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Voltage Frugal PCs?
"I'm going to leave this thing on 24x7 using electricity that I'm paying for so power consumption becomes a real issue. Which CPUs, chipsets, memory technology, and hard drives provide the thinnest power profile for an always-on machine? I'll be running NetWare because it provides the stability of Linux/BSD, exceeds the configuration ease of Windows, and provides the security and worm/virus immunity of...well, NetWare. That'll let me set up that yummy iFolder [novell.com] and have constant access to my data from anywhere on the Net. It also means I'll probably need to stick to an AMD or Intel CPU since AFAIK the Transmeta and Cyrix/VIA chips, like most IS managers, don't really get NetWare. CPU speed isn't much of an issue. 633 MHz should be plenty. Am I the only miser setting up a server?"
A shuttle SV24, since that thing runs on a fairly low wattage power supply but has integrated ethernet, small form factor, quiet operation, and plenty of other stuff useful in a server. It also looks cool and supports PIIIs up to 1 ghz.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
A computer implanted in the human brain would seem ideal. The video and audio could be sent directly to video-processing parts of the brain. The input could be accomplished by thinking about what you were going to type. Like the monkey who moved the mouse...
I was under the impression that the amount of power to the CPU was nothing compared to the power to the Monitor.
Your best bet is proabaly a laptop with the AC adapter lugged in to the wall. Those are already designed to be low power usage machines.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
"Is there someone marketing a low-powered PC solution (CPU and monitor)"
I think some manufactures built computers that run on only 12V rather then the 120V you get from that outlet in the wall. They usually go by the name of "LAPTOP". Rumor has it they can run for hours without being connected to power grid at all! And I hear they have a "sleep" mode whereby they can run for days using just a trickle of electricity! They come with a built-in "LCD" monitor! And they are very quiet as well, I hear. (Or rather, don't hear.)
Of course, with all those features, they cost a bit more then your standard tower & CRT monitor, but some think that it is worth it. I hear that a company by the name of Toshiba makes some that are well regarded in the marketplace. I believe that other companies make "Laptop Computers" as well. Maybe you could try a Google search on that term?
Yup, that's exactly what I'm doing for my home firewall. I happened to have an old 120MHz laptop sitting around, so instead of buying a LinkSys router for my cable modem, I'm using it with two network cards.
Now if I had a four-port PCMCIA ethernet card, I wouldn't even need a hub.
So I'd like to throw it out to the Slashdot throng
You know it's time to go home when you wonder for a minute what a slashdot thong looks like.I had the same thought about using a laptop, but in the original posting, there is also this:
I have no problems imagining a desktop running 24x7, but I have a feeling that laptops are not designed to handle that kind of duty cycle -- especially the hard disk drives. Otherwise, I'd think there'd be lots more reports of people using laptops as a NAT box / firewall.
Granted, that's based on anecdotal evidence and hearsay... is there anyone out there who has actually TRIED running a laptop 24x7? How did it work? Any problems to be aware of? (Oh, and what vendor and model was it?)
Separately, I worked at a company which made extensive use of PC-104 components which are designed to be small and low-powered. That was a few years ago, but a quick search on google should turn up numerous resources.
Good Luck!
Theres no answer to your question. Everything depends on the way you use your machine. A processors power consumption depends, among others, on the processing load. In most modern OSs (I dont know if it applies to Netware, but am sure that it applies to 2000/XP and Linux), when the kernel notices theres nothing to process, it issues a HLT instruction, replacing idle cycles with a suspend mode. Then not only the processor takes less energy, but it also cools down.
For older Windows versions, there are some programs that cool down the processor, thus lowering power consumption.
So the power consumption depends on you OS, how you use your machine, etc, etc. But lets face it. Nobody really cares to [desktop] computer consumption, because it usally takes more money to build a low power PC than the savings itd result in a lifetime.
For instance, the cost difference between a $159 17" CRT and a 15" LCD, wich takes less power, simply would be enough to pay you computer power bill for years, IMO. And also, do you really think server monitors should be turned on 24x7 ? The server probably will be locked in a room. Get a cheap CRT and simply turn it off when not using. Its much cheaper.
Yes, I run laptops 24x7.
Yes, I use a laptop as a Nat box/firewall/wireless router, goes without saying, really that it never been turned off for the past 4 months. Is that unusual? I don't think it is.
Yes, my daily machine is a laptop that never gets turned off. When I close the lid it goes to sleep, screen off, hd spun-down, etc. I would be suprised if this was actually unusual, laptops are made to run all the time, going into sleep mode rather then being turned off. That is part of the feature set, IMHO.
Maybe but an "all in one" PIII motherboard and rather than utilizing a regular PIII, use a PIII wit the Intel "Speed Step" technology. Then throw in an LCS monitor and you are good to go.
Notes:
1. Not sure if a chip meant for a laptop will fit in a regular mother board.
2. Not sure about the "Speed Step" term but it is something along those lines from Intel. Used to save power in laptops but running the CPU at lower MHz.
I'll be running NetWare because it provides the stability of Linux/BSD, exceeds the configuration ease of Windows, and provides the security and worm/virus immunity of...well, NetWare.
I just snorted out my coffee thru my nose onto the screen, I was laughing so damn hard.
I have no idea what planet you come from young man, but HOLY MOLY!
Netware is such an unstable peice of crap, it goes down more often than a 2$ Vegas Whore.
I've never understood those who proclaim that it is stable. Sheesh, I mean really. Having spent YEARS developing software for that ungodly mess, I can assure you, it's stability doens't reach BSD's stability. Only admins on crack think otherwise. And under no circumstances is it any "easier" than Windows.. Windows is simplistic to administer effectivly.
the Transmeta and Cyrix/VIA chips,
There's a REASON for that bud! it's called NETWARE. It's the OS that doesn't get it. Holy Freekin' Moley.
