Build an Environmentally-Friendly PC

ThinSkin writes "While gas-guzzling cars are greatly to blame for releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, computers play their role in warming up the Earth too. ExtremeTech has an informative how-to article on building a green PC that will not only help save the planet, but will also slim down that energy bill. An important component, or culprit, to consider is the power supply, so investing in an 80 PLUS PSU is a step in the right direction. The article also discusses how to configure Windows Vista to utilize its power-saving options."

Comments

Most environmentally friendly solution.

[Shatrat]

Don't build a PC, re-use old hardware and keep it out of landfills.
Efficiency in new PCs has it's place, but it is nothing compared to the benefits of re-using old hardware which can be perfectly good for most tasks as long as you arent in love with Microsoft Bloat, ExXxtreme edition.

Re:Most environmentally friendly solution.

[larien]

Depends; you can get much more energy efficient CPUs these days and if you used to by cutting edge, it may not be the most efficient. There's a balance somewhere between pollution (toxic chemicals in components) versus power draw; I'm not 100% sure where it lies...

Re:Most environmentally friendly solution.

[dangitman]

Don't build a PC, re-use old hardware and keep it out of landfills.

The problem is that modern users have needs that won't be fulfilled by the old hardware. Sure, if you just browse the web and play solitaire, then an old PC is going to be fine. But these days people do things they didn't do in the past, like edit HD video, and manage thousands of RAW images from digital cameras. Those old PCs aren't going to cut it.

Re:Most environmentally friendly solution.

[crabpeople]

When I toss electronics in the trash, I like to think im helping future archologists by giving them one more specimen to study.

Re:Most environmentally friendly solution.

[Abcd1234]

Ha ha. Yeah, I'm sure *everybody* is editing HD video and storing RAW images from their digital cameras.

Sorry dude, but just because *you* might be doing those things, doesn't make you any less the exception. The fact is, *most* people would be just fine with old hardware, because most people really do just browse the web, check their email, and write documents with their PC.

Re:Most environmentally friendly solution.

[geeber]

Don't build a PC, re-use old hardware and keep it out of landfills.

And then turn it off when it is not in use.

Re:Most environmentally friendly solution.

[Mr_Tulip]

How old are we talking here?

A 400-800 Mhz CPU with 256 Mb RAM will do 90% of the stuff you do on a PC (unless you're a gamer). I can run Damn Small Linux, Ubuntu or Windows 2000, OpenOffice, Firefox and many other applications without any problems.

This is on the kind of PC you can often pick up lying in the street or at you local landfill.

Re:Most environmentally friendly solution.

[theuedimaster]

Exactly! The biggest pollution related to Computers is not from their use, it's from their PRODUCTION. In the process of making PCs, much toxic waste and harmful chemicals are released.

Vista won't save you power!

[Dr. Spork]

Many reports now indicate that Vista will load even a Core 2 Duo cpu at 20-30% just to run the interface. When you compare this to my normal 0-1% for WinXP or KDE, you'll see that you won't be saving any power at all with Vista unless you turn off the default interface. (Add to this also the extra load on your GPU from running Aero...)

Re:Vista won't save you power!

[Shatrat]

Many reports now indicate that any made up sensationalist drivel at all can be modded Interesting on slashdot.
I'm as big a fan of linux and detractor from Vista as the next linux greybeard, but let's not stoop to making stuff up when theres such a plethora of real problems with Vista.

Re:Vista won't save you power!

[ChrisWong]

Energy? It'll save plenty: this Vista box is the first desktop PC I have that effortlessly goes in and out of S3 standby mode. This is the suspend-to-RAM mode where almost everything else shuts down -- CPU, network, video, fans, HD -- and a tiny trickle goes into keeping the RAM alive. Yet it transitions in and out of standby mode in mere seconds. Vista makes it trivially easy and convenient to use a PC energy state that uses almost no energy, while it seems a bit of a black art with a Linux desktop. By bringing S3 to the masses, Vista has done a lot to save energy.

Re:Vista won't save you power!

[Shatrat]

Who needs stories when you have obvious defects and intentional crippling of the operating system, taking control out of the administrator's hands for the sake of microsoft's business partners. None of the customers wanted their audio and video quality to be degraded unless the met certain requirements and the system was working perfectly, so who was that added for?
On the off chance that you're not trolling for the sake of trolling and are legitimately ignorant, read this and try to point out just what is "made up". http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html

Buy a laptop - end of story.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

We recently had a "build the most efficient desktop PC you can" contest of sorts at work using a outlet-based usage meter. The winner was a guy who wasn't even competing using his off-the-shelf laptop. It was a bit of an eye-opener for the rest of us pseudo-greenies, but it makes sense: laptop makers are always trying to cut corners on power usage.

Re:Buy a laptop - end of story.

[twostar]

You mention using a outlet meter, I wonder why the author didn't do the same thing. On the last page he lists some of the parts and notes "The watts listed are the highest for normal operation when the component is active." He doesn't actually confirm this or even list the PSU. He also clumps together a lot of things and dismisses them.

Why not hook up a $30 Watt meter and find out how well his design worked? Do an idle test and then run various benchmarks to see how the Green Machine works in reality.

Re:Buy a laptop - end of story.

[dgatwood]

That's not at all surprising, but not for the reason you think. Laptops work by using a battery to moderate the power consumption. You drain the battery down to typically 95% or so before your charge circuit kicks in and brings it up. That means that unless you measure over a long period of time, you will get a false low reading because the external brick is in trickle power mode.

Even if you measure over a long period of time, however, a laptop will still always be more efficient than a desktop for a number of reasons:

• Smaller display = less power, generally speaking. They also usually don't have as bright a backlight, which also generally means less power.
• 2.5" hard drives use dramatically less power than 3.5" hard drives
• Laptops on the average have less RAM, and that's a huge power sink
• Laptop drivers generally tune CPU use in a more conservative way to favor lower power over better performance
• Laptops have a lot less hardware. Most of the legacy I/O isn't there, the built-in keyboard and trackpad don't draw nearly the power of an external keyboard and all the required support hardware, etc.
• The battery averages out power drain, which means that the power supply's peak power doesn't need to be significantly above its continuous power. This allows you to use a smaller supply, which results in significantly reduced waste.

That last one bears restating. While it is true that switching supplies do draw power from the mains that is somewhat proportional to the current drain on the output, they are most definitely not linear. This means that efficiency for smaller supplies is significantly better than for larger supplies. While you don't want to undersize a supply, oversizing the supply will result in fairly significant power waste. By being able to ignore the need for extra peak power (because of the battery), you would expect the efficiency of a laptop power supply to be several percent better (on the average) than a desktop even if all other factors were equal.

The only real question, then, is why desktops don't all have built-in backup batteries in them. It would be far more efficient than a UPS, and it has benefits in terms of power supply efficiency as well....

Three things to consider for a green PC

[WillAffleckUW]

1. The monitor uses a lot of energy, so a laptop is better as it uses a flatscreen panel - or a PC with a flat LCD panel.

2. The power supply on most PCs is designed for a full draw, so it is far better to get a laptop which has a power supply for a smaller draw than a giant 300W PC power supply.

3. Memory is cheaper than CPU, so it is far more efficient to buy a PC with a decent AMD chip that has low power consumption and then cram it full of as much RAM as it can address, than it is to buy an Intel quad core chip you don't really use with minimal RAM. And remember your graphics card has it's own power draw. Basically, RAM is usually 1000 times faster than a hard drive, and can be used for swap files, and to speed processes, so cram it more full of RAM if you want to extend the life of your system and avoid power-intensive disk access. Consider a flash USB drive as well - very low consumption. And use rechargeable batteries for your optical cordless mouse and other devices - ignore the warnings, they work fine.

168 Watts is not efficient

[msmithma]

This article makes an inefficient computer when there are plenty of available components that use considerably less power. My favorites include the Via http://www.via.com.tw/ line of processors and motherboards and the PICO PSU from http://www.mini-box.com/ claims >90% efficiency for all of its models. Using these components you can make a system that uses about 30Watts instead of the 168Watts in the article. Thats a five fold difference!

Re:168 Watts is not efficient

[jcgf]

I built a system based on a via epia 6000 at 533MHz. It uses little power and basically runs like shit. It takes 15-18 hours to transcode an avi to DVD while my Athlon 64 3500+ can do it in less than 2. So you need to ask yourself, does it really save anything?

By the way, I'm looking to sell the epia system (1gb ram, 30gb hdd, slim dual layer dvd burner in a travella case), if anyone is interested reply to this post.

Re:168 Watts is not efficient

[HoneyBeeSpace]

Via Technologies, Inc. is shipping a new processor and starting a "Clean Computing Initiative" aimed at offsetting the chip's environmental cost. They claim it is the worlds first "carbon-free" CPU.

Best solutions

[Red Flayer]

The article also discusses how to configure Windows Vista to utilize its power-saving options

You are attempting to power down Vista.
Cancel or Allow?
Allow
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that

Any more cliches we can apply here?

I, for one, welcome our power-saving-bleeding-heart-liberal overlords.

In Korea, only old people conserve power.

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these low-power-draw PCs! (kinda defeats the purpose, huh?)

1. Design low-power PC.
2. Turn on power-saving options in Vista
3. ???
4. Profit! (actually, there is no 3. lowering power consumption is the profit-making step)

The best way to reduce power consumption in Vista is to allow chairs to be thrown at your PC until it stops working.

