Low-power PC

[Digit]

@Chak: good idea to get a on-board video.
You know, i originally purchased an older model videocard still available, with passive cooling, very cheap, assuming this would give me the least power usage. Turns out it consumes 20W...away with it, and i replaced it with the Matrox videocard i kept through the years. After all, this system is not made for gaming[:)]

With the 2 WD drives detached i had 47W. That comes close to your 40W goal, so it should be possible. My reason to go for non-onboard video mobo was that i really wanted to have 8*SATA.

[Digit]

@Pieter:
Yeah i hope so, since for now those charts are only showing more and more; all PC's that will be replaced are running, so is the new one, and besides that there's another server running for doing all kinds of testing stuff.

[TANE]

My system is installed and running

Mainboard: Asus P5E-VM DO
Memory: Kingston ValueRam KVR800D2N5K2 4G 800MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2x2GB)
CPU:Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 1333MHz 6MB
Harddisk:2 X Western digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA II 7200 16MB | WD5000AAKS
PSU:Nexus 4090

power usage +/- 75 watt

Usage is a bit more than I excepted but compeered to my old system about 40% lower
Speed is more tan 100% higher

[Bwired]

For Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16Ghz it's good!

[Jfn]

75W is still a lot.

My domotica PC is consuming 30W (Intel GLY2 / 1GB mem / 80GB 2.5" HDU) and most of the time it sits still doing 'nothing'.

At the current electricity rates (0,22ct per KWh) those 30W will cost me about 60 euro a year. For a system that is idle most of the time I would like to have it even lower.

Investing in a new system that consumes even less is an option. But going much lower than 30W is not easy and it would take years for the investment to pay off.

Embedded is an option, but that limits me in what I want to do with it. So the 30W gives me what I want at a reasonable cost.


Als het niet gerepareerd kan worden dan is het niet kapot!

[TANE]

My Domotica PC is consuming less then 1 Watt
I'm running virtual on the machine above
On the same machine there are some other machines running including my storage server.

[Digit]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Chak</i>
<br />My Domotica PC is consuming less then 1 Watt
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Hehe, no question about that[:)].

My gonnabe-server has been running stable for a week now; i just opened the case, seeing that the CPU cooler fan is not running at all!; apparently the fan is not needed yet. Still have to do something about HD temperatures, i want those down to low-30's when idle and they're to high now, IMO (40-42). But with only 1 fan running (PSU) that's not really strange, i guess.
1 question for Chak: i read you have your storage server virtual, but does that also mean all your data is 'inside' that VM? Somehow, 'something' tells me that's scary...

One other thing; i suppose the main reason for the higher results on power usage for your system is that the on-board graphics does use a fair amount of power after all...if you can disable it in BIOS and replace it with some "old" video-card, i think you can get even lower results.

[TANE]

Digit only one part of my storage is running inside VM
Thats the part for KPN Backup they only support Workstation (or i have to pay lot more)
I'm not sure about the video card but will test that.
I can reduce about 10 watt extra when the HD sleep mode is enabled.
With the Asus power gear there is another 10 watt power reduction possible.

[Digit]

Well, this project is almost finished.

I got rid of 2 servers, 1 left to do (35-40W). Nightly total home usage is already down to 380W, where is was just below 600W before this exercise.
A nice side-effect: no more noise! I can hear myself thinking again. [:)]This new server is running really cool and quiet. And it's got the horsepower available when i need it, for example when i re-index my >10.000 picture library[8D]

[Niknik]

I've also started to use VMware/VirtualBox (still evaluating which one I'll use) to replace my "older PCs" still running.
At last I won't worry about upgrading and reinstalling everything. I just move the image file to a new PC and... done.

Scary thought: A quad core with 4GB ram and 24" screen was cheaper now than I paid for one of the computers I'm replacing now virtually.

By the way, if you want to use the full 4Gb ram (or more) in XP 32 bits (in my board it was showing just 3,25GB) then you can use the remaining space (750MB) as ram disk. I've placed instructions on my [url="http://209.85.135.104/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=pt%7Cen&u=http://ptnik.blogspot.com/2008/05/xp-com-4gb-ram-testado-e-aprovado.html"]blog[/url].
(google translated to english)

[TANE]

any 64bit OS will support more memory..
If you are going to use Vmware best CPU is the dual core E8xxx power consumption is very low...don't go for th Q6xxx

What also a good alternative is, is using ubuntu 64bit version
Windows 2003 advance version will also support more than 4 gb memory.

[tacoscheper]

Check the new Atom CPU from Intel, it's really low-power: less than 2W for the CPU, with performance that roughly matches the Athlon XP 3500+. New PC's start appearing with this CPU inside, so I'd look out for those.

[Stevexyz]

I think only Atom 230 is 64-bit...
Steve

[Digit]

You could say i've finished building my low-power PC/Server.
All old machines have been virtualized and the new server is running fine.

These are the specs:

GigaByte GA-P35-DS4 motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHz
8 GB RAM
Seasonic S12II-380 380 Watt 80+
2 * Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250 GB
2 * Samsung Spinpoint HD103UJ
Matrox Millenium videocard
Additional RTL8139 NIC

OS: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64
Hyper-V with 5 VMs: 3 * Windows 2003 Server, 2 * Linux-based.
Avg power usage: 70W.

Here you can see how smooth these 5 VMs are running:
http://www.hekkers.net/domotica/CPUCharts.aspx

[TANE]

Digit
Your system is using less...I have almost the same system with only 2 WD HD's and I'm using the Video card on the mainboard.
MY PSU is a old one from Nexus