Re: [ANN][DRK] DarkCoin | Anonymous (alpha) | KGW | No Premine | ASIC Resistant
Also, isn't heat (from a physics perspective) considered a by product, or mark of inefficiency? An incandescent lightbuld uses part of the energy input to make heat, which is inefficient. An LED light makes much less heat, and is much more efficient (as a measure of energy input vs light output).
Indeed, but all of the electricity used by a computer is turned into heat, there is no other type of energy output (if you ignore light from the screen and sound from the speakers).
As a Physics major I have to jump in here - not all of the energy used is turned into heat, in fact most isn't turned into heat at all. Heat is basically all of the wasted energy needed to run the computer. The rest of the wattage that isn't coming off as heat, the majority of the energy, is being used to do work. Basically flipping a bunch of transistors (switches) many times per second, spin hard drives and fans, etc. Heat is a waste byproduct of doing work in imperfect electrical circuits (ones with resistance, ie not a superconductor) - nothing more!
To the first question, yes it could be that it's a sign of inefficiency - but it could also be a sign that the mining software is not using the full potential of the cards.
Sorry this is getting off topic, but I must disagree with that statement. Exactly 100% of the electrical energy used by a computer is turned into heat. All of it. You can count the spinning hard drive as kinetic energy but this too is converted to heat too when it is powered off and spins down. The useful work a computer performs is not a form of energy. If the heat output does not equal the electrical energy input then your computer has broken the law of conservation of energy.
I second this notion, if you were to run a computer in a vacuum (or outer space) it would heat up continuously until it burned out. The energy is expelled 100% as heat on the other end and here on earth the heat is dissipated through oxygen (chip --- heat sink --- air (or water)). The lower temps were seeing mining dark is simply because the miner hasn't been optimized to use 100% capacity. Nothing more, nothing less.
Heat, vibration, light (led), sound - missed a few out.
Also the kinetic energy of a disk is not turned to heat by the computer's online processes.
"if you were to run a computer in a vacuum (or outer space) it would heat up continuously until it burned out."
If it sparked or developed a heat glow you would also be producing light. Also, are there any other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation produced other than visible and infra-red ? Radio frequency ? Beta radiation ?