Low power PC

[Dice144]

Well I just got a Macbook for my daily Anandtech reading/other tech sites to read from the couch. I currently have two desktops.

Gaming Rid: AMD 1090@3.8Ghz, 6 gigs of DDR3, Nvidia GTX 460 OC, OCZ SSD 30 boot drive, 1 TB data drive.

"Downloader"
My old AMD 620 with 2 gigs of ram (stole a stick from my gaming rig) WD black 750 GB, onboard video ATI 4290. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157168
I undervolt and underclocked it abit but it was choking on some playback. I changed the cheap free PSU I got from a client to an Antec 380 Earth watts. Which lowered my idle watts to the 44 range (measured from a Kill a Watt wall meter) This system is my movie system as well/file server. Currently using Ubuntu but need to install OSX or Win7 because Netflix does not support Linux and I just got hooked on netflix. I also think the ATI drivers in Linux are bleh.

I was debating giving the downloader system to my parent for a extra Xmas gift since they cannot afford a new system right now.

Now to get to my "goal" when I moved into the apartment the power company said the last tenant avg bill was $45 a month. I am avg $31 a month right now. My macbook uses alot less power but I cannot see using it was my main downloader because I bring it to work etc with me. I feel like running my X6 24/7 is a waste. (it pulls 90-110 idle).

(I know it would prob take 3 years to save money on power to buy a low power system)

Current i3 530 are going for $99 on newegg. My birthday is coming in Jan so was thinking this system in theory should use less power if I built it on mATX platform using my current Lian Li case with a Seasonic 380 Bronze rated PSU. Part of me wants to wait for new AMD or SB but I upgrade family PC alot when I get the itch to buy. (I do not have any other expensive hobbys so...) I also want my movie/downloader PC to be as quiet as possible. Plus i3 has a better chance of me getting OSX loaded for a test.

 

[Jimmah]

How is that machine choking on any playback? My E5400/HD4350/2gbDDR2 can play anything and everything from Bluray rips to anything on Netflix. Must be the Linux drivers, that current machine shouldn't have any sort of problem.

Otherwise I would suggest going with something single-core, 2gb ram, onboard card capable of decoding, large enough HSF to be silent.

 

[Emulex]

wierd my Q8300 only eats up power when i'm using it. goes to sleep quick afterwards. Maybe you should look at your power profile?

Alot of folks seek to save $$ by the PC - but i'd suspect there's a dozen other household items that are power-wasters 😉

 

[Dice144]

I have a small 2 bedroom apartment. I went thru every room and installed the ~5 watts light bulbs. Being cheap I installed 1 of the 2 possible lights in each rooms ceiling light using the 60 watt equlivent Fluorescent light(they use ~5 watts). In my living room ceiling fan I am only using 1 of the 3. Same thing with kitchen! I tested my microwave to use 1 watt and that is not worth unplugging for 1 watt.

The fridge is new "energy star" small fridge. My 32" HDTV uses around 60 watts when in use. I get 2 cables boxes free at work but only use the one in my kids room because the HD box used more then my HTPC. 😀

I do this as a sick way of fun. Not that the extra 10 dollars a month is making or breaking my budget but I like to tease my parents who pay $150+ a month on power.

And yes I really need to go back to Win7 on my HTPC. The free OS is nice feeling but still not up to windows for driver support/Netflix. In linux my onboard video is horrid and in Win7 I was able to play games (well Everquest) but yeah.

 

[Zap]

How is that machine choking on any playback?

It is underclocked.

wierd my Q8300 only eats up power when i'm using it. goes to sleep quick afterwards. Maybe you should look at your power profile?

Typically a downloading machine needs to run all the time.

Being cheap I installed 1 of the 2 possible lights in each rooms ceiling light using the 60 watt equlivent Fluorescent light(they use ~5 watts).

I thought the 60W equivalent typically uses 12-15W?

Anyways... a super low end socket 1156 would knock off around 5-10W off your current downloader machine. Just leave all the power management/EIST enabled in BIOS because it already does a super job at it. Alternately you can go with a mobile processor. AOpen makes the Digital Engine barebones systems, some of them using socket P which is mobile Core 2. You can probably pick up used lower MHz socket P CPUs for really cheap on eBay. Being mobile, they won't use much power so probably close to desktop dual core Atoms in power draw.

Alternately for pure download you can just buy a cheap netbook and set it to turn off the screen after a minute and disable WiFi, and use your main rig for playback. This will probably be the lowest power draw by far.

 

[Emulex]

i think an uploader will need to be on - downloads occur at 40-50 meg around here so even a ginourmous blu-ray requires very little time.

 

[Dice144]

My free ISP thru works gives us 10 Down 1 Up. I am too cheap to pay for our higher 50/5 connection... Plus I like the no bill the in the mailbox option :awe:

At my old apartment I would leech my uncles Verizon FiOS connection for my downloader and play games on my work ISP.

