Building a Green PC

Kermit writes "Ars Technica has put together a green DIY system building guide. The idea is to build a PC offering decent energy efficiency as well as solid performance. The 'Green Gaming Box' draws about 125W at full load (not including a monitor); the minimalist 'Extreme Green Box' uses a mini-ITX case and a VIA CPU-motherboard combo for about 30W at typical load. If you want to mix and match components, or modify your current system so that it uses less energy, there are plenty of options for swapping out individual components."

Comments

Paint it green!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or black.

Re:Paint it green!

[Anonymous Coward]

"We need some black PC's, there are not enough black PC's" - Al Sharpton

Re:Paint it green!

[sk8king]

http://www.koolu.com/ has a green computer....and a black...and a silver and a pink. And it uses < 10W. Check it out.

Nothing is easier

[Bin Naden]

Nothing is easier than building a green PC, just take out the can of green spray paint.

Re:Nothing is easier

[Anonymous Coward]

You think that's easy? The time and effort goes into the masking up. And the green LEDs don't come cheap, err wait .... shouldn't that be blue LEDs, green LEDs aren't cool.

Re:Nothing is easier

[ncc74656]

Nothing is easier than building a green PC, just take out the can of green spray paint.

It's an easy retrofit for older tech, too, as this green Apple IIe demonstrates.

"Green Computing"

[cccc828]

As long as rain forests are stubbed for easier access to copper mines
As long as local people are poisoned by the toxic byproducts of metal refinement
As long as people in Africa or Eastern Europe dissable old computers without any protective clothing
As long as children assemble computers for $1/hour in Asia

I refuse to equal "green computing" and enviromental friendly.

In truth it is just another catchy phrase to sell you yet a new computer. Buying a new computer does nature more harm than just keeping your old computer.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, not shit. Poluting the planet in the name of cutting carbon footprint is retarded.

Re:"Green Computing"

[bhima]

I think you have confused the concepts of ethical and green. That and disable and disassemble.

Not that I wholly disagree with your sentiments.

Re:"Green Computing"

[funny money]

C'mon!! Any "attempt" to make the earth greener should be lauded. Personally, I have a little plant atop my monitor.

Re:"Green Computing"

[BestNicksRTaken]

I wish I had some mod points to give you!

Green Computing is going to make fsck all difference in the grand scale of things when we're paying naff all wages to people in China, and getting huge amounts of pollution back in return.

Using a few watts less on your gaming rig is not going to make any difference to your "carbon footprint" or your electricity bill.

Re:"Green Computing"

[upside]

There are obviously various dimensions to "going green":
1) Not buying. Reuse instead.
2) Buying as little as possible.
3) When buying, buy environmentally friendly.

You can take a queue from data centers where power and heat are major issues. Instead of having a spinny whirly storage (or even solid state) on every PC, use NAS or SAN. If you've got to have 2nd - Nth PCs, use PXE, NFS and iSCSI for storage. Virtualization can help save power, too.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Robot waste unit]

Exactly. The energy footprint is fairly easy to offset with a renewable power source. The cost of manufacturing and disposing of the thing is where the problem lies.

Re:"Green Computing"

[upside]

You're right. From the manufacturer's point of view being greener is a competitive advantage. It's up to consumers - and depending on your political views, government regulation - to make sure it's a big advantage. Don't use the "out to make money" an excuse to disregard environmental considerations and personal responsibility when making purchases. "Manufacturers of hybrid cars are just out to make money, I might as well buy an SUV". On the other hand, as an employee you can also affect the behaviour of your company. Keep asking what the company is doing to reduce waste. Phrase it so it sounds appealing - saving power and improved efficiency save costs for the company.

Re:"Green Computing"

[joaommp]

This reminded me of the Prius problem mentioned on slashdot last year. People were claiming that the manufacturing process of the Prius would pollute more than the quantity of pollution that would be avoided by using it.

Re:"Green Computing"

[whrde]

Very well said! Anyone who thinks they are someone who respects the environment and the people who physically pay for the production of new computers should ask themselves if they really need a new computer or not. I mean need.

Do my computing needs really increase every year? Why would I buy a new computer just for a shiny, unusable, new operating system?

The first step to actually making a decision would be to know more about it. What are the costs of production in terms of environmental and human exploitation? What are the costs of usage? What are the costs of disposal? I imagine very few consumers actually know and understand this information.

Re:"Green Computing"

[fbjon]

That sounds unlikely, unless you disregard the recycling at the end of the cars life.

Re:"Green Computing"

[knivesx11]

While that is a highly debated point, I do believe it is accurate thanks to the use of the NiCd batteries used in the prius as nickel is a very dirty metal to mine and refine. It is really along the lines with zinc and copper.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Muad'Dave]

This reminded me of the Prius problem mentioned on slashdot last year.

Aren't you supposed to seek medical attention if it goes on for more than 4 hours?

Re:"Green Computing"

[joaommp]

I usually seek girl's attention when it happens... doesn't solve it, but feels better.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Z34107]

No, it's true. Biggest problem is how to dispose of that rechargeable battery with all those chemicals and heavy metals in it; they're a lot nastier than your regular car battery.

Second biggest problem is building that battery in the first place. IIRC, nickel and other ore refined using chemicals that make oven cleaner look like lemonade, then sent to Japan for manufacture into intermediate parts, then sent back to China for assembly into the actual battery, before being shipped to America. Lots of miles on a boat, that is.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

My gf likes my Lamborghini Priapus a lot better than your Toyota Prius.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gave those kids a raise?

Re:"Green Computing"

[misanthrope101]

Well, considering that Toyota already has a recycling process in place, I'm not sure how much of a problem it is for you. The question of how much pollution the car causes, to include manufacturing and emissions both, has already been looked into. The Prius is the best alternative, pollution-wise, on the road (assuming you count only production cars). Yes, the batteries are shipped, as are transmissions and other replaceable parts on regular cars.

