On 10/14/2015 11:41 PM, HerHusband wrote:

[snip]

The longest outage we have had in 30+ years was two days.

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com


Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

--
71 days until the winter celebration (Friday December 25, 2015 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"A fool speaks because he has to say something, but a wise man speaks
because he has something to say." -- Confucius

On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 8:30:51 AM UTC-7, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

Mark Lloyd

Last two outages (rare around here)
The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several hours but I had a small plug-in-the-car TV set to watch the local news.
A year or two ago, a car took out a telephone pole.
Got the gas powered generator started when the electricity came back on

On 10/15/2015 10:52 AM, Shade Tree Guy wrote:
On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 8:30:51 AM UTC-7, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

Mark Lloyd

Last two outages (rare around here)
The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several hours but I had a small plug-in-the-car TV set to watch the local news.
A year or two ago, a car took out a telephone pole.
Got the gas powered generator started when the electricity came back on


We've had several episodes of the power going out for days at a time
here. One ice storm nearly closed down the entire city. Most power
lines are above ground here, so trees dropped a lot of ice laden
branches and lots of people were without power. Ours was out for 10
days, but others were 2 weeks or more.

We have a couple of generators and enough extension chords to get about
90% powered up. By the time the power came back on we were so used to
using the generators it was almost a bit of culture shock to not have to
use them again.

--
Maggie

Per Ed Pawlowski:
Maybe, but an alternate fuel can still be a good backup. Kerosene and
propane heaters can be handy too. Sometimes generators don't start.

Guy I know has one of those fancy-schamcy pad-mounted gennies with
automatic start/cutover - fed by a huge propane tank.

Every so often it starts itself up for a systems check.

When we had last year's 9-day electric outage, it turned out that all
those systems checks had burned out the alternator and he was without
the gennie until the outage was over and a repair guy came out.

After hearing that, I got a second 2KW gennie.... now I have two... and,
besides it being nice to be able to make coffee or run the big
microwave, the real purpose of it is redundancy.

I keep them in the garden shed and start them up for a few minutes every
month or so .... or whenever I think of it.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:04:18 -0500, Muggles wrote:

On 10/15/2015 10:52 AM, Shade Tree Guy wrote:
On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 8:30:51 AM UTC-7, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

Mark Lloyd

Last two outages (rare around here)
The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several hours but I had a small plug-in-the-car TV set to watch the local news.
A year or two ago, a car took out a telephone pole.
Got the gas powered generator started when the electricity came back on


We've had several episodes of the power going out for days at a time
here. One ice storm nearly closed down the entire city. Most power
lines are above ground here, so trees dropped a lot of ice laden
branches and lots of people were without power. Ours was out for 10
days, but others were 2 weeks or more.

We have a couple of generators and enough extension chords to get about
90% powered up. By the time the power came back on we were so used to
using the generators it was almost a bit of culture shock to not have to
use them again.

We had a friend who was out at the end of a dead end street after
Charley and they lived on a generator for months. They say the problem
was "feeding the monster".
Sometimes fuel is hard to come by and even then you are hauling a lot
of it.

On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 17:33:39 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 7:15:16 PM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"Cindy Hamilton" wrote in message
...
On Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 10:26:35 AM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:

It is always good to have a back up when the power goes out , especially
if
in an area of the country that drops below 60 deg F. or so.

60 F? Good grief! It was 60 F and windy yesterday, yet my house
was 73 F due to the waste heat from the fridge and television.
I had to open the windows to cool the house down.


I just picked a temperature that suited me. With no electricity , there
will be no TV and fridge to make heat. Not sure how long it would take to
get a house from 70 or so down to 60 with out anthing to make heat.


Like someone else pointed out, it's actually the sun that's warming
the house, not the TV and fridge. Fridge today is under 100W, TV, IDK,
maybe 150W for a big one? Really insignificant heat for a home.


Look at all the heat coming out of a modern computer. Some of these new
multicore computers have 4 or 5 fans in them because of the excessive
heat they produce. The older computers from the early 2000's and prior
were low powered, but not anymore. If you can live with an older
computer, running Windows XP or an earlier operating system, you can
save a lot of power. But these newer operating systems cant run on that
older hardware.

I had a friend call me because her computer would turn itself off after
10 minutes or less. It was a multicore Dell machine. The CPU fan and
Power supply fan both worked, but the larger fan on the back of the case
had died. It was darn near hot enough at that CPU heatsink to fry an
egg. Because a replacement fan had to be ordered, I rigged up a window
fan and some cardboard to divert the air thru the computer, and told her
to make sure that fan is running if she needed to use the computer, and
to turn off the computer as soon as she is finished. It worked fine
until the replacement fan arrived in the mail a week later.

I never leave on my newer computer in hot weather, but I dont worry much
about using my old early 2000's single core machine with XP.

On 2015-10-15, wrote:

I never leave on my newer computer in hot weather, but I dont worry much
about using my old early 2000's single core machine with XP.

I need to move up to a new computer, but was not aware of the heat
probs you mention. My ancient P4 box doesn't even leave the PS fan
running during use, only during boot up. I thought the newer CPUs
were similar, but you say multi cores need mucho cooking. Zat include
i5's and i7's?

Thnx. I'll keep this info in mind.

nb

On 10/15/2015 1:05 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:04:18 -0500, Muggles wrote:

On 10/15/2015 10:52 AM, Shade Tree Guy wrote:
On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 8:30:51 AM UTC-7, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

Mark Lloyd

Last two outages (rare around here)
The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several hours but I had a small plug-in-the-car TV set to watch the local news.
A year or two ago, a car took out a telephone pole.
Got the gas powered generator started when the electricity came back on


We've had several episodes of the power going out for days at a time
here. One ice storm nearly closed down the entire city. Most power
lines are above ground here, so trees dropped a lot of ice laden
branches and lots of people were without power. Ours was out for 10
days, but others were 2 weeks or more.

We have a couple of generators and enough extension chords to get about
90% powered up. By the time the power came back on we were so used to
using the generators it was almost a bit of culture shock to not have to
use them again.

We had a friend who was out at the end of a dead end street after
Charley and they lived on a generator for months. They say the problem
was "feeding the monster".
Sometimes fuel is hard to come by and even then you are hauling a lot
of it.


That part is true. For us, even our grocery stores and gas stations
didn't have power for a few days, so we had to go to unaffected parts of
town to get fuel. A couple of gas stations, thankfully, were quicker to
set up their own giant generators so they could run the pumps and do
business otherwise. A local grocery store had to do the same thing.

--
Maggie

On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 11:53:03 AM UTC-4, Shade Tree Guy wrote:
On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 8:30:51 AM UTC-7, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

Mark Lloyd

Last two outages (rare around here)
The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several hours but I had a small plug-in-the-car TV set to watch the local news.
A year or two ago, a car took out a telephone pole.
Got the gas powered generator started when the electricity came back on

For years I thought that the electric utility waited until
they heard my generator start before they'd turn the power
back on. Every darned time, except 2003 when they let
me run the gennie all night long. Kept my husband's CPAP
going, anyway.

Cindy Hamilton

On 15 Oct 2015 18:55:50 GMT, notbob wrote:

On 2015-10-15, wrote:

I never leave on my newer computer in hot weather, but I dont worry much
about using my old early 2000's single core machine with XP.

I need to move up to a new computer, but was not aware of the heat
probs you mention. My ancient P4 box doesn't even leave the PS fan
running during use, only during boot up. I thought the newer CPUs
were similar, but you say multi cores need mucho cooking. Zat include
i5's and i7's?

Thnx. I'll keep this info in mind.

nb
My experience has been the intel processors are not too bad in the
heat department - I have i3, i5, and i7 machines and they all stay
nice and cool without the fans running on high.

Those AMD monsters can be a horse of a totally different color. A few
years ago a customer burned out 3 motherboards - actually BURNED
through the circuit boards. Finally convinced him to go Intel instead
of AMD, even though for a "gamer machine" the AMDs were significantly
faster.

On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 13:57:48 -0500, Muggles wrote:

On 10/15/2015 1:05 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:04:18 -0500, Muggles wrote:

On 10/15/2015 10:52 AM, Shade Tree Guy wrote:
On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 8:30:51 AM UTC-7, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

Mark Lloyd

Last two outages (rare around here)
The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several hours but I had a small plug-in-the-car TV set to watch the local news.
A year or two ago, a car took out a telephone pole.
Got the gas powered generator started when the electricity came back on


We've had several episodes of the power going out for days at a time
here. One ice storm nearly closed down the entire city. Most power
lines are above ground here, so trees dropped a lot of ice laden
branches and lots of people were without power. Ours was out for 10
days, but others were 2 weeks or more.

We have a couple of generators and enough extension chords to get about
90% powered up. By the time the power came back on we were so used to
using the generators it was almost a bit of culture shock to not have to
use them again.

We had a friend who was out at the end of a dead end street after
Charley and they lived on a generator for months. They say the problem
was "feeding the monster".
Sometimes fuel is hard to come by and even then you are hauling a lot
of it.


That part is true. For us, even our grocery stores and gas stations
didn't have power for a few days, so we had to go to unaffected parts of
town to get fuel. A couple of gas stations, thankfully, were quicker to
set up their own giant generators so they could run the pumps and do
business otherwise. A local grocery store had to do the same thing.
I don't have to carry my natural gas, and the pumps on the line are
natural gas powered so they don't go out in power outages.

On 15 Oct 2015 18:55:50 GMT, notbob wrote:

On 2015-10-15, wrote:

I never leave on my newer computer in hot weather, but I dont worry much
about using my old early 2000's single core machine with XP.

I need to move up to a new computer, but was not aware of the heat
probs you mention. My ancient P4 box doesn't even leave the PS fan
running during use, only during boot up. I thought the newer CPUs
were similar, but you say multi cores need mucho cooking. Zat include
i5's and i7's?


AFAIK, newer computers use less power than old ones. I5's and I7's
run pretty cool. 84-90 watts. And LED's use less power than CRT's.
SSD's use less power than spinners.
High end graphics cards can get hot, but you might not need one.

Per :
We had a friend who was out at the end of a dead end street after
Charley and they lived on a generator for months. They say the problem
was "feeding the monster".
Sometimes fuel is hard to come by and even then you are hauling a lot
of it.

Somebody in one of the generator fora coined the phrase "Lifeboat vs
Cruise Ship"....

I opted for "Lifeboat" (2 KW Honda) and the neighbor for "Cruise ship"
(6 KW Home Depot).

During the nine-day outage last year the neighbor was driving all over
Southeastern Pennsylvania getting gas for his Home Depot monster while I
was sitting at home experiencing a certain degree of schadenfreude....
--
Pete Cresswell

"Cindy Hamilton" wrote in message

For years I thought that the electric utility waited until
they heard my generator start before they'd turn the power
back on.

(-:

Every darned time, except 2003 when they let
me run the gennie all night long. Kept my husband's CPAP
going, anyway.

The newer CPAPs run on 12VDC as well as AC and a good sized battery - car or
scooter can keep them going all night and even several days depending on the
size of the battery. My ex-boss needed one and he was in bad enough shape
not to be able to fuel or futz with a generator. Hooked up a 55Ah gel cell
scooter batter from Harbor Freight to a 2A trickle charger so the unit was
always battery powered. So far, so good.

This site

http://www.cpap.com/cpap-faq/Power.html

claims:

For example, a CPAP machine set at 10 cm H20 and charged on a deep-cycle
marine battery will usually last three nights before it needs to be
recharged.

But that has to be taken with a grain of salt because marine batteries come
in all sorts of capacities and they didn't specify.

http://www.cpap.com/cpap-compare-chart.php

alleges to list which machines run on 12VDC. The higher the CPAP setting,
obviously, the shorter the battery life. I'd recommend anyone who depends
on a CPAP look into battery backup power.

--
Bobby G.


--
Bobby G.

Look at all the heat coming out of a modern computer. Some of these
new multicore computers have 4 or 5 fans in them because of the
excessive heat they produce.

Maybe it's time to upgrade your computer...

I have a new-ish quad-core i7-4790K, 16GB RAM, 1 TB internal hard drive,
1TB external hard drive, 256GB SSD, 1 TB SSD, fanless GTX750 graphics card,
TV tuner card, firewire card, Samsung LCD monitor, cable modem, and
wireless router.

The whole she-bang runs on a Cyberpower UPS and only uses 81 watts under
typical loads (displayed on the UPS). That drops to around 60 at night when
I turn off the monitor and the hard drives power down.

That's basically equivalent to a single incandescent light bulb.

If I really push it processing videos, I can get it up to 130 watts or so,
but that's short lived.

Heat output is minimal. CPU-ID hardware monitor shows my CPU running at 98F
degrees, the other components are at 85F-94F degrees. That's less than my
own body heat (98.6F).

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

On 10/15/2015 12:41 AM, HerHusband wrote:

If the power goes out completely, we have a woodstove. It easily heats
the entire house, we can cook on it if needed, and we can boil a pan of
water for bathing purposes. It even provides a bit of light.

I've not used the woodstove in a few years, but it is comforting to know
I can fire it up at any time. It had a griddle on the top so we can
cook directly on it if desired. I like opening the doors though, to
grill a steak.




I have a wide assortment of battery powered lighting and battery backup
for the computer and other devices.

The LED lanterns are great. They last 40+ hours on a set of batteries
and are very bright.




The longest outage we have had in 30+ years was two days.

Hurricane Gloria, 2 1/2 days in 70 years. Next to that, maybe 12 to 14
hours. Longest in winter was only a few hours.

wrote in message

stuff snipped

Those AMD monsters can be a horse of a totally different color. A few
years ago a customer burned out 3 motherboards - actually BURNED
through the circuit boards. Finally convinced him to go Intel instead
of AMD, even though for a "gamer machine" the AMDs were significantly
faster.

Back in the day when I was building 400mHz clones, the AMD chips would
self-immolate if they lost cooling - i.e. if you booted up without
remembering to reattach the fan.

Intel CPUs of the same vintage merely throttled back the operating speed
when the cooling failed. AMD said it was the motherboard maker's
responsibility to cover "cooling failures" but I found that very
unsatifisying. Those huge coolers of the era could pop off if the machine
was moved roughly and more than one CPU was killed on bootup because of it.
I stopped using AMD based motherboards until they finally relenting and
began building CPUs that didn't incinerate themselves.