I actually tested the GE light bulbs I have in my lamp. They use between 4-5 watts. I have seen the cheaper light bulbs that use 15 watts tho.

The netbook idea sounds like an option but then I would still need a NAS box or a server to hold the data. This is more a hobby then a need atm but Cyber Monday is coming! I might just go the cheap route and give my parents the AMD 620 box minus the expensive Lian Li case. And use my Macbook pro until I find a sweet deal on a 24/7 downloader.

Thank you for the feedback btw. All the guys at work in my department think I am insane for trying to lower my downloaders power...

 

[PCTC2]

What are you parents doing on $150+/month of power? Or where should I ask?
My servers that are on 24/7 consume at least 380W continuous, and I have a really crappy fridge that draws a motherload, and I still only use 555kWh (which amounts to around $80 in San Diego after charges and fees in the off season. Probably $95 in the summer season). Between a Celeron E3200 driving my gateway, a Core2Duo in my Mac Mini server, Atom D230 in my storage server, and dual E5520's with 6 HD's that never spin down in my main server.

But anyways, enough about my power. If it's just going to be a downloader, just use something like the SuperMicro X7SPA-HF-O. You get dual gigabit, an Atom D510, and IPMI so you don't even need a monitor hooked up to it. You can control it from your Macbook if you need a GUI. It has 6 SATA ports for your disks. It's decent. And if you want RAID in case of disk failure, switch to a BSD or OpenSolaris based distro and use Raid-Z2.

Otherwise, I agree with Zap and you can get a JetWay Socket-P for $130 new and get a Socket-P Intel P8400 for $220 @ newegg or cheaper on eBay.

Or a Athlon II X2 210e. Or Core i3. Or low powered Core2.

You have a lot of choices.

 

[Gillbot]

My Intel Atom rig topped at 33w fully loaded with Prime95 running but it just didn't have enough power for me so I put my other system in it's place. It's an E7500 rig on an Asrock G43 board and fully loaded under Prime95 it tops at around 70 watts, plus has plenty of power for anything I use it for, even as a spare "pc".

 

[Ninjahedge]

Electric heat, stoves, AC's and idle transformers either crank or leech the wattage.


In Hoboken I was at $40/month (Total, heat+electricity) 12 or so years ago (date the cost), but over $120 a month during the summer (AC!!!).

YMMV.

 

[Dice144]

My Dad is a horny little $&$% and mass produced a Army. Him, step mom and 4 kids currently live with him. They have a mini fridge, 1100 cubic fridge, chest freezer (which my step mom does not always close all the way). My Dad is always using some type of power tool. In the summer running the pool. They only have 1 computer but 3-4 TV's etc.

I still do not see how that adds up to that much but meh. back to the PC issue. Something about anything slow (ATOM) makes me wanna throw the PC out the window. I was leaning towards I3 because I hoped Ubuntu and Intel worked better then ATI/Linux. But unless I can mod Netflix to work on Linux it will be getting benched for now. I went from a hardcore MMO gamer to meeting girls/having an outside life. So netflix and low power outage=good.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

The pool pumps will use a ton of electricity.
If you want a nettop, and Atom with ION will do Netflix and HD content fine. If you need data storage, just get a nettop with eSATA and then plug it into an eSATA tower with your drives in it.

 

[aceO07]

My file/print server is an old Thinkpad X22 laptop. It probably uses 5W and maybe less if the screen is off.

Maybe you can get a cheap laptop as your 'downloader' and something else for media. If you really want to save electricity, then the more powerful computer shouldn't be on 24/7.

 

[Dice144]

Well last night my daughter spilled a full can of coke all over my router. My NIC card on my AMD HTPC just won't light up. I read online that 10.04 Ubuntu randomly turns off NICs. I have had Ubuntu 10.04 going since it came out with no errror.

So I figured what the hell. I booted into LIVE CD 10.10 Ubuntu and WAM my NIC card was alive. But since Netflix+Linux is still a no go (someone point me if they know a workaround) I loaded win7.

I lowered my CPU Vcore down to 1.10 on my AMD 620. I underclocked it more to 1.6 Ghz and HT link down to 1.6 Ghz (not sure if the second Underclock is doing much) It is now using between 48-52 watts at Win7 desktop. "Jumps" to 56 when watching youtube in fullscreen. It passed 5 runs of Intel Burn in Test.

Well I can now view HD movies etc all lagfree. The ATI drivers for Ubuntu are still not up to par for my ATI 4200HD series card.

Thanks for all the advice. I am still on the fence about giving this system to my folks. (I dislike my step Mom but it will make life easier on my Dad)

 

[snoopy123]

What are you parents doing on $150+/month of power? Or where should I ask?
My servers that are on 24/7 consume at least 380W continuous, and I have a really crappy fridge that draws a motherload, and I still only use 555kWh (which amounts to around $80 in San Diego after charges and fees in the off season. Probably $95 in the summer season).

