Laptop, Desktop, or something in between on your weather station?

[Chris H.]

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.

[Chris H.]

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.

[LarsWX]

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 verses 180 for my desktop.

[gm85]

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.

[Garth Bock]

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

[Sigdigit]

Sounds like a good deal Garth.  My Acer is Atom based, works great so far.

[Downlinerz2]

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!!

[eric799]

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.

[Mark / Ohio]

Bump for any new members that want to participate in the poll.   

[Mark / Ohio]

Two month thread bummmmmmp for a new members to vote.   

[WeatherGoose]

Two month thread bummmmmmp for a new members to vote.    

Thanks for bumping this Mark!  

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

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.

[Strgazr27]

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....



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

[Feelgood Ranch]

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.

[Mark / Ohio]

...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.   

[Lite]

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.

[PCDoc]

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

[Chris H.]

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....



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.

[Mark / Ohio]

Bump   

[W3DRM]

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. 

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...

[Mark / Ohio]

Updates and new additions to the poll are welcome.   

[ed2kayak]

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

[Bushman]

Not sure how you figure a Home Server will use less energy than a Netbook...

[ed2kayak]

It wouldn't but it would simplify my backups.

[Bushman]

Best way to backup is to use a NAS.

[PCBob]

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.