Just how LOW can you get your power consumption withOUT a laptop?

[joe4324]

I'm curious here, I've been conducting some experiments. I have a Kill-A-Watt Meter And I have been using it on my systems. And I'm on a mission here. I want to build the lowest power system I can that is easy to use, and still fast enough to be worthwhile.

Currently I've been working on several different systems. The most promising is this one.

Abit BH6
PII 266 underclocked to 200mhz with a Passive HS
768MB of Generic PC133
200W PS, Modded to be Passive
30GB 5400RPM HD
100Base PCI NIC
TNT2 32MB Passive

No CDROM or additional drives
Running Win2k or booting into Knoppix

No fans, totally silent.
My Killawatt meter rates it at roughtly 38-40Watts constant draw at the desktop.

Its actually decent running in windows I believe the ram makes it possible. 40watts is decent i'm happy with that, but how much lower can we get? what would a new thin client C3 system use up?

any thoughts?

 

[Yomicron]

Originally posted by: joe4324
what would a new thin client C3 system use up?

This page should give you an idea.

 

[vegetation]

You could probably save some more power by going with a 2.5" laptop style drive.

 

[thuned]

Probably can save a couple more watts with integrated video and nic.

 

[arsbanned]

Huh. I thought a system like that would draw about 30.

 

[joe4324]

Wow, Thats a great little calc there,

What I'm suprirsed at is just how low the power consumption is on those C3's, I mean the board with chip only drawing 10watts?!! thats nuts!

I also knew there was a difference between a 3.5" HDD, and a 2.5" but I never knew it was so big, literally the 2.5"'s use like 1/4th the power. I opted for a 5400RPM over a 7200 because the system couldnt handle it anywere and I figured it would save a couple/few watts.

The worst part about my little system is that the BH6 I dont believe supports standby mode. So even though 40watts isnt bad. I wish It would go into standby for half that.

Another thing that I discovered while running my meter on my gaming rig was that the level of OC you are running has a HUGE impact on your power draw, 650Mhz@1.6v drew over 40Watts less then 2.0Ghz@1.725v on my 8RDA+ I was amazed....

 

[joe4324]

any other ideas? I dont want this thread to die