WOW, If your servers consume that much, that's probably half of your bill!?!

 

[Zap]

Dice144, I bought a barebones nettop over Summer and just put it together a couple days ago. It idles around 13W and was 14W doing normal Windows tasks (single 2GB SODIMM, Intel 40GB SSD). It is this Foxconn Atom D510 dual core (now discontinued and replace by the faster D525 model). I didn't know it because Newegg's description doesn't mention it, but these things come with the Broadcom CrystalHD chip which accelerates HD video. The power brick that it comes with is the same one that came with my Hanspree CULV notebook! I don't know if the CrystalHD is supported in Ubuntu, but this thing (the newer/faster model) is only $170; just add RAM, OS and notebook HDD.

 

[Emulex]

wow my dc7900/4g/q9400/320gb/7pro with hd 2400xt was $184 refurb - it is quite neat in its SFF profile - fits in the htpc spot. I hate buying windows so i just get refurb business class machines. Right now i ditched the video card and just using the onboard displayport to drive a ZR30W for a project.

 

[Muse]

I actually tested the GE light bulbs I have in my lamp. They use between 4-5 watts. I have seen the cheaper light bulbs that use 15 watts tho.

Didn't know it was possible to get ~60w incandescent output from a 5w bulb. GE, eh? I haven't bought a bulb in a long time, have so many extras, but I've been all fluorescent for years. I'm economy conscious too.

Thank you for the feedback btw. All the guys at work in my department think I am insane for trying to lower my downloaders power...

It's my intention to buy or build a system to at the very minimum be a data server for the house, which includes wireless (not N) router, a couple of laptops and a desktop. The only machine that will be on 24/7 will be the server machine, and if I can configure it to suspend when there are no server duties ongoing, so much the better. So, for me, low power is also a priority as long as my other requirements are being met. I might buy and run WHS on it, because I hear it's so neat an OS and backup is a snap. No experience with distros, but am told a distro would be excellent for a server. I know it wouldn't be as easy to set up as WHS, though. I'm thinking maybe a couple of 1TB or 2TB green drives for data backup capability.

 

[Muse]

My file/print server is an old Thinkpad X22 laptop. It probably uses 5W and maybe less if the screen is off.

I was doing this with an Acer Aspire laptop I bought in August 2009. Is your Thinkpad connected to your network wirelessly?

My Acer was wirelessly connected. I'm pretty sure it was using maybe 20-25watts. Thing is, I was pretty much in the habit of putting it in suspend and I had to visit the machine personally to wake it up. The wireless LAN in it didn't support remote wake up, I don't know if any of them do currently, although I hear it's in the planning stages for newer machines. Of course, I could have kept the Acer laptop on all the time, but

1. It made me nervous that the HD would die, maybe not a realistic fear, I don't know.

2. The extra energy usage.

My concerns were in that order, the ~25-30watts aren't that big a deal.

My Acer laptop died around 3 months ago, so that was the end of that arrangement. I'm currently running a sneaker net, so I'm wanting to work out something better. I could do the same thing with one of my other laptops (bought to replace the Acer), but haven't done it. Figure a "real" server machine is the thing to do. I was going to get or build a D510 Atom machine but that was over a year ago and I don't know if that's the best option currently.

Sorry if I've semi-hijacked this thread, I guess I should start my own...

Edit: I just got another idea... I have an extra laptop, maybe I should use it for my data server! Gonna start my own thread....

 

[Dice144]

Well I ended up giving the HTPC to my parents for Xmas afterall. There old AMD 3200? single core system would randomly shut down.

My brother this summer forced a usb connector in the wrong way. When I got over to my Dads house the PC would turn on and give a warning about power overload in bios and shut down. I looked at the front of the tower and see the USB plug sparking! I disconnected the USB header on the MB and the system was fine up until mid Nov. My parents cannot afford to buy a new system so thought I would be a good son and give them my second PC 😛.

Update on power, down to under $31 a month now! Without going insane and spending stupid amount of time to save another penny or 2 I am pretty happy. (Last person living there was paying Avg 45 a month.)

 

[Muse]

Update on power, down to under $31 a month now! Without going insane and spending stupid amount of time to save another penny or 2 I am pretty happy. (Last person living there was paying Avg 45 a month.)

Most of the year my power and gas come to less than $40, right now with the cold weather it's middle 40's (no gas heater, but I use more electricity, a 250w heat lamp over head, and occasional space heater action).

Isn't it annoying how USB plugs make you guess which end goes in? I know, I could memorize the pattern on the plug, but I just take a sharpie and mark one side. I read a post a few days ago where someone's 3 year old marked up his LCD with a sharpie! They managed to get it clean, I think with rubbing alcohol.