tekHedd – the blog

During the discussion following the injury and hospitalization of DaMann’s XBox 360 hospitalization of DaMann’s XBox, it came to my attention that many people are recommending not using power strips with XBoxes. Well, technically, they’re afraid of surge suppressors, but that’s clearly bogus, so it’s obvious that the alleged problem is power strip fan-out.

We all know, or should know, that daisy-chaining power strips is bad. But using one power strip directly off a modern wall outlet, can that be so bad? I decided to measure it.

So, I got out the trusty volt meter, clipped it onto the leads of my XBox 360, and measured the voltage with the power off and on.

Power off (at power strip): 119.6V

Great! I have a true 120V line voltage! Some places have line voltage as low as 104V, if they are running off of three phase power. This should be OK though, as the XBox power supply is rated to work down to 100V.

So now I turned on the rest of the setup, all plugged into the power strip:

• XBox 360 elite
• Plasma TV
• Onkyo “surround in a box” system with powered sub (aka “the space heater”)

Everything powered on (at the power strip): 118.0

Wow, a 1.6V drop! Acceptable. Now I’m curious! So, I powered everything back off, moved the XBox’s plug to the wall socket, and did the test again. Same results!

Everything off (XBox in wall socket): 119.6
Everything on (XBox in wall socket): 118.0

So, all of my voltage drop was due to the distance from the breaker box
to my outlet.

The verdict is, if you’re worried about “low voltage” ruining your XBox, make sure it is on its own circuit. Here’s a picture of the test setup (at the end, when I was measuring voltage at the wall.):

X360 Power Strip Debunking Setup

No, the kitty litter is not essential to this measurement.

You’re probably wondering why in this picture the meter is showing 120.5. In fact, I was getting a little about 1 volt plus or minus of noise on the line, and chose the average value. So, take these numbers with about a volt of measurable line noise on a cheap meter.

Your mileage may vary, especially if you have 104V mains. Do not daisy chain power strips. Do not overload outlets. For best results, make sure your XBox power supply has plenty of air for cooling, and is on a fireproof surface.

This is not a profound blog. I have no insight for you today. Well, I have one, but it’s going to take some threshing out, and I’m too drunk to really get it right at 12:43 on a saturday night. (Mmmm, Modelo Especial!) It’s about the nature of god and man, and it’s pretty deep, as well as controversial and somewhat boring.

This is just a note to say that I’m replaying Fallout 2. Again. Wow. It’s still awesome. This game just… the only other “just one more turn” game I can think that compares is Civilization. Just, wow. If only it
had gum. Also, note to self: post review of the Razer Tarantula keyboard (thumbs up) the Barracuda headphones (great but almost no bass), and the Buttkicker Gamer (buy one today for your chair, and get one for your home theater, what a wicked piece of gear hooty hoo).

(or, one more reason why griefing will never go away)

It seems like there’s always at least one ongoing discussion of griefing. Why? Because it sucks for the griefee. That’s why it’s called griefing! And it seems like the real question is: what kind of person gets off on deliberately doing things that make life less fun for others in an MMO?

Evil people, that’s who. Evil is when you treat other people as objects, as robots put here for your entertainment. And in this context, MMOs are the ultimate Bad Person Wish Fulfillment Engine. Why? Because you can treat the other players however you want, with no repercussions. Heck, you can even claim that it was in character!

So, how do we get rid of these evil people? We don’t! Because MMO gaming is now about the absolute maximum bottom line, and evil people are a core demographic. That’s right, griefers pay to play, therefore MMO games will always be deliberately balanced to allow griefing. Let me say this
again: MMOs welcome griefers, as long as their credit cards work, of course. Of course, even if they weren’t making money for the game owners, they’d still be around. But if anything, there’s lots of motivation to include griefing features in a game so that asshats will be inspired to stay around. Don’t expect any serious attempts to suppress it from the game designers themselves.

There’s only one solution: peace through superior firepower.