*sigh*
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
Here is a list of computers that meet energy star guidelines:
n te nt/computers.htm
http://yosemite1.epa.gov/estar/consumers.nsf/co
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Does anybody have any (verifiable) figures about how much money it costs to keep an "average" desktop computer running for 365 days? I have seen a lot of figures and the numbers vary greatly (from fairly insignificant to not-so-insignificant).
But what is a server ? Nothing more than a normal PC running special programs
Umm, NO!
Servers are WAY more than "normal PC"s low-end servers cost more than average desktops FOR A REASON.
"standard" desktop PC's are not designed to run 24x7 - the power supplies, HD's and motherboards even in low-end servers all have higher MTBF's than a desktop system.
RAM in a server usually includes ECC (even in low-end server systems)
In addition to rack-mountable cases, higher-end servers frequently include things such as redundant hot-swappable power supplies, hot-swappable SCA drives, and hot-pluggable CPU modules.
Your belief that servers are the same as desktop PCs only shows that you've never seen a real server.
I replacded it with a FIC Sabre 1815 It shares a monitor/Keyboard with another PC via a kvm switch. The box is reasonably small, only has one fan, has 3 PCI and 1 PCcard, 1394 and usb, 10/100, audio, and video on the Motherboard. I put a slow (read cooler) 733 P3EB in it.
Overkill for the need, but it works like a charm, and linux supports everything there.
Are you paranoid if you know that they just want to know everything you say and do?
Something like this, but with a different logo.
http://www.superpanties.com
I'll try to give some pointers here, since nobody else is actually contributing anything useful.
First, turn off the monitor. Always. That'll suck a lot of power up.
Don't wory about the power supply capacity, switching power supplies only draw what they need.
For a processor, the latest from Via are pretty frugal, plus you can get away with just a heatsink.
I never quite figured out if you could put an embedded pentium on a desktop pentium motherboard. The socket is the same, it's more a matter of weather you can get the motherboard to supply the right power, so that might be an acceptable alternative. You can't put any of the laptop/embedded pentium II/III/4 processors on a desktop motherboard.
For a motherboard, I'm not 100% sure. I think you probably want a i810/i815 motherboard with the integrated video still there and not much else integrated, except perhaps ethernet. You might have to email the manufacturer of the motherboard to get exact power specs, however.
CD-ROM drives, floppy drives, and hard drives all don't suck up that much power while idle. So don't stress too much about that. They only draw power while they are in use. Although, to be carefuly, you can always remove the CD-ROM and floppy drives.
Try not to put too many pieces of RAM in the system. Ideally you want one DIMM that's big enough. That will generally eat up some power, too.
And don't install anything you don't need. You don't need a sound card in a server machine, so don't put one in.
Gentoo Sucks
Are you sleeping ? Mod parent up !
CPU speed isn't much of an issue. 633 MHz should be plenty.
Holy crap, I just _upgraded_ my main server to a PPro 200. What are you people doing on these machines?
(It's replacing a 486/66, and the only reason I got rid of that was to get a second IDE channel and some PCI slots instead of ISA. Otherwise, the 486 would have been fine.)
--saint
If you're sure you can't use the C3 I think you would be better off purchasing a newer celeron, (celeron 1200 and faster) which is similar to the pre-tualatin P3(1.13GHz and up, iirc), but is cheaper and is on a .13 micron process which dramatically reduces power requirements.
Also on a practical note, if the motherboard supports voltage teaks you can lower the voltage to the pci slots, dimms, and cpu. That will reduce power consumption and heat dissapation, which also reduces the amount of power consuming active cooling is needed. Not having enough power to a component can cause instability but shouldn't cause long term harm. As always, change each setting individually to assure dependability. And be sure to do a big stress test before deployment.
A laptop with 14" LCD, 256M, 20G, DVD, 1GHz, PCMCIA, and USB will cost you around $1000 and it comes with its own built-in UPS. I think, at best, after you have added all the bits and pieces, you'll be able to pull even with the SV24, and it will be a lot more work.
Nearly perfect Crusoe board, but I need 2 PCI slots :-( - maybe I can mak Does netware definitely not run on Transmetas?
SA110 eval board - not so useful for Netware, but OK for Linux, and I'll have to use a 5v -> 3v regulator
Or just a Via C3 based socket 370 solution (see earlier posting for link).
Hmm, why doesn't anyone make an ATX transmeta board? Maybe I need a PCI board, with 2 or more PCI slots, and a PCI->PCI bridge chip on it, if such a thing exists...
Hey, why not try an Athlon? Low power, no AGP bugs, no chipset issues...God bless AMD!
The whole system draws less than 50 Watts. (Of course I added a second hard drive to bring power consumption up to 60 Watts later, but it's still pretty good.)
The system runs a custom Linux From Scratch install. A very minimal system, but with a very carefully selected set of services: sshd, Apache, BIND, and Postfix for mail.
The goal (which I achieved) was a UPS hang-time of over 2 hours on a small little UPS. Important for what is my only 24x7 server box.
If I were to build a low-power system today, I'd go for a VIA C3 without any doubt. I've seen several of these systems that run quite nicely without even a CPU fan. That's one less moving part!
If you live anywhere but inside the United States, switch the little red thing on the back of your PC from 220 to 110!! This will cause your PC to use *half* the voltage it normally would!!
(Translation: this article is poorly-titled.)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Depending on what you want the computer to do. The PC/104 measures 3.8" X 3.6" consumes far less power than a standard PC system. Avaliable from a 8088 to Pentium type processor.
http://www.pc104.com
http://www.pc104.org
I'm glad someone else noticed that...Remember P=VI, that's Power (watts) = Voltage * Current...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson