Laptop vs. Small Desktop: Best Bang Per Watt?

Deagol writes "Tomorrow I take possession of a remote, wooded lot with a cabin. 15 miles to the nearest utility pole, my electricity options are limited to those I can generate myself, solar being my primary goal. I'm sitting here staring at my power meter, seeing my desktop & monitor draw about 250W -- a non-trivial amount to generate over a 8-to-12 hour workday. I'd be happy with equivalent computing horsepower (1.4GHz T-Bird, 512M RAM, though more is always better). Should I get a small PC with an LCD monitor, or should I get a laptop? Will laptops draw less power (in general), and if so, will losing the modularity and lower cost of commodity PC parts be worth it? I'd love opinions from those who have been in a similar situation."

Comments

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

[mat catastrophe]

Duder, if yr headed that far out into the boonies, you might as well pawn the damn computers and buy an axe and a box of matches. Seriously.

Re:Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

[dtfinch]

I spent years living in a place like that. It didn't impede my programming at all. In fact, I believe it improved my software design skills, by forcing me to figure out exactly what I wanted before I sat down to write it.

I think the laptop would be the better idea. Gasoline is costly. If you could get one with a seperate battery charger, and get two or more batteries, you could leave the used batteries to charge at a friend's house or your work and swap them whenever you're out. I have uncertainties about being able to use the solar power for your laptop, depending on your setup.

laptop

[dieyack]

I feel that my laptop gives me more bang for my buck. It draws much less power, and I can take it around with me. I like it much more than the cheap pc's we have at work (which would be a low power desktop) but LCD monitors are nice, but the quality of the lcd's on a laptop are just as good.

Re:laptop

[NeoThermic]

The other advantage of a laptop for you out there with the solar power is that a new laptop can run on low poer mode for a good few hours (5-6 if you decide to splash out for an extra battery).

You will be generating solar power through out the whole day, and I assume that it stores it overnight, so if worse came to the worse and you ran out of power at 4am, the battery(s) on the laptop would have enough power to take you to sunrise, assuming that you stay awake for that long :D

Most laptops these days have one of three types of chip in them, Celeron - low cache, but low power consumption, Desktop processor - high power consumption, good performance, and Mobile processors - best of both worlds.

For example, the new AMD Mobile Processors can drop down to nearly 300mhz when running of battery to peserve power.

I would say laptop, although having used one for nearly 3 years, I would say this view is slightly biased.

NeoThermic

laptops have batteries

[robbymet]

The batteries in a laptop will give you the flexibility to work independently (for an obviously limited time) of your home's power source. This might come in handy if you have a solar system that has intermittent output or oyou have other high-draw electrical needs.

similar situation?

[PollGuy]

I'd love opinions from those who have been in a similar situation.

Error: division by zero

not sure if this will help?

[bbdd]

not sure how much sun exposure you have avaliable, but a laptop plugged into one of these has to last a fair while.

might even come in handy in new york next time the power goes out. :-)

Easy solution...

[ZorMonkey]

Seems you'd just need to stop by Home Depot and pick up about about 792 100' extension cords...

Re:One word: Batteries!

[velo_mike]

Instead, get a half dozen car batteries for the same price. You'll get about a day's worth of power (IE, 24 hours).

Err, carr batteries are designed for short heavy loads - starting your car in the winter. You can run them all the way down and recharge them a couple times but then they're cooked. Substitute "marine" deep cycle batteries - the ones people use to power bass boats - same 12v lead/acid battery but the plates inside are designed for complete discharge.

Re:laptop power modes

[cybermancer]

A word about laptops. Most of them have two modes they operate in. While running off internal power, they run in a low power mode. This many times slows the CPU down and dims the display. Also while in battery mode the fan will run on various speeds on demand.

When they are plugged in they speed the CPU back up and brighten the display - consuming more power since it is available. I think I would probably recommend a laptop, and a few spare batteries. Then you can charge on someone else's power and bring it back home with you.

Since your laptop will use less power when running off battery you should always use your laptop on battery power. Then when you shut it off you should charge the batteries. Make sure you get a laptop with two bays.

If you go with a PC get a variable speed CPU fan with a sensor. Then it can slow down when it is not needed, saving you some juice. Since I am assuming you would be building your own system then evaluate the watt consumption of each component, and add it up getting a good quality (expensive) power supply that meets your needs without exceeding them astronomically. When possible use one component instead of two (Optical drives, hard drives, memory modules, etc.) Two will consume more juice then one (obviously) when you can get a single hard drive that is big enough to do the job.

Display brightness has a huge impact on battery life. Whatever you go with make sure your display is as dim as possible. Put your computer in a dark room.

Also, don't run SETI@Home, GIMPS or one of those other background processing systems. Those really increase your machines power consumption, as do games!

Another must have would be a good UPS with a power conditioner. Brown outs are very damaging to your computer hardware. Not that I doubt your ability to build your own power grid, but wouldn't you hate to loose your PC because of a brown out?