cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/58764195
I was in the non-profit shop of a local charity. They accept donations of used computers then resell them to the public. The profit goes to charity. I asked for their oldest machine. It had an AMD chip from the 16h family. Thus, a spychip.
So their oldest machine was still too new for me. I asked why don’t you have anything older? They said the general public would not accept anything older, and so the shop also does not accept anything older. When machines are rejected, they go to a factory that destroys them and recovers the raw metals.
It’s sad to see that pre-spychip machines are being destroyed and that even 2nd-hand customers are being limited to anti-consumer spychip hardware.
I totally share the desire for really cheap very old hardware. But is there any financial justification for a charity shop paying to stock it? Plus the energy cost to run it if you do buy it.
Then compare to the price tag of a pi zero.
There is financial justification if they can actually sell it. And of course not if they cannot sell it. We don’t get a crystal ball. It’s a judgement call to predict whether they can sell it. They have opted to be risk averse. The decision was likely made without awareness of pre-spychip characteristics and without considering whether it can be marketed as such. It would be interesting to know if a shop has actually tried that, which can confirm that pre-spychips don’t sell even when marketed as such.
One of the problems is that the shop cannot handle supporting the public on linux. Independent of hardware performance, they abandoned linux in the store and returned to only selling Windows machines. Their staff turnover was too high to keep training staff on giving linux support.
Energy cost is the same. A 65w PSU that is pegged will draw 65 watts regardless of what it drives. If the hardware is not being heavily tasked and the platform is lean, then there is only a difference on responsiveness but not on energy. Furthermore, some of these pre-spy chips have a TDP of 17w, which is interesting enough that recent machines are still being produced with them:
https://cputronic.com/index.php/cpu/amd-a4-4355m
A 17w TDP means it’s efficient enough to be fanless, or to not need to spin a fan often. It’s foolish to let laptops with 17w APUs get tossed when the very same CPU is still going into modern laptops precisely because of their efficient /for the money/.
Some of the higher TDP chips from the same family are notoriously inefficient. So sellers and buyers need some awareness. In the worst case, an inefficient chip is not so inefficient in a cold region or cold season. We cannot say from 10,000 feet whether such instances would be inefficiently deployed when speaking independant of the regional climate.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I’m aware of the potential for innuendo here, but I am going to have to ask what you mean by “pegging” a PSU.
A 65W PSU can supply at most 65W, but it doesn’t “draw 65 watts regardless”. It will draw less than max power if it is using less.
This can be easily verified by using a power meter on the outlet. I have machines with 90W and 25W PSUs drawing only 9W and 4W respectively at idle.
Yes, indeed. You understand correctly. Pegging means the appliance is drawing the max amount of current. As a PC becomes more efficient, the PSU does not shrink. It just gives more calculations for the same energy drawn. But if it’s mostly at idle doing basic tasks like web browsing, there isn’t a notable consumption difference. A 65W PSU was typical two decades ago, and also still today.
Its not just about being able to sell it, but selling it for enough to justify the shelf space it takes up and how long it will be sat around waiting for it to sell.
Regardless, the answer’s the same. Crystal ball, etc