--
Bobby G.

I've not used the woodstove in a few years, but it is comforting
to know I can fire it up at any time.

We typically use ours a few times a week during the winter, mostly in the
evenings for the ambiance and cozy heat that only a wood fire provides.

However, last winter was so warm we were only able to use the wood stove
a few times. It just gets too hot in the house unless it's in the 40's or
lower outside. Long range forecast is for another warm winter here this
year.

It had a griddle on the top so we can cook directly on it if desired.
I like opening the doors though, to grill a steak.

Interesting. I've never heard of grilling a steak on a woodstove.

Our woodstove is small (we have a small house), so we can only fit a pan
on the sides. I probably wouldn't cook a meal on it unless I had to, but
it's doable if it came to that.

The LED lanterns are great. They last 40+ hours on a set of batteries
and are very bright.

Yep, I bought an LED lantern a few years ago. Still on the original
batteries and going strong, even though we take it camping with us too.

We also have a few of these emergency backup lights plugged in around the
house. They turn on automatically when the power goes out, nice when
you're on the other side of a dark room. They also make nice flashlights
if we need to move about the house or work on something.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ETW7C24

Hurricane Gloria, 2 1/2 days in 70 years. Next to that, maybe 12 to 14
hours. Longest in winter was only a few hours.

Thankfully, we don't get hurricanes here, and tornadoes are extremely
rare. We did get two wind storms last winter that knocked the power out
twice for 8-9 hours each (trees blew down on the power lines all over the
county).

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

On 10/15/2015 3:55 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 13:57:48 -0500, Muggles wrote:

On 10/15/2015 1:05 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:04:18 -0500, Muggles wrote:

On 10/15/2015 10:52 AM, Shade Tree Guy wrote:
On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 8:30:51 AM UTC-7, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Here, long (more than a couple of hours) outages seem to happen every 8
years. However, only 1 of the last 3 have been in the winter.

As I said in another post, I was glad to have the gas logs (gas water
heater too).

Mark Lloyd

Last two outages (rare around here)
The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several hours but I had a small plug-in-the-car TV set to watch the local news.
A year or two ago, a car took out a telephone pole.
Got the gas powered generator started when the electricity came back on


We've had several episodes of the power going out for days at a time
here. One ice storm nearly closed down the entire city. Most power
lines are above ground here, so trees dropped a lot of ice laden
branches and lots of people were without power. Ours was out for 10
days, but others were 2 weeks or more.

We have a couple of generators and enough extension chords to get about
90% powered up. By the time the power came back on we were so used to
using the generators it was almost a bit of culture shock to not have to
use them again.

We had a friend who was out at the end of a dead end street after
Charley and they lived on a generator for months. They say the problem
was "feeding the monster".
Sometimes fuel is hard to come by and even then you are hauling a lot
of it.


That part is true. For us, even our grocery stores and gas stations
didn't have power for a few days, so we had to go to unaffected parts of
town to get fuel. A couple of gas stations, thankfully, were quicker to
set up their own giant generators so they could run the pumps and do
business otherwise. A local grocery store had to do the same thing.
I don't have to carry my natural gas, and the pumps on the line are
natural gas powered so they don't go out in power outages.


We have gas heat and water heaters, so we're at least warm and can take
hot baths if the power is out.

--
Maggie

On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 7:32:58 PM UTC-4, HerHusband wrote:
Look at all the heat coming out of a modern computer. Some of these
new multicore computers have 4 or 5 fans in them because of the
excessive heat they produce.

Maybe it's time to upgrade your computer...

I have a new-ish quad-core i7-4790K, 16GB RAM, 1 TB internal hard drive,
1TB external hard drive, 256GB SSD, 1 TB SSD, fanless GTX750 graphics card,
TV tuner card, firewire card, Samsung LCD monitor, cable modem, and
wireless router.

The whole she-bang runs on a Cyberpower UPS and only uses 81 watts under
typical loads (displayed on the UPS). That drops to around 60 at night when
I turn off the monitor and the hard drives power down.

That's basically equivalent to a single incandescent light bulb.

If I really push it processing videos, I can get it up to 130 watts or so,
but that's short lived.

Heat output is minimal. CPU-ID hardware monitor shows my CPU running at 98F
degrees, the other components are at 85F-94F degrees. That's less than my
own body heat (98.6F).

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

Kind of what I was thinking too.... Using an i7 here and can barely
hear the fan, there is no bulk air flow that you can feel blowing out
the back with your hand. Power supply is smaller than what they typically
were 20 years ago and back then you could feel the air blowing out the
back, sometimes with multiple fans. The have had an energy star program
to reduce PC power use for a couple of decades now.

On Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 1:58:10 PM UTC-4, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Ed Pawlowski:
Maybe, but an alternate fuel can still be a good backup. Kerosene and
propane heaters can be handy too. Sometimes generators don't start.

Guy I know has one of those fancy-schamcy pad-mounted gennies with
automatic start/cutover - fed by a huge propane tank.

Every so often it starts itself up for a systems check.

When we had last year's 9-day electric outage, it turned out that all
those systems checks had burned out the alternator and he was without
the gennie until the outage was over and a repair guy came out.

After hearing that, I got a second 2KW gennie.... now I have two... and,
besides it being nice to be able to make coffee or run the big
microwave, the real purpose of it is redundancy.

I keep them in the garden shed and start them up for a few minutes every
month or so .... or whenever I think of it.
--
Pete Cresswell

A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.

On 10/15/2015 09:04 PM, Robert Green wrote:
Intel CPUs of the same vintage merely throttled back the operating speed
when the cooling failed. AMD said it was the motherboard maker's
responsibility to cover "cooling failures" but I found that very
unsatifisying. Those huge coolers of the era could pop off if the machine
was moved roughly and more than one CPU was killed on bootup because of it.
I stopped using AMD based motherboards until they finally relenting and
began building CPUs that didn't incinerate themselves.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/261186

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LQhf17i33g

Some nerd had a sense of humor and too much time on his hands to have a
computer play Beethoven as its swan song.

Using an i7 here and can barely hear the fan

I work in a quiet home office so I don't want to listen to computer fans
all day. I replaced all of my CPU and case fans with these GELID FN-PX12-15
fans. Absolutely silent unless I'm really pushing the system hard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835426015

Power supply is smaller than what they typically were 20 years ago

I have an Antec 650 watt power supply, but am obviously only using a
fraction of the power it can supply.

back then you could feel the air blowing out the back

Yeah, before I upgraded my computer a few years back, my computer provided
a bit of heat under my desk. I was surprised by the temperature difference
after upgrading.

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 23:04:55 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:

wrote in message

stuff snipped

Those AMD monsters can be a horse of a totally different color. A few
years ago a customer burned out 3 motherboards - actually BURNED
through the circuit boards. Finally convinced him to go Intel instead
of AMD, even though for a "gamer machine" the AMDs were significantly
faster.

Back in the day when I was building 400mHz clones, the AMD chips would
self-immolate if they lost cooling - i.e. if you booted up without
remembering to reattach the fan.

Intel CPUs of the same vintage merely throttled back the operating speed
when the cooling failed. AMD said it was the motherboard maker's
responsibility to cover "cooling failures" but I found that very
unsatifisying. Those huge coolers of the era could pop off if the machine
was moved roughly and more than one CPU was killed on bootup because of it.
I stopped using AMD based motherboards until they finally relenting and
began building CPUs that didn't incinerate themselves.
Do you mean they have????

"rbowman" wrote in message
...
On 10/15/2015 09:04 PM, Robert Green wrote:
Intel CPUs of the same vintage merely throttled back the operating speed
when the cooling failed. AMD said it was the motherboard maker's
responsibility to cover "cooling failures" but I found that very
unsatifisying. Those huge coolers of the era could pop off if the
machine
was moved roughly and more than one CPU was killed on bootup because of
it.
I stopped using AMD based motherboards until they finally relenting and
began building CPUs that didn't incinerate themselves.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/261186

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LQhf17i33g

Some nerd had a sense of humor and too much time on his hands to have a
computer play Beethoven as its swan song.

Shoulda played "Heatwave" by Martha and the Vandelas or at least "Light My
Fire" by the doors. Or maybe Glen Frey's "The Heat is On."

I have a few exploded AMD CPUs in the "Drawer of Horrors" - blew the corner
of the chip right off.

--
Bobby G.

"Vic Smith" wrote in message

stuff snipped

AFAIK, newer computers use less power than old ones. I5's and I7's
run pretty cool. 84-90 watts. And LED's use less power than CRT's.
SSD's use less power than spinners.

When I switched from PIII and IV towers to laptops the power dropped from
150W to 17W per machine. With 10 machines throughout the house, that ended
up be quite a visible savings on the power bill. Same for the new
refrigerator and air conditioners. The switch to LEDs has been a little
less dramatic because I was transitioning from CFLs, not incandescents.

High end graphics cards can get hot, but you might not need one.

Few people do and kids seem to want Play Stations and X-boxes now instead of
PCs and that makes sense. I found nothing twitchier and quirkier than high
end graphic cards.

It used to take ATI several versions to get their priciest cards to
stabilize. Even then there was always an occasional GPF or BSOD in the
middle of a game. I'm very happy using laptops and since I use them to
power much larger monitors, I can get units with cracked screens for a song
on Ebay. The only game still on any of my PCs (a retired tower unit I light
up every now and then) is Tiberian Sun "Command and Conquer." The little
soldiers are always polite and respectful, even after you've sent then on a
suicide recon mission.

--
Bobby G.

On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.


I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.

Thanks for the field report.

-
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 07:12:48 -0500, Stormin Mormon
wrote:

On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the
routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up
buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the
old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could
probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.


I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.

Thanks for the field report.

Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org

I can't imagine a short test run every week or so
being a problem for equipment that's worth anything.
Generators for irrigation systems in my area run about
800 hours per year or so. They sit outside for months
at a time between uses. There's usually no need to use
them from about Thanksgiving or so until maybe mid March.
Most of these generators are Lima-Mac. They're three
phase, 480 volt, 10 or 15 kw.




--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 8:12:39 AM UTC-4, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.


I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.


Impossible. They run for about 10 mins once a week.
Insignificant in the expected life of a generator.
And even if it did, it would still be the manufacturer's
fault. They spec'd the eqpt and set the default weekly
test cycle.




Thanks for the field report.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org
.
.

On 10/17/2015 8:42 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 8:12:39 AM UTC-4, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.


I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.


Impossible. They run for about 10 mins once a week.
Insignificant in the expe[Makes sense. Why would
they design in a weekly test, if it killed the genset?]
cted life of a generator.
And even if it did, it would still be the manufacturer's
fault. They spec'd the eqpt and set the default weekly
test cycle.




Thanks for the field report.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org
.
.


Center posted, like your reply.
-
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 10:06:25 AM UTC-4, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/17/2015 8:42 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 8:12:39 AM UTC-4, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.


I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.


Impossible. They run for about 10 mins once a week.
Insignificant in the expe[Makes sense. Why would
they design in a weekly test, if it killed the genset?]
cted life of a generator.
And even if it did, it would still be the manufacturer's
fault. They spec'd the eqpt and set the default weekly
test cycle.




Thanks for the field report.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org
.
.


Center posted, like your reply.
-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org


The only thing that made my reply "center posted" is that I didn't
trim off your usual Mormon plug. And about this you actually
have the nerve to complain? And you were the poster that people
for years complained about top posting and you continued.

Now go **** your Mormon self.

On 10/17/2015 8:12 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died.
...snip...

I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.

Thanks for the field report.


I know that you know this already but...

the Internet is overflowing with drama queens.
If we listened to some of the clowns here we'd never
buy any product ever again.

I have a 9-year-old 17kw NG Generac and it powers us
thru the typical 3-day after-storm outages just fine.
Has not failed yet.

Also have a house full of Whirlpool appliances,
some over 20 years old, all are humming along just fine.
And the Toyota vehicles in the driveway perform flawlessly as well.

And then there's Comcast. According to the attention-seekers,
Comcast is the devil incarnate yet we enjoy perfect service from them.
Comcast employees have always treated us well and
their prices are the best in the area.
What's not to like?

My 94-year-old parents just retired a 44-year-old
Lochinvar electric water heater made in Detroit.

They also have a 62-year-old GE chest freezer that
is still in service.

Sure, products fail occasionally and I'm sure Comcast has missed a
service appointment or two but it's not the epidemic that some
would have us believe.

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 07:40:38 -0500, "Dean Hoffman"
wrote:

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 07:12:48 -0500, Stormin Mormon
wrote:

On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the
routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up
buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the
old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could
probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.


I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.

Thanks for the field report.

Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org

I can't imagine a short test run every week or so
being a problem for equipment that's worth anything.
Generators for irrigation systems in my area run about
800 hours per year or so. They sit outside for months
at a time between uses. There's usually no need to use
them from about Thanksgiving or so until maybe mid March.
Most of these generators are Lima-Mac. They're three
phase, 480 volt, 10 or 15 kw.
Consumer grade generacr and "equipment that's worth anything." in
the same sentance? My, My,My ---------

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 08:54:47 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

The only thing that made my reply "center posted" is that I didn't
trim off your usual Mormon plug. And about this you actually
have the nerve to complain? And you were the poster that people
for years complained about top posting and you continued.

Now go **** your Mormon self.

He just complained about Monster and Muggs about not trimming their
post. Yet the Mormon will not fix his delimiter in his sig line after
years of top posting. Using 7 lines with the improper delimiter.

He wants others to change posting styles while forcing his sig lines
in every post. Holding up a big sign, pay attention to me, I'm a
Mormon, I'm really important. Like somebody gives a ****.

He gives advice but can't take advice. Hey look at me! I'm special.

On 10/17/2015 3:10 PM, Oren wrote:
He wants others to change posting styles while forcing his sig lines
in every post. Holding up a big sign, pay attention to me, I'm a
Mormon, I'm really important. Like somebody gives a ****.

He gives advice but can't take advice. Hey look at me! I'm special.

And being an ex jail employee is something ****ing special?

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 15:29:36 -0400, astraweb
wrote:

And being an ex jail employee is something ****ing special?

Who are you talking to, peckerwood? Only one person in this group
worked in a jail and I respect him. He is likely out cutting fire
wood for winter.

If your reference is towards me, no, I never worked a "jail". I
worked with people that would gut you, hang your intestines around a
window frame for a Christmas decoration. Or kill you, tie you up on a
bed post for the stand up count, and then eat your lunch at the next
meal.

I'm not special. I just have a bigger set of balls than you.

Now. Go lay down in the corner and lick your nuts -- if you have any.
If I wanted any **** from you I'd have to cut off your neck and ****
down your throat.

On 10/17/2015 8:42 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 8:12:39 AM UTC-4, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.

I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.

Impossible. They run for about 10 mins once a week.
Insignificant in the expected life of a generator.
And even if it did, it would still be the manufacturer's
fault. They spec'd the eqpt and set the default weekly
test cycle.




Thanks for the field report.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org
.
.
I have been actively following the best national forum for Generac since installing one myself in 2006. The number of issues and complainrts on the forum are huge.

The dealers and service people who attend the forum make the claim that
everybody is building similar stuff, and switching brands will not make
much of a difference. I have no way of proving or disproving their
claims, but my own unit has had a lot of small failures, each of which
has rendered the generator useless until they are fixed, such as failed
oil pressure sensor, leaking rubber part (manufacturing defect) leading
to overcrank /no start, bad gaskets, etc. It has delivered 7 years of
weekly testing and a total of 4 hours of actual use.

If Honda or somebody with quality engineering offered a replacement, I
would immediately replace mine. I would gladly pay twice the price for a
really reliable unit. Mine was $17000 for a 7K natural gas unit, and I
did all the installation (gas,
electric, concrete pad, etc.) by myself in one weekend.

Generac keeps changing model styles, cabinets, internal components, and
specs. They have not even slightly focused on perfecting a single design
and refining the functions, performance, safety, or reliability.

They have, as a single and only compliment, kept their prices fairly
constant, but their service and reliability makes them totally unsuited
for any really critical backup. If I leave and go out of town, I have
absolutely no confidence that my furnace, sump pump, refrigerator, etc.
will continue to work in a power outage, I know several Generac owners
locally with the same conclusion as mine, some of whom paid $5-7K for
big 16KW units with labor to install.

On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 11:06:51 AM UTC-5, astraweb wrote:
On 10/17/2015 8:12 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died.
...snip...

I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.

Thanks for the field report.


I know that you know this already but...

the Internet is overflowing with drama queens.
If we listened to some of the clowns here we'd never
buy any product ever again.

I have a 9-year-old 17kw NG Generac and it powers us
thru the typical 3-day after-storm outages just fine.
Has not failed yet.

Also have a house full of Whirlpool appliances,
some over 20 years old, all are humming along just fine.
And the Toyota vehicles in the driveway perform flawlessly as well.

And then there's Comcast. According to the attention-seekers,
Comcast is the devil incarnate yet we enjoy perfect service from them.
Comcast employees have always treated us well and
their prices are the best in the area.
What's not to like?

My 94-year-old parents just retired a 44-year-old
Lochinvar electric water heater made in Detroit.

They also have a 62-year-old GE chest freezer that
is still in service.

Sure, products fail occasionally and I'm sure Comcast has missed a
service appointment or two but it's not the epidemic that some
would have us believe.

Which engine and rpm do you have? The Generacs of 10kw and up we installed back in the 90's and early part of this century had a Turkish copy of a 4 cyl liquid cooled Fiat engine. The 10kw was my favorite because it ran at 1,800 rpm and had few problems. The 17kw with the same engine ran at 3,600 rpm. The very last Generac installation I was involved with was I think a 12kw with the Generac manufactured big honking air cooled V-twin. The small 8kw Generac NG generators I'd previously installed were powered by the air cooled V-Twin Briggs and Stratton Vanguard engine. Generac came up with its own air cooled V-Twin engine that powers different sized units across the board. I don't know what liquid cooled industrial engine they're now installing in their much larger gensets. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Gen Monster

On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 6:01:10 PM UTC-5, Smarty wrote:

.
I have been actively following the best national forum for Generac since installing one myself in 2006. The number of issues and complainrts on the forum are huge.

The dealers and service people who attend the forum make the claim that
everybody is building similar stuff, and switching brands will not make
much of a difference. I have no way of proving or disproving their
claims, but my own unit has had a lot of small failures, each of which
has rendered the generator useless until they are fixed, such as failed
oil pressure sensor, leaking rubber part (manufacturing defect) leading
to overcrank /no start, bad gaskets, etc. It has delivered 7 years of
weekly testing and a total of 4 hours of actual use.

If Honda or somebody with quality engineering offered a replacement, I
would immediately replace mine. I would gladly pay twice the price for a
really reliable unit. Mine was $17000 for a 7K natural gas unit, and I
did all the installation (gas,
electric, concrete pad, etc.) by myself in one weekend.

Generac keeps changing model styles, cabinets, internal components, and
specs. They have not even slightly focused on perfecting a single design
and refining the functions, performance, safety, or reliability.

They have, as a single and only compliment, kept their prices fairly
constant, but their service and reliability makes them totally unsuited
for any really critical backup. If I leave and go out of town, I have
absolutely no confidence that my furnace, sump pump, refrigerator, etc.
will continue to work in a power outage, I know several Generac owners
locally with the same conclusion as mine, some of whom paid $5-7K for
big 16KW units with labor to install.

I replaced a lot of defective oil pressure switches in air cooled and liquid cooled Generac units. I did have a water pump fail on a large Generac, I'm think it was a 20kw with a Nissan engine but when Generac gensets were serviced properly, I rarely saw mechanical problems. One of my favorite gensets is the old 15kw 4cyl air cooled Onan unit. I rarely had a problem with those. Me and the guys installed a used 40kw Kohler at a fellows home. A friend who was a carpenter built a fake doghouse to camouflage the big genset. As I remember, it had a Ford engine and it was a used unit that had a bad control board in the transfer switch. I rarely saw an internal engine failure in a properly serviced genset of any brand. Most problems were with control systems. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Air Monster

On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 7:01:10 PM UTC-4, Smarty wrote:
On 10/17/2015 8:42 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 8:12:39 AM UTC-4, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 10/16/2015 7:27 AM, trader_4 wrote:
A guy who lives near me had a similar experience. He had a 12KW Generac
nat gas powered, maybe 5 years old. Started up every week for the routine
check run. Very lightly used, power is generally reliable here. During
a hurricane outage, a few hours into running, it died. He wound up buying
a gas generator from one of the out-of-state guys with a rental truck.
I'm sure that wasn't cheap. He had the service guys come out and they
told him it wasn't worth fixing. So, he bought a new one. I got the old
one, which, since it was only a few years old, I figured I could probably
fix and keep. We knew the engine part was good, it started, ran for a
minute, etc. Upon diagnosing, the rotor for sure was shot and possibly
the armature. It would have been several hundred just for a new rotor.
The I happened to look at the reviews on Amazon for Generac standby
generators. They were horrific. All kinds of people in similar or
worse situations, including new ones out of the box that were defective.
A lot of people said they ran fine for the weekly test, then failed
when needed. I came to the conclusion that for the money I'd have to
put into it, versus what I'd wind up with, it wasn't worth it.

I wonder if the weekly test used up all the
hours of run time? Maybe if it were tested
every six months, it would work when needed.

Impossible. They run for about 10 mins once a week.
Insignificant in the expected life of a generator.
And even if it did, it would still be the manufacturer's
fault. They spec'd the eqpt and set the default weekly
test cycle.




Thanks for the field report.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org
.
.
I have been actively following the best national forum for Generac since installing one myself in 2006. The number of issues and complainrts on the forum are huge.

The dealers and service people who attend the forum make the claim that
everybody is building similar stuff, and switching brands will not make
much of a difference. I have no way of proving or disproving their
claims, but my own unit has had a lot of small failures, each of which
has rendered the generator useless until they are fixed, such as failed
oil pressure sensor, leaking rubber part (manufacturing defect) leading
to overcrank /no start, bad gaskets, etc. It has delivered 7 years of
weekly testing and a total of 4 hours of actual use.

If Honda or somebody with quality engineering offered a replacement, I
would immediately replace mine. I would gladly pay twice the price for a
really reliable unit. Mine was $17000 for a 7K natural gas unit, and I
did all the installation (gas,
electric, concrete pad, etc.) by myself in one weekend.

Generac keeps changing model styles, cabinets, internal components, and
specs. They have not even slightly focused on perfecting a single design
and refining the functions, performance, safety, or reliability.

They have, as a single and only compliment, kept their prices fairly
constant, but their service and reliability makes them totally unsuited
for any really critical backup. If I leave and go out of town, I have
absolutely no confidence that my furnace, sump pump, refrigerator, etc.
will continue to work in a power outage, I know several Generac owners
locally with the same conclusion as mine, some of whom paid $5-7K for
big 16KW units with labor to install.

Thanks for confirming what I thought. Luckily I figured it out before
putting $$$ into repairing that freebie one. Another factor that lead
me to that conclusion was that from my testing, the only thing that was
shot was the armature. A new one could be had for a few hundred bucks.
Yet the dealer was recommending scrapping it and buying another on a
unit that was only about 5 years old. It was possible that the service
guy had better test eqpt and figured out that the stator was also shot,
but I tend to doubt it had multiple failures all at the same time.
So, I'm thinking the service guy knows that a 5 years, even if you
fixed it, the future isn't likely to be very good. I guess they also
make more money faster on selling a whole new unit, but if you're doing
that only for that reason, you're not going to have many happy customers.

BTW, if you need any parts for yours, post a message here and maybe I
can help you out. Still have most of the parts. I made the mistake
of deciding to part it out instead of putting it on CL or Ebay as a
whole unit. And what do you think the one thing is that I sold?
The cabinet.... Go figure.