Limiting power usage

[ShadowBlade]

Not sure if this is the right board, but I guess I'll find out...

I have an old slotted P3 Gateway computer running as a router. The only things in it are the hard drive, stock AGP video card, and three PCI NICs. The power supply has one fan, all other cooling is passive. Is there anything I can do to cut down the power usage of the machine? Power bills are mite higher than I'd like.

Any input is appreciated.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Yeah... buy a real router. That would use much less power than an entire PC.

 

[ShadowBlade]

Well obviously. Do you think I would have this setup if I didn't need it for various reasons?

 

[dualsmp]

Down clock your AGP card core and memory as low as it will go. My way of doing this (don't necessarily recommend) is I would test it until the screen went black, then bump the core and memory back up until it was stable. For Nvidia cards I believe holding Ctrl key will default back to original settings during bootup (in Windows at least). I'm a bit unfamiliar with Linux if that's what your using, so you'll have to use a compatible utility down clock the GPU in Linux.

Depending on the card you can save very mimimal power around 2 or 3 watts, or upwards of 10 to 20 watts. My old Geforce 4 Ti I saved about 13 watts, however my ATI 9600 only saved about 2 watts since it was low powered already.

Depending on your motherboard you can also try down clock your CPU. This could be easy or impossible. If it's an old Gateway probably impossible.

If you have an abundance of RAM you can pull a stick or two to try to conserve power, however it doesn't save a whole bunch. Minimal benefit of maybe 2 to 4 watts, but hey everything adds up. 🙂 This can have a negative impact also if it's hitting the swap file on the hard disk all the time.

If you don't need your CD-ROM, pull the plug, it can save 5 watts or more.

Spin down your hard disks if you can.

For Windows OS I've found WinXP to be more efficient than Win2k especially at idle. If your using Linux read this site: http://www.lesswatts.org/index.php

 

[yh125d]

What functionality are you getting from this setup a modern router wouldn't offer?

 

[ShadowBlade]

You can't beat the convenience of ssh access right on the router. Also, no router at this cost ($0) provides the degree of control that iptables does.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

It is doubtful there is much you can do with a gateway motherboard to save some watts. Your best bet is probably the video card suggestion, or maybe run the machine completely without a video card if possible. Again the motherboard might shitbricks if you try to boot without a video card. Another option is if the motherboard allows it, boot via USB and have no hard drive, but again this is a Gateway P3 motherboard, highly doubt it is possible.

 

[dualsmp]

You should check this site as well.
http://saf.bio.caltech.edu/saving_power.html

While not comprehensive, it gives you and idea of how much power different systems pull. The PIII is pretty darn low at 37 watts at idle, and that's most likely a complete system.

The only other system which might pull less is an old Pentium 75 or 90. I used to run my linux router off a floppy disk with 3 network cards on a Pentium 90 and it worked fine. I'd test it now with my kill-a-watt but I've since pulled the network cards, and cannibalized the floppy and fan. The power draw is going to be pretty low and sure it would idle around 20-25 watts maximum. It would be a minimal savings over your PIII but it would be less. I'm sure you could buy a board off ebay with CPU/memory and PCI video for like $10 or maybe less.