Disclaimer: I once worked for a PC manufacturer
The demand of the free market will cause PC manufacturers to make low-power PCs. Any regulations mandating low power consumption are doomed to fail and will inversely lead to market inequalities resulting in increased power consumption and fewer low-power alternatives for individuals who want to be free like their information. This is why I created my philospophy of lawlessoprofiteeringism.

Sorry, 5 PM on Friday, couldn't resist.

I think the real value or point of the story is

[zappepcs]

that if you do everything that you can to be more environmentally friendly, it helps. In fact, every little bit helps. This is a math problem that finds its value in large numbers. If each of us saves 12 watts per hour of use, that could make a huge difference. 12 x 600 million computers (home and business) is somewhere in the area of 7.2 Billion watt hours, or 7.2 million kilowatt hours. Not sure about you, but that is a lot of saved CO2 emissions. Do the same with your old fridge, say you save 75 watt hours per day, multiplied by say 350 million units. You end up with more HUGE savings. Try this on lights, appliances, hot water heaters, A/C units and it really does add up, so supporting power saving devices is worth the effort.

By effectively ignoring this opportunity simply because its not a huge savings for each individual, we miss an opportunity to save hugely in both environmental costs, and overall operations costs for those companies supplying our electricity.

Eventually, both will translate into a better world, in some small way or other, and both should stave off utility bill cost increases, if not stop the growth of electricity usage.

Re:I think the real value or point of the story is

[hankwang]

Especially with large appliances, cars, and the like, you typically save a hell of a lot more energy by continually repairing it and by not buying a newer, more efficient model

As of 2005, the energy cost of manufacturing a car is 3 MWh (0.6 tons of CO2 equivalent), partially thanks to the fact that many parts of a car are recycled. Your mileage my vary, but that is equivalent to burning about 300 liters of gasoline. Replacing a gas-guzzling SUV (12 liters per 100 km) by a compact (6 liters per 100 km) will pay back in just 5000 km, energy-wise.

Another site says that 94% of the CO2 emissions of a car are related to fuel production and consumption.

Re:Is global warming REALLY so much of a threat?

[Red Flayer]

No, he's suggesting we continue to listen to debunked hogwash paid for by the fossil fuel industry.

Inconsequent

[thsths]

This guy wants to build a "green PC", and he uses a wireless keyboard with batteries? I give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe he was not around yet when all the eco hippies were running their holy crusade against batteries. But anyway the problem should be obvious: getting two new batteries every few month probably offsets all the savings of a few kilowatt hours. Especially if they are just thrown in the bin.

Summary: too much hot are to be green.

Re:Is global warming REALLY so much of a threat?

[spun]

Calling the former Vice President of the United States of America a "hippy-liberal-hypocritical type" isn't trolling at all, now is it?

The conservative/big oil side of the debate has no viable position left to argue, so they resort to infantile name calling, as usual.

Thinkpad vs Prescott

[linvir]

In this room sit two very different computers:

• A P3 Thinkpad laptop
• A P4 Prescott desktop

I still love using that Thinkpad, because it hardly even needs a fan, whereas the desktop is practically heating the room.

Just thinking about it makes me want to sell my desktop on ebay and use the money to stock up on old Thinkpads to save for the future.

So?

[spun]

My computer is run by a bicycle power generator!

Mine runs by burning baby seals alive. Sure, it costs a bit more, but it's worth it to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Re:So?

[triffid_98]

What do you mean, baby seals are chock full of foreign oil. Why do you think they burn so well?

Mine runs by burning baby seals alive. Sure, it costs a bit more, but it's worth it to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

RoHS != Guilt-Free trash

[neonfrog]

Several times he said something like, "It's lead free and RoHS so you can throw it away guilt-free!" That's just not true!

RoHS does not equal guilt-free trashing. It attempts to equal a full cycle approach.

RoHS stuff is low lead, true, BUT it is marked with a little trashcan that has a line through it. That icon is telling you DO NOT THROW THIS IN THE TRASH. Have it properly disposed of or return it to the manufacturer. While it contains no lead, it may contain OTHER hazardous materials (eat some no-lead resistors and a slice of PCB, tell me how that makes you feel). It needs to be reclaimed, and NOT end up in a landfill. That's what RoHS is ALSO about.

I'm not a super greenie (I *am* wearing a green shirt) but even I know that trash is a part of the green picture. He had a shred of info about low power and efficient power supplies, but green does not equal guilt-free trashing. Ever.

not just an energy issue

[PhysicsPhil]

The article talks largely about the power consumption of a computer, but simply making the silicon chips is a major undertaking as well. In the small research facility I work in, we have:

* Several thousand square feet of cleanroom, stabilized at 40% humidity and controlled at 20 C, with the full air volume being changed every two minutes. The air conditioners run all day, every day.
* Deionized water cascade system, which run at 4 litres per minute (think flushing your toilet every minute). The DI loop uses several litres of city water to make one litre of DI water.
* Oxidation furnaces, which typically run at 1000 C
* Photoresists and solvents of all kinds, ranging from the generic acetone (nail polish remover) to the really nasty stuff. I just replaced 20 L of solvents today to replace what we used over the last week. We trap the used stuff, but it all has to be disposed of safely later (incineration in some cases).
* A variety of chloro- and fluorocarbons, including C4F8, used for silicon etching. It's not really possible to trap the stuff, so it goes up the stack and depletes the ozone layer.
* A large number of deposition and etching systems, each with very large vacuum pumps running continuously. We shut these off at Christmas, but that's it.

This is just for a small-scale research lab. For an industrial fab, this would be multiplied many times over. Just making the silicon chips has a nontrivial environmental impact.

Re: would be better off with eComStation

[user_ecs]

Get the job done with an OS that doesn't waste cpu cycles. Also how much is sucked out by viruses/spyware/... and then all the anti-virus/spyware/.. utilities to fight them.
Save energy and be more secure.

user group
http://www.os2voice.org/

eComStation
http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm

Misguided...

[evilviper]

First off, it's nice to have energy-efficient everything. However, a world of attention is being paid to squeezing a few more percent out of PCs, which are using about as much power on average as a lightbulb. I'd really suggest you take a look at your refrigerator before spending lots of money on low-power PC components.

Just a few days ago, I was looking for new power supplies. The cheapest I found 80%+ PSUs like Seasonic were over $40, meanwhile, 70% efficient PSUs are $10 (both prices including S+H). It will take quite a while to pay off the difference in electricity, even here in CA, and my PSUs don't seem to survive very long to begin with.

Incidentally, is this guy a complete moron???

From TFA:

A PC uses 200 to 400 watts, depending on its configuration and use.

They certainly can, but most don't. Mine max-out around 90W + 30W LCD.

In fact, most computers drain more power than they need during normal operation,

Everything drains more power than needed. Nothing is 100% efficient, nor can it possibly be.

If a PSU meets the certification [...] Only when the PC requires full power will the PSU run at the full wattage load.

As opposed to non-certified PSUs that run at 500W when the system only needs 20? What? That doesn't even remotely make any sense.

an inefficient 500-watt PSU typically drains more than 500 watts of power.

An efficient 500-watt PSU always drains more than 500 watts of power as well...

If you've got the money, upgrade your green PC with a better drive once they are released.

Well, he's just completely defeated the purpose of this "green PC" by telling people to throw away perfectly good working components. Good job.

Also, it's hard to take his "green PC" seriously with a Core 2 Duo, instead of something like a Turion (or a Geode like the OLPC), which would uses about 1/4th the power. Saying it's "green" because it is lower power than a P4 is setting the bar pretty low...

This is an awfully brain-dead article for /.

PC Mag, not Extreme Tech

[Damek]

This isn't actually an Extreme Tech article, it's a PC Mag article.

A friend of mine sent this to me recently since I'm somewhat active in environmental circles and also a "tech" guy in some senses to my friends. I'll note here the same thing I noted to them:

You may as well just buy a Mac mini. 66% power usage (110 watts for Mac mini vs. 168 for this guy's setup), no Vista (100% better if you ask me), no time spent buying separate components and assembling them (easy!!), and Apple has a nice trade-in/recycling program, not to mention they're compliant with EU environmental standards.

And these days you can even run Windows on it if you really really have to for some strange reason. No, I'm not a Mac fanboy. I'm just pointing out the obvious. Greenest, easiest PC you can buy? A Mac. Someone please prove me wrong buy pointing to a "greener" PC from Dell, HP, Gateway or some other major manufacturer.

I know...

[GLneo]

we should make our computers from dominoes!: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/ 02/0040228

Re:Forget CO2

[Watson Ladd]

Methane is already completely reduced. You can't add any more electron pairs to it.

A good PSU can make a big difference

[SIGBUS]

Last week, I heard a muffled "pop" coming from my server, followed by it powering off. Sure enough, after six years, the PSU had finally succumbed to Bad Capacitor Syndrome. I picked a new PSU that had active power factor correction and a high-efficiency design - and found that my UPS was reporting about 40% less load, in spite of the only change being the power supply.

Switching from a CRT monitor to an LCD made another big difference. It's surprising how much of a power hog a CRT can be. The 22" widescreen I have now uses less than half the power of my old 17" CRT!

Re:Is global warming REALLY so much of a threat?

[Ponies_OMG]

This is an example of Gorespeak:

I'm on the Al Gore diet: I eat as much as I want, and pay somebody else to starve.