If you're stuck on the shipping question, be fair and consider the 50% more gasoline, that also has to be shipped and trucked to your gas station, used by other vehicles. Not to mention that money spent at the gas pump sends money to Wahaabi fundamentalists who want to destroy the USA, whereas money spent on a Prius sends money to Toyota engineers who just want to make fuel-efficent cars.

The Prius doesn't save the world, but it does hurt the world less emphatically than other cars. It still uses recources, and still spits out emissions, but on balance it is far greener than the other cars out there. The issue really isn't that murky.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Z34107]

It uses different resources, tho. Less black gold, more earth metals.

But, it's not like I care - I drive a Buick Roadmaster, the thing's the unholy combination of a boat and a tank, and has a V8.

MPG doesn't matter if you don't drive much, or very far, and maintenance isn't bad.

Re:"Green Computing"

[joaommp]

Really? I thought your medical record said that you had a small motorcycle that needed unleaded 95 from Pfizer.

Re:"Green Computing"

[wvmarle]

Assuming you are talking US$ here (there are so many $ in the world), you obviously don't know what you are talking about. US$1 per hour is a very good salary there. No kidding. More common salaries for assembly workers in China are about USD3-4 per day, 10-12 hour working days. In India maybe a little higher but not much, certainly not on the countryside.
And still many of those workers consider it good money.
The rest of your sentiments are very reasonable though.

Re:"Green Computing"

[BVis]

Using a few watts less on your gaming rig is not going to make any difference to your "carbon footprint" or your electricity bill.

That just isn't true. The generation of electricity still releases CO2 into the atmosphere; less electricity generated = less CO2. Not to mention that your electricity bill is (generally) directly proportional to how much energy you use, so if you use less energy, your bill is lower.

What you're saying is that if I have 20 marbles in a bag, and take two out, I still have 20 marbles in the bag. It's just not true.

All these little steps add up over the long run. Reducing your energy consumption by 3% might not seem like a huge difference, but if millions of people do it, it makes a difference. I recently measured how much power my computer rack uses, and found that I could cut usage by 25% through a few simple steps (like making sure the CRT I sometimes use on my firewall is powered down, setting the drives in my system to spin down after a certian amount of idle time, etc.) The whole thing (three computers, two monitors, various networking bits, laser printer) consumes 300 watts at idle. That 100 watts I save from shutting off the monitor adds up to 584 kW/h each year (if it's off 16 hours each day), which in my state keeps 7,475 pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere, and saves me $97 in electricity annually. From only shutting off a monitor!

The shit adds up. Throwing your hands in the air because there's no one thing you can do that's a magic bullet for the energy problem is cynical and lazy.

Re:"Green Computing"

[SammyB]

It's called Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. They are not in that order to just sound nice.

Re:"Green Computing"

[gosand]

There are obviously various dimensions to "going green":
1) Not buying. Reuse instead.
2) Buying as little as possible.
3) When buying, buy environmentally friendly.

I am sure some people here would be shocked, but I run a Duron 1.3 processor, with a Zalman fanless heatsink, and 768 MB of PC-133 memory. I run dual displays (CRTs) but they shut off after 5 minutes of inactivity. The machine is up all the time (current uptime is 70 days), so I am sure I am pulling some power. I live in AZ, and in the summer it get HOT in my office... so I rigged dryer hose to pipe the PS air out into my garage. (luckily, right next to my office) I installed a low-speed fan on the garage side to help pull the air. It made a very noticeable difference in the temperature in my office. My buddy was having issues with his P4 3.2 machine, and he just bought a new Dell. So he gave the old one to me. It turned out the video card was fried, and one of the PSU fans was dead. Instead of buying a new PSU, I just hard-wired the fan on the PSU to run off of one of the 5v connections. In my area, you can put out your bulk trash once a month. I saw one of my neighbors put out a PC... I thought I could scavenge it for parts. Upon getting it home, I found out it was a fully working Sempron 3200 system! It only had a 30GB HDD and 256 RAM, but was fully working. So now I have two fully working PCs sitting here. I'll probably replace my Linux machine (Duron) with the P4, and my dusty Windows machine (Athlon 900 slot!) with the Sempron, after buying a memory upgrade.

It just amazes me what people are willing to just throw away. Both of those computers were only 3-4 years old. While anything remotely new would blow it away in performance, they are completely usable for daily use.

Re:"Green Computing"

[AdamReyher]

If I have a magazine with 15 bullets, and I decide to only fire 13 into my target, the target is still freaking dead. I think what the OP is trying to say is that when you're using many kW of electricity every month, knocking off a few doesn't make that much of a difference in ratio to what you're going to use anyway.

True, it adds up, but most of the electricity used by computers is on the data center level. These machines are usually designed with raw power capability in mind. Reducing their power footprint would be stupid. Home usage is different: you don't need an 800W PSU to check your email. But compared to data centers and internet-routing hubs, home usage is a relatively small amount, and, in my opinion, not worth the cost of trying to reduce its footprint.

Re:"Green Computing"

[danskal]

That's the problem with simple information campaigns... they're too simple. Did you ever stop to think how those 2 tonnes of metal and plastic were produced? Lots of mining, materials and parts transported around, perhaps overseas to cheap labour. Steel and aluminium productions require masses of electricity. Plastic is made from heating crude oil. Repairs mean still more polution.

So the fact that you don't drive very much doesn't make it much better. Better would be to rent a car when you need it, take a cab, or train/bus if possible. Cycle as much you can - your doctor will thank you for it.

But in a sense you're right... part of the solution is not driving more than is necessary.

I think we need new solutions in some areas - like, for example, racing - there should be a limited supply of gas/petrol, even for things like drag-racing. Imagine the advances in technology that could achieve.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Pescar]

the green movement is worldwide, while I've never heard anyone associate green with money outside of the US. I haven't been everywhere though. (As far as i'm aware the dollar is the only currency that's green - excluding rusty coins)

Re:"Green Computing"

[BVis]

If I have a magazine with 15 bullets, and I decide to only fire 13 into my target, the target is still freaking dead.

Yes, but you've used fewer bullets to do the job. Fewer bullets is what we're going for here, metaphorically speaking.

I think what the OP is trying to say is that when you're using many kW of electricity every month, knocking off a few doesn't make that much of a difference in ratio to what you're going to use anyway.

What does the ratio have to do with it? Less energy is still less energy, whether it's .005% less or 20% less. It all counts.

These machines are usually designed with raw power capability in mind. Reducing their power footprint would be stupid.

You seem to be saying that computing power is directly related to electricity usage. It's just not true. CPUs are much more efficient than they used to be, in part because these data centers are spending a bloody fortune on electricity, and have demanded a greater level of computational power for the same or less electricity. The chip makers have responded. Another big consumer of electrical power in a data center is hard drive spindle motors; as HDs have become larger, the physical number of drives required for a given application has become smaller. ISTR that AMD made big inroads into Intel's server chip market a few years ago because their chips were so much more efficient than Intel's at the time, which translates into direct electricity savings from the chips and indirect savings from less heat generated, therefore requiring less cooling.

Home usage is different: you don't need an 800W PSU to check your email.

You do have a point about that. However, I have kilowatts' worth of PSUs in my home rack setup and it consumes 300W most of the time. Just because you have an 800W power supply doesn't mean it's using 800W all the time.

But compared to data centers and internet-routing hubs, home usage is a relatively small amount, and, in my opinion, not worth the cost of trying to reduce its footprint.

Maybe it's not about the cost; maybe it's about saving energy. The financial aspect of saving energy should be secondary, IMHO.

Besides, how much does it cost to turn off a monitor? Or to set your computer to sleep when idle? Nothing, and they both save significant amounts of power. No, turning off a monitor doesn't fix the global issue, but it reduces the scope of the problem.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Big_Breaker]

The Cadmium is the really bad stuff. Nickel may be dirty but it doesn't cause cancer like Cd does.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Cecil]

Yes, but you've used fewer bullets to do the job. Fewer bullets is what we're going for here, metaphorically speaking.

But what he's saying is that the Earth and the human race are still going to end up dead, even though we've used less bullets. Continuing along with the metaphor, with 1 bullet there might be a chance the target would live. Maybe even with 2, or 3. But the difference between 13 and 15 is absolutely negligible, the same way a 3% worldwide reduction is completely negligible.

What tangible difference has been made to the situation by "using less bullets" metaphorically speaking? What are those two unused bullets going to do for you, since the guy is still dead regardless? Nothing, except that perhaps we can erroneously feel a bit smug for the next little while before everything collapses.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have the Bob the Builder approach to being green? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Re:"Green Computing"

[BVis]

What tangible difference has been made to the situation by "using less bullets" metaphorically speaking?

You've got two left that you can use on the next guy. You don't have to buy as many for the next job, so the bullet factory doesn't have to make so many, which cuts down on resource use. True, it doesn't seem like a lot to you, but when it scales up, it's significant.

I don't understand how you can say that a 3% worldwide energy usage reduction would be negligible. Do you know how much power that is? The United States by itself consumes over 29,000 TWh/year. (That's terawatt-hours.) Three percent of that is 870 TWh or 870,000 kWh. That represents 1.16 megatons of CO2 that wouldn't be released into the environment.

I think you're looking for the 'magic bullet' here. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor/pun.) There isn't any. There's no one thing or set of things that we as a society can do that will 'fix' the problem. What we can do, is reduce the problem to manageable levels. It's a process, not a destination.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha. Rainforests, Asians, East Euros, and Africa.

I never knew buying computers had so many bonuses attached.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

In the metaphor, of course, Earth is the dead guy. So the next two bullets.... we only live here.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Z34107]

1/2 ton of metal, I think, for my tank. Living on campus in the middle of down town, I walk a lot. Car is for visiting parents over holidays - my gaming rig has a bigger carbon footprint than my boat^H^H^H^H Buick.

And last time I checked, even the Prius was made of metal - but they get improved gas mileage at the cost of even more reactive metals used to make the batteries. The battery's an additional environmental cost that other cars don't have, but those other cars pollute more.

Is this more "pollution" than a traditional engine? I don't think so, but it comes at a cost not measured solely in miles per gallon.

Real innovation will start when we actually, for real, get to "peak" oil. (Remember, somebody, somewhere, has been saying we're at "peak" since the end of the 19th century.) Prices for crude will skyrocket - imagine how tremendously profitable that would make innovation! If a gallon of gas costs $100, imagine how much more attractive that Prius is.

The best environmental policy, in my not-so-humble opinion, is just like prices continue to climb. People will jump to ethanol/fairy magic/etc. all on their own, and will pay through the nose to do so. Everyone wins, and the Iowa farmer will become the new Exxon-Mobil.

Re:"Green Computing"

[gnuman99]

The problems listed have nothing to do with computers. They have everything to do with inadequate local laws, regulations and enforcement. Then there is corruption of all of this as well.

So, computing has nothing to do with environmental laws. Greed (of the *developing* country politicians/police/etc.) is the problem.

Most copper comes from Chilean mines. So, not sure what the rain forest has to do with that. If you want to raise deforestations here are *some* the culprits,

    1. "bio-fuels"
    2. cattle ranching
    3. "bush meat" (see Congo area)
    4. char coal
    5. iron ore (see #4)
    6. farming (tropical oils like coconut)
    7. Global Warming (causes more droughts in Amazon now which is burning at even faster rate now - mostly gone by 2025 for sure!)

there is probably a number of other so called "industries" that are inflicting much greater damage to rain forests than copper mines ever will. Heck, AFAIK copper is from Chile and some in Kazakhstan. Not exactly prime jungle lands.

Smelters can be made environmentally safe. *But* it is all about greed of local politicians. They are corrupt and will not enact legislations to force smelters to upgrade. And it has nothing to do with the miners either - these pay the lowest price they can to have their concentrate smelted. That means *minimum* needed to comply with environmental legislations. So, if the legislations were more strict, smelters would produce less pollution! wow! All it takes is non-greedy, non-corrupt politicians to do that.

I know recently Chilean gov't introduced some new standard reducing concentration of molybdenum that can be discharged from retention ponds of miners. What happened? Miners upgraded their installations (aka. adding thickeners).

So, fix corruption and you fix all your problems. Nothing to do with computers.

PS. Greenest PC is the cheapest PC - on-board graphics. No expansion slots. etc. I get 120W idle and about 160W full throttle on a 2 year old setup. Very happy with it. No need to upgrade any time soon. "Green computing" has essentially arrived because speed advances have essentially stalled :)

Re:"Green Computing"

[jamstar7]

Does it blend?

Re:"Green Computing"

[mmontour]

The Cadmium is the really bad stuff. Nickel may be dirty but it doesn't cause cancer like Cd does. What Cadmium? The Prius uses NiMH cells, not NiCd.

Re:"Green Computing"

[darkfire5252]

As long as rain forests are stubbed for easier access to copper mines As long as local people are poisoned by the toxic byproducts of metal refinement As long as people in Africa or Eastern Europe dissable old computers without any protective clothing As long as children assemble computers for $1/hour in Asia I refuse to equal "green computing" and enviromental friendly. So, what you're saying is that because manufacturing a computer is not as environmentally friendly as it could be then that justifies using the manufactured product without regard to the environment? ...

In other news, because the metal used to manufacture your car's engine uses the non-renewable resource of copper and the refining of that metal produces pollution we no longer should concern ourselves with the pollution produced by the actual car...

Re:"Green Computing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone wins, and the Iowa farmer will become the new Exxon-Mobil.

That won't happen, because ethanol production from corn exists mainly because of the government subsidies. What will happen is that tropical countries which can grow sugarcane, like Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, and Cuba will become the big producers of ethanol. Unless my crystal ball is broken.

Re:"Green Computing"

[Hamsterdan]

Sure... Keeping an old computer (the one without any kind of power management features) would probably do wonders for the environment / power saving

Re:"Green Computing"

[Khyber]

"less electricity generated = less CO2."

That doesn't matter. The fuel used to generate that electricity has been burned already. So instead of burning one gallon of fuel to produce 600 watts, you burn one gallon to produce 300 watts. What a waste.

Re:"Green Computing"

[BVis]

Uh, what?

Reducing usage lowers energy demand, therefore requiring less fuel use to meet demand. Power plant managers aren't going to burn fuel they don't have to.

How can computing ever be green?

[Anonymous Coward]

All that embodied energy for a start, to say nothing of the lead, cadmium and other nasties...

However, given that we can't uninvent computers, this kind of initiative is a good start. But don't be tempted into scrapping a working system to replace it with a "green" computer - better wait until your existing box actually stops working to make the best use of _its_ embodied energy. It's the same argument as with cars - overall it's worse to scrap a working car just to replace it with a prius, even though your emissions will be reduced.

I've often wondered about the relative merits of a virtual hosting account versus a low-power box at home, to run my mail, dns, website etc. - whic is _really_ greener? Any thoughts?

If you're serious about green, go matte black

[parlyboy]

Get a used Thinkpad.

Lower energy usage. Recycled. Probably faster than the VIA. And you can beat a burglar to death with it.

What's not to like?

Re:If you're serious about green, go matte black

[khellendros1984]

Plus, it has those beautiful, blocky edges. And you can get it in any color you want, as long as you want black!....Seriously though, the IBM thinkpads are very nice machines. I've been using mine for 5 years, and it's working just as well as the day I bought it (and that's with hauling it around a college campus in a backpack, etc)

Re:If you're serious about green, go matte black

[eknagy]

I've just bought one - but burglar is not included.

Mac mini

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

Maximum continuous power: 110W

Re:Mac mini

[odoketa]

While it's not perfect, the mac mini is certainly an easy option for those who want to reduce power consumption. We use ours as the home server, and it draws significantly less power than its predecessor, a mac g4.

Through the magic of the kill-a-watt, I measured the draw of the mini under its usual workload (which was near idle, as this is a home server that doesn't really need much horsepower to run its processes, but does need to run them 24/7) and found it to be around 35 watts. Which is roughly equal to my laptop, which makes sense, since it's all laptop parts anyhow.

I don't think you should call it a 'green' option, but it might be a 'greener' option than what you're using now. And it comes all nicely pre-built, with lots of warm friendly mac-y goodness inside.

If that's what you're into.

I'm sure someone has noted it by now, but it's worth pointing out that turning off the power using a power strip (or just unplugging from the wall) is also a good idea. The old g4 server I mentioned earlier actually drew 10 watts when turned off, due to some weirdness with the power supply. Also, if you don't need it, pull the discrete video card - those suckers eat electricity like it's going out of style.

Re:Mac mini

[clare-ents]

We colocate and run dedicated servers on Mac Minis. Electricity prices in London data centres are crippling. In a standard 2kW rack we get 55 Mac Minis - 37W each. The guys in the rack next door have 6 Dell 1950s. They look at us enviously and mumble about the cost of Windows server licences. On the other side we've got people with a HP blade server (just one!) unhappy that they haven't enough power to fill it with blades, whereas we've got 3 times as many CPU cores and a massively lower hardware cost.

http://www.mythic-beasts.com/

Re:Mac mini

[AntEater]

http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

Maximum continuous power: 110W Actually, it's quite a bit better than than. I used a Kill-a-Watt to test my 1.25ghz G4 mini and it uses around 18 watts under normal loads (iTunes playing, Mail.app, Terminal.app, safari and Emacs open). When it goes to sleep it uses less than 3 watts. Paired with a flat panel monitor with DPMS and you've got a very low impact system.

The newer intel units consume about twice that much power (around 35w) from what I've read but still are very efficient compared with most PCs.

Of course, the impact from the manufacturing process for any computer is big enough to dwarf it's utilization. The longer you hold on to a machine, the less environmental damage you're creating. This mini was purchased when Apple first released them in early 2005. I just upgraded it to Leopard figure it has at least two more years before I have to think about an upgrade.

Re:Mac mini

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you doing for redundancy?

Re:Mac mini

[Anonymous Coward]

We colocate and run dedicated servers on Mac Minis. Electricity prices in London data centres are crippling. In a standard 2kW rack we get 55 Mac Minis - 37W each. The guys in the rack next door have 6 Dell 1950s. They look at us enviously and mumble about the cost of Windows server licences. Nice gimmick, but guys that actually use the features of Dell 1950s wouldn't be jealous of a bunch of home computers with no Linux support from Apple, non-ECC memory, home-grade CPU/chipset, slow hard drive (no RAID or SAS), no hot-plugging (hard drives, power supplies), and no supported management hardware/software. For guys that actually use the performance of Dell's 1950's hardware (dual Quad-core Low Voltage Xeons are an option), then the performance per watt far exceeds a rack of Mac Minis.

Also, these Dells can be configured with Linux (with support) or ordered with no OS installed (install Linux yourself). Don't know why those guys would be mumbling about the cost of Windows.

Re:Mac mini

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

Maximum continuous power: 110W

Shuttle XPC X100

http://us.shuttle.com/X100_4.aspx

Power adapter: 120W
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 with dedicated graphics memory
CPU options: 1.6GHz Celeron M up to 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo
Hard Drive: Up to 750GB 7200rpm
Card reader: integrated SD/MMC/MS/MS-Pro

The Mac mini uses slow, small notebook hard drives (max 160GB 5400rpm) and slow, outdated Intel integrated graphics (GMA 950 with shared memory).

Re:Mac mini

[initdeep]

They weren't.
Obviously.

"this one time, my cousin told me, at band camp....."

Ahh how I love these passed down "stories".

Re:Mac mini

[Anonymous Coward]

We chocolate and run dedicated servers on Mac Minis. Electricity prices in London data centres are crippling. In a standard 2kW rack we get 55 Mac Minis - 37W each. The guys in the rack next door have 6 Dell 1950s. They look at us enviously and mumble about the cost of Windows server licences. On the other side we've got people with a HP blade server (just one!) unhappy that they haven't enough power to fill it with blades, whereas we've got 3 times as many CPU cores and a massively lower hardware cost. Fixed it for you.

Re:Mac mini

[jamstar7]

Also, these Dells can be configured with Linux (with support) or ordered with no OS installed (install Linux yourself). Don't know why those guys would be mumbling about the cost of Windows.

Yes, they can. However, in the 'real world', a lot of business CEOs still want Windows installed on their servers because Windows is 'better'. One of my clients went with Windows 2003 Server rather than Linux due to 'support costs'. It's all in what the customer wants, colored by what the customer percieves as the 'real win solution'.

Re:Mac mini

[Anonymous Coward]

When something goes wrong, we just throw it away and buy a new one. It's the Apple way.

Re:Mac mini

[oasisbob]

I can't speak for the OP, but if I were using Mac minis or other "unreliable" hardware, I'd use CARP for redundancy.

It doesn't make sense for every application, but if you can adopt a clustering approach to your services, suddenly you have redundant RAM, redundant power, redundant CPUs... Go cheap and double up.

Personally, I think racking up minis is a silly marketing ploy that ends up looking a lot more like a total wiring and cooling clusterfuck.

I don't have a green PC

[L4t3r4lu5]

Tagan 800w PSU, Core2Quad Q6600, NF4650SLI motherboard, 8800gtx, backlit keyboard, wireless mouse (with transformer).

However, I DO ride a motorcycle, pumping out far less CO2 than almost any other motorised road vehicle.

I also don't have a TV, as my PC does everything I need it to. MORE savings. It's not about a green PC, it's about reducing load on the grid. I do it by having less equipment, not greener equipment.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I DO ride a motorcycle, pumping out far less CO2 than almost any other motorised road vehicle.

As will your lungs, after you die in an automobile accident since nothing lies between your body and the pavement. I guess the resulting hamburger that is your corpse will fertilize plants, so yeah that's kinda green. I prefer two tons of steel wrapped around me and the other 70 MPH idiots on the road, environment be damned.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[Anonymous Coward]

you are clearly as american as cheddar.. i mean american cheese.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[L4t3r4lu5]

As will your lungs, after you die in an automobile accident since nothing lies between your body and the pavement. I guess the resulting hamburger that is your corpse will fertilize plants, so yeah that's kinda green. I prefer two tons of steel wrapped around me and the other 70 MPH idiots on the road, environment be damned.
I'd rather die on impact than end up having my legs minced by the steering column and have to shit into a bag for the rest of my natural life. That's not why I ride a bike, though.

Bikes are no more dangerous than cars; It's the idiot in control that causes accidents.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[heapcat]

However, I DO ride a motorcycle, pumping out far less CO2 than almost any other motorised road vehicle. Not quite true. http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~siah/MiniProjects/MotorcyclePollution.html In urban setting yes, but in rural or highway driving they pump out more CO2 pollution. About 50% more.

Remember less gas != less CO2. Just check your lawn mower.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[hal2814]

"I also don't have a TV, as my PC does everything I need it to."

So you watch TV using your nuclear reactor of a computer? Yeah, that's going to help the load on the grid.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[everphilski]

Bikes are no more dangerous than cars; It's the idiot in control that causes accidents.

That is precisely GP's point. You are only a small fraction of the equation compared to the tens or hundreds of cars you drive by/with on a given day. You can be the greatest driver in the world but it only takes one idiot to knock you out for good.

Don't get me wrong, I bicycle to work in the summer, rain or shine. I love it. But don't fool yourself, the bike is far more dangerous than the car. When two cars collide, the chances of both parties walking away from the scene is far, far higher than when a car collides with a bike.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[lemaymd]

It's actually not necessary to have such a powerful PC to watch standard definition TV. I built an HTPC from parts based on an Intel mini-ITX mobo (much cheaper and faster than Via), as described on my website: http://lemaymd.com/main.php?frag=gadgets-low-pc&title=Ultra-Low-Power%20Media%20PC&pfrag=gadgets It cost less than $400, consumes around 35 watts when idle, and does a great job of playing back TV. Unfortunately, I can't really recommend it for use a Linux MythTV box with its built-in graphics, because the Linux driver is horrible. I switched to XP and GB-PVR and also added a PCI nVidia 6200 and Plextor ConvertX hardware TV encoder box (they're closing them out at Newegg now for $50 apiece!). I think that we'll be seeing a lot more action in the mini-ITX space now that Intel has entered the ring.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[Anonymous Coward]

>Remember less gas != less CO2.

Of course it does. That's why you need to read the spreadsheet instead of just the link. They're not calculating CO2 but CO2 equivalents. Basically the motorcycles that they measured don't have catalytic converters so they put out more CO HC and NOx. These are then converted to something called "global warming potential" by multiplying them by 3, 12 and 296 respectively. Oh, and I can't get at the original article. But I can get at the second link in the spreadsheet and guess what... the number 296 is for N2O not for NOx. NOx is thought to be greenhouse neutral so the number should be zero. Plug that into the sheet et voilà. Bikes are 10% cleaner than cars. Never ever believe global warming believers at their word.

Re:I don't have a green PC

[socz]

No one disagrees that riding a bike or motorcycle is more dangerous than being in a car, but realistically, you can't just look at numbers...

But what it really comes down to is rider awareness. I've been riding motorcycles full time for many years now, and yes i've had many close calls. I've played bumper cars between two trucks (my fault!) and been run of the road more than once by cars and blown off the freeway because of winds. But i haven't "crashed" because i've been aware or as aware as i could be at all times. I should have been hamburger meat by now but because of my awareness i've been ok so far.

The same goes for people in a car. If you feel safe in a car then you'll be safe on a bike. If you're a retard like that receptionist here at work (yes you have one too) then you're not safe even being a passenger on a bus! She crashes about as often as that time of the month!

Re:I don't have a green PC

[socz]

That's interesting... being that I live in California, i have to have a California exhaust on my bike. The same model sold in other states have different exhausts with more pollution. But not mine!

That's actually the reason no dealer will put an after market exhaust on my bike because of state clean air regulations. Now a custom shop doesn't give a fook and they'll slap anything on including straight pipes. Now i don't want straight pipes because unlike other "bikers" (weekend warriors) i ride my bike everyday and don't want to go deaf in one ear.

I'm sure the #'s also don't represent the 6 or so other states who have strict air pollution regulations like California. So maybe in Texas bikes pollute more, but not in California... especially the 45 miles per GALLON sport bikes! lol

Green == production and Green power

[emj]

The most important part of getting a Green computer is the cost to the environment to produce the computer. Buying new computers just to get a green computer is hence very stupid. Better than try to build a green computer would be to use an old computer and go over to green electricty. If you are going to buy a slow VIA computer yo umight as well have an old computer.

The problem with costs today is that no long term costs are included in prices, copper mines that poison areas bigger than Los Angeles have no obligation to pay for what they destroy. The mining inudstry is very very dirty, they some are situated near natural reserves, which mean we are going to have to fix everything after they have shut down.

There are mines in Sweden that are still being cleaned up, 30 years after shutting down.

Want a real green pc for free?

[terraformer]

Then keep the machine you have and turn on system standby/sleep functions. It is free and will save far more power than anything Ars is hocking.

Re:Want a real green pc for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Objection: assuming that I ever leave the computer chair

Re:Want a real green pc for free?

[bcrowell]

Then keep the machine you have and turn on system standby/sleep functions.
One practical issue I've run into here is that power management support on linux is simply horrible. I've never, ever had power management work properly on any pc hardware with linux. And to be fair, I don't think it's the fault of the kernel developers or the distros. Apparently the hardware manufacturers refuse to publicly document the registers that need to be saved when their chipsets go to sleep. One thing that really does work well in linux is AMD's cool'n'quiet technology, which makes the cpu use dramatically less power when it's idle.

I have some experience with building low-power systems. The system I'm posting on uses 62 W when I get up for a cup of coffee and let the screen go blank, leaving the cpu idle. Peak is 105 W. This is a snappy, modern dual-core x64. Basically the advice in the ars technica article is correct. I do have two quibbles with their advice, though.

(1) The most important piece of advice missing from the article is to get a power meter such as a kill-a-watt, and take some actual measurements. For instance, I had no idea until I took measurements that the set of speakers I was using was drawing 24 W all day and all night, even when the computer was turned off.

(2) Telling people to buy SSDs is simply ridiculous at this point. As they say in the article, a 2.5" platter drive draws about 1 W when it's not being accessed (which is almost all the time). Paying hundreds of extra dollars to shave milliwatts off your power consumption is just silly. There's a lot more low-hanging fruit to pick.

Are you krazy?

[Anonymous Coward]

$1,438.81 for a slow VIA box? I am green, but I ain't that green.

Re:Are you krazy?

[Nos.]

That's a pretty extreme example, the MB, CPU, Memory and case they have listed are under $400. I'm actually in the process of putting together a mini-itx Via system for a Mythtv frontend. Looks like I should be able to do it for around $200 (no HD though, I'll do network boot).

hmm.

[apodyopsis]

build modular components that can be combined, recycled and handed down. the trick to being green is to mandate power efficiency and buy/recycle intelligently. for computers it maddens me that people get a top of the range high power monster to browse the net and do word processing, when their old PC would of done the job fine. MS and their ilk persuade people to upgrade by relying on things like redundant feature creep and security FUD to stop them using older versions, but in reality older versions could be relied on to do the work if security patches were updated. you do not need a quad core 2GB machine to read email, but you do need a whizzy machine to run vista and thats were MS makes their money. use that older PC as a work horse for 5 years instead of 1 and you have been five times more green. on another note with LCD screen, I was thinking the other month if anybody has every consider a LCD monitor where the backplate can be tilted down flat with a mirror surface to shine sunlight up into the back of the screen - aka a natural backlight? i ask as thats one of the major power drains on a laptop and you would not need that much sunlight to make it readable. roll on an epaper laptop with flash storage for extreme low power/long battery usage. how an "Asus EEE-Paper"?

Re:hmm.

[Corporate Troll]

for computers it maddens me that people get a top of the range high power monster to browse the net and do word processing, when their old PC would of done the job fine.

I love when people do that: I'm a dumpster diver! :-D

My wifes PC (I don't have a PC anymore, I just use hers) is a PC from around 2003. I upgraded it a bit left and right when RAM was on sale, or I'd get a better video card somewhere.... It's a Hyperthreaded P-IV 2.6GHz with 2Gig RAM. 5 years old, and still going strong for everything we do on it. Of course, we don't do stuff like ripping DVDs or edit home video, but for what we do it's absolutely enough. The motherboard even supports SATA: the next upgrade is to replace the 120Gig IDE drive with a 500Gig SATA drive.

I promised my wife a Mac if this one stops working. I don't expect that to happen within the next few years. Bummer for her that I know how to maintain computers ;-)

Re:hmm.

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's a Hyperthreaded P-IV 2.6GHz with 2Gig RAM. 5 years old, and still going strong for everything we do on it. Of course, we don't do stuff like ripping DVDs or edit home video...

I have a very similar level PC, and ripping DVD's and editing video works just fine.

Re:hmm.

[Corporate Troll]

I pretty much assumed that, but I never tried so I wasn't 100% sure. I added that phrase mainly to counter eventual people that would say "Wait until you rip dvds/edit video/edit photos/....".

I played Portal on that machine and it was very playable at 1024x768... I still have to start Halflife 2, but that's mainly because I lack diskspace, hence the planned upgrade (I have the disk, just not yet the occasion to switch it...)

Re:hmm.

[toddestan]

I was thinking the other month if anybody has every consider a LCD monitor where the backplate can be tilted down flat with a mirror surface to shine sunlight up into the back of the screen - aka a natural backlight?

It's an interesting idea, but the mirror is going to reflect polarized light, which means it's not going to work well with a LCD screen. You would need a diffuse reflector, something more like a sheet of paper than a shiny mirror.

Energy Efficiency

[bhima]

I'm interested in buying energy efficient products and ecologically sound products and I am just getting to the point where I am wanting to update the server in my studio.

After doing a bit a research I have concluded that I will hold off until the summer. I am not a big fan of VIA and I'm sure that their processors aren't capable enough for my particular needs. The new CPUs from Intel have better performance per watt (or what ever metric you chose to use) than the older ones but they haven't released the Low Voltage Dual Core UP Xeon I'm interested in yet (Xeon L5250). The new Intel Socket 775 / 3200 chipset motherboards consume less power than the older ones, however the upcoming Intel chipsets are supposed to be much better in this regard. System memory is still problematic though, I understand FB-DIMMs consume a lot of power. I had fingered the Samsung Spinpoint F1 as a good choice for an energy efficient hard drive.

I am completely under-whelmed by 80+ ATX power supplies and I'd like to find a power supply which reached better than 90%. I did find a company N2Power that does make such things but they do not have an offering which includes a wiring harness. Making a wiring harness does not really fill me with wild enthusiasm though...

If the past is any indication of the capability of Operating Systems to rapidly take advantage of new power saving techniques available in hardware, these new ones will be an abysmal failure. However, my studio isn't a 24 hour a day operation so being able to power down the main RAID and under-clock the system bus & CPU is a very important thing to me. I'm not completely sure how to overcome this little annoyance.

I know none of these ideas touch on buying ecological sustainable products or ethically traded products. Frankly it's hard enough trying to come up with power efficient parts... I fear that the only truly ecological sustainable & ethically traded product would be an abacus and I have my doubts about that.

Re:Energy Efficiency

[demon driver]

I am not a big fan of VIA As far as I understood TFA, the low-consumption VIA CPUs actually don't need big fans.

Laptop...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to go "low power consumption", go with a laptop.
Even a stock laptop, will probably consume less than your best effort at a "green" computer.

As an aside, has anybody tried going full DC with a green computer?
Instead of using the AC-->DC power supply?

Re:The universe is dieing...

[WaZiX]

.. so why should we care, there was a /. article a few days ago talking about the earth being vaporized so what are we saving exactly? Your new car you just bought will almost certainly be destroyed within 25 years, why don't you just crash it directly? What are you saving exactly?

Could we build a steam-driven computer?

[Hugo Graffiti]

One thing I've often wondered: with the knowledge we have now and the technology available to the nineteenth century (or maybe up until about the 1930's say) could we go back and reinvent mechanical or valve driven computers, only make them much faster than they knew how then? (Eg like an updated version of the Analytical Engine). Would come in handy if a world-wide catastrophe occurred and we were all plunged back into the dark ages in terms of industrial capacity but we still had the knowledge. (Provided we remembered to make a hard copy before the asteroid struck :)

OLPC XO laptop

[lobiusmoop]

125W? For a _really_ green PC, check out the XO-1. It is not just physically green, it runs at 2-3W. Another upshot of this is that the battery life is 9 to 10 hours.

Re:OLPC XO laptop

[legoman666]

I think you missed the bit where the article said "PC" and not "hideous green thing with rabbit ears." Besides, I'm certain there are even lowered powered PC's out there.

Re:OLPC XO laptop

[rolfwind]

Isn't that the draw only in idle mode? That, when active, it's slightly higher?

Still, when running I read the screen uses 2W instead of the typical notebook LCD 25-35W. And it's also readable in daylight (alas in B/W). The rest of the savings come from it being a relatively low performance CPU and the SSD harddrive.

Why can't the 2 grand Macbook Pros have this screen? Or any notebook for that matter? I read that the OLPC leader refuses to commercialize the patents, but that seems myopic on his part -- he could be doing something for the environment (less electrical use all around) while directly financing his project and making the economies of scale really work if everyone starts producing these for notebooks/desktops/TVs/etcetera.

A green PC would be okay but for many cases it saves more overall energy if people stick with their current PCs as long as they can instead of throwing them out after a few years. For the typical home user, strategies as setting them to go on standby or, better yet, hibernation after 1/2 hour helps a lot. Unless it's a server of a type, there is no need to keep any of them running 24/7. Try consolidating several servers onto one computer. These also can be set to go off and on at certain times in the BIOS. No need to keep a file or print server running in middle of the night in most cases. Most modern printers also connect to ethernet directly these days which can completely cut out a print server and some routers have harddrives that act as file servers that use much less energy than an entire computer.

Anyway, most home users will probably affect the environment more if they switch from incandescent bulbs to CFL bulbs. It's cheaper too, and you recoup your investment between 2 months to a year.

Re:OLPC XO laptop

[Carnildo]

Why can't the 2 grand Macbook Pros have this screen? Or any notebook for that matter?

Aesthetics. I've got one, and as screens go, the color mode is really quite lousy. Black text on white is fuzzy, the colors are somewhat washed out with an odd blue tint, and things only look right when you're directly in front of the screen -- no off-axis viewing. The refresh rate isn't too impressive either: 50Hz. Would you pay $2000 for a screen that wouldn't look out of place in the early '90s?

In greyscale mode, on the other hand, it's the best computer screen I've ever seen.

Re:OLPC XO laptop

[zsau]

That'd be great ... if we could buy one. Green PCs are not much use if the only people who can buy them are people who couldn't otherwise get a computer; to make the computer green, it must substitute for existing computers. Otherwise it doesn't matter how low its power consumption is, it's still increasing it.

How much carbon does it cost to build the green PC

[giles hogben]

It might use less energy, but do they take into account how much energy it takes to build? If not, it could use more energy in a lifetime.

Crysis

[Fnord666]

Somehow I don't think it's going to run Crysis very well. Never mind.

That's not very green

[TubeSteak]

If you really want to be green, get a Palm Pilot (or some feature rich cell phone equivalent) with a rollup keyboard. Plug it into a monitor & that's about as green as you can get.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=6455
I guess it depends on what you consider a PC

These guys seem to be on the right track

[LecheryJesus]

Take a look at this http://www.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=93535

LJ

Re:Green == production and Green power

[bhima]

My family runs a foundation which I work for part time. As part of that work I have helped construct and outfit some clinics in a few mining towns. Two that stick out in my mind are in Peru and in Namibia. Without being there, seeing it, and treating the people who live in the surrounding areas I don't think most westerners can even imagine the extent of damage mining really does.

Kermit writes

[MT628496]

Am I the only one that chuckled at this?

Re:Kermit writes

[ajcham]

... it's not easy being green.

Re:Kermit writes

[Anonymous Coward]

It certainly appears so.

Re:The universe is dieing...

[LingNoi]

You didn't answer my question you just asked you own.. The earth is going to be pulled into the Sun, the universe to dieing.. What are we saving?

Voodoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you forgot all the voodoo chickens sacrificed to keep those damn servers running.

The bodies piled up outside most offices is a serious public health risk.

Re:Voodoo

[jamstar7]

Hey, you forgot all the voodoo chickens sacrificed to keep those damn servers running.

But they're biodegradable.

And mighty tasty when cooked on the processor heat sink...

Shut off BOINC

[thornomad]

I liked the idea of distributed computing until I found that it was drawing an additional 35 watts of power from the normal idle of my server ... which seemed a little too high price to pay to find an alien. I will wait for them to email us.

Buy a Mac.

[Anonymous Coward]

A secret that GreenPeace doesn't want you to know about:

Mac's are designed to be more energy efficient. See some comparisons.

I have no idea if it is true but

[Chrisq]

I had a friend who was interested in church organs. Evidently even early organs has pneumatic "switches" that would switch the airflow to multiple pipes from a single key. