (http://smorris.smugmug.com/Weather/Setup/i-3q64Sqr/0/O/DSC0005-O.jpg)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DaculaWeather on May 01, 2012, 12:59:10 PM
Wow, pretty expensive weather computer! I'll stick with my 5 year old laptop and 6 year old desktop!
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: smokeybandit on October 16, 2012, 01:11:22 PM
Has anyone ever run Cumulus or any of the publishing software for a WS 2080 on a Windows Embedded or Android laptop?
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on December 21, 2012, 11:11:58 AM
(http://www.pic4ever.com/images/connie_mini_bump.gif)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: cospringswx on December 21, 2012, 12:20:36 PM
My WX PC is a 3 yr old Compaq Presario Laptop with 4GB of ram. It is just running WD and GR3. I connect to it with Team Viewer from the main PC. So it just sits on a shelf just plugging away with the lid closed and I dust it off every few days.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: DanS on September 17, 2013, 07:13:43 AM
Just upgraded to a (not as old)  Sony Vaio PCG-K23 laptop for the wx station and webcam. It stopped getting used as more tablets and smart phones started appearing around the house so I grabbed it up. Today I went through cleaning off unneeded apps then loaded and configured everything required to run 2 wx stations and a cam. I set the user accounts to be ignored on boot so it wouldn't pause waiting for an input. Even though it's around 10 years old the original battery still holds it for about an hour. I got it plugged into an UPS which held the replaced wx desktop for about an hour. The processor and bus speed is a step up along with the USB ports being 2.0 as opposed to the replaced 1.0 ports which should help. At least it isn't sitting, unused, any more.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: SlowModem on September 17, 2013, 02:05:55 PM
It's good to recycle.   =D>  It will probably last for years.

I have a co-worker that brought me two unused desktops (one still has a tape backup slot) that I can use for parts, or replacement for my desktop if it ever dies (it's been running for 13 years or so now).  It's going to take a lot of convincing for me to switch to tablets.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: piconut on September 17, 2013, 11:02:15 PM
I started out with a Dell Latitude laptop with a 1 GHz CPU and 1 GB of RAM and used that for the last 12 years, up until a couple months ago.  I had a VPro feeding VWS, Cumulus, Virtual VP, Image Salsa, Movie Salsa, and StartWatch running on it and although it took it a while to make a time lapse movie, it still ran fine.  Most of the time it ran at <30% CPU (except when processing the movie).  It only had 1 USB port (USB 1) and I wanted more power and ports to be able to add a couple more Logitech 9000 weather cams to it so I bought a used Dell Latitude e5500 laptop off of Craigslist for $200.  It has a an old Core 2 Duo P8800 2.6 GHz CPU and 4 GB of RAM.  More importantly, it also has 4 USB-2 slots and a serial port.  It was a much need and well deserved upgrade and I'm glad I did it.  I have a cheap plastic dual fan laptop cooler sitting underneath it and it seems to run flawlessly 24x7.  The CPU runs about 30% most of the time except when I'm crunching 1000's of images into the daily time lapse movie.

Here is image of it showing my VWS desktop (newly reconfigured) and the the other stuff.  

(http://www.robuck.net/weather/temp/wxdesktop.png)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: meteo-saint-brevin on September 22, 2013, 10:54:15 AM
I am using an old Acer Travelmate running Vista. The software running on board are : Virtual VP, WeatherLink, Cumulus, WeatherMap Live, Skymet to generate weather maps, WebcamXP, Lauyan ToWeb, Cobian Backup, Total Commander et NOD32 antivirus. I remotely control this computer using TeamViewer.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on January 27, 2014, 01:08:30 AM
Bump for any that might want to join the poll.   :grin:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: W3DRM on January 27, 2014, 12:23:49 PM
Hi Mark - long time no hear from...

Well, my Acer Aspire One is still plugging along nicely. Here's the history of my little netbook:


The Acer Aspire One has run flawlessly 24/7 since October 15, 2011. Would buy another one should something happen to this one. I did upgrade from Win XP Pro to Win7 Ultimate in 2013 with no problems at all. Everything runs fine except that I have never been able to get StartWatch to auto-start when rebooting the system. That is really not a problem but just an aggravation point. I do daily automated backups.

Life is good...  :lol:
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on February 03, 2014, 10:49:46 PM
My Acer Aspire One is still puttering along since July 2010 24/7.  Showing almost 31K hours on the clock now.  8-)   Still running the original XP home. 
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: W3DRM on February 03, 2014, 11:55:32 PM
Mark,

Wow, is that true that you have had only 49 power cycles since 2010? That is amazing.  =D&gt;
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on February 04, 2014, 11:24:48 PM
Mark,

Wow, is that true that you have had only 49 power cycles since 2010? That is amazing.  =D&gt;

I know I've had a plenty more reboots then that but as far as full power downs that might be a correct count.  I've had a couple lockups that I had to power it down and some power failures and a few times to clean it but that is about it.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Mark / Ohio on July 21, 2015, 12:07:01 AM
Bump.   O:)  Since I last posted here I've updated the Aspire One to Win 7.  Been online for 5 years 24/7 this July with no hardware failures.  (Knocking on wood plus hoping and praying not to jinx myself here.   :lol:)  I really had my doubts it would hold together this long and so did my computer guy.  It's a little under powered for the number of programs I'm running on it and could use some more memory but as long as it ain't really broke I'm not going to fix or replace it just yet anyway.   ;)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Skyview on July 21, 2015, 12:42:10 AM
I had to mark other as I just use a TP-Link router flashed with Meteobridge.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: mcrossley on July 21, 2015, 02:35:16 AM
I had to tick 'other' as I use a Raspberry Pi with CumulusMX.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: W3DRM on July 21, 2015, 11:53:06 AM
Just changed my vote from Netbook to Laptop.

I am in the process of switching from an Acer Netbook to a new HP Envy laptop. It has a i7 Intel processor in it and lots more memory and disk capacity than the old Acer netbook. The Acer is beginning to fail (touchpad and mouse buttons no longer work thus forcing me to use an external mouse) and the system runs extremely slow. So, I bit the bullet and decided on going to a faster laptop.

Hope to be back on-line in a couple of days and will also be adding at least one more camera...
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: C5250 on July 22, 2015, 12:19:31 AM
Wow, is that true that you have had only 49 power cycles since 2010? That is amazing.

Late... That's only an average of once per month! To me, anything less than six months is too often.

Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: PamG1 on July 22, 2015, 12:29:05 AM
I still learning about what all you do. Otherwords just a weather fan. But it is great it I could find something that help others also to be weather safe when weather do get bad. So even though, i'm on a laptop acer c7. I have to say just none on the weatherstation.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: PamG1 on July 22, 2015, 12:35:29 AM
I still learning about what all you do. Otherwords just a weather fan. But it is great if I could find something that help others also to be weather safe when weather do get bad. So even though, i'm on a laptop acer c7. I have to say just none on the weatherstation.
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: Farmtalk on July 22, 2015, 10:55:13 AM
I run Cumulus 1.94 and GRLevel 3 on my Compaq Presario CQ57 (I believe Ryan AKA Cospringswx uses the same machine).  8-)
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: yahtah on August 09, 2015, 11:25:54 PM
A little late to the party here, but I figured a small dedicated device was the best answer. Low power, (almost) always on (until I come up with battery backup, then always on) and able to store up to 10 years worth of data (if the power doesn't go out, until I get the battery). Raspberry Pi B+ with Meteohub and a Meteostick receiving data from a DVP2. Data storage isn't critical right now as everything is sent to WU Rapid Fire, and I have the Davis Console on battery if I need the data.  ;)

Edit: I voted "Other"
Title: Re: Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?
Post by: hydrocynus on October 29, 2015, 04:33:47 PM
I use a 5 watts drawing mini PC LIVA running windows 8.1 with 32GB. Works very well. It is tethered via usb to a 4G verizon wireless jetpack. The other USB is connected to the Davis console data logger (Vantage Pro 2 plus). The setup is remotely operated and it is powered by a 12V battery with a 12 to 5V converter and recharged by a 100W polycrystalline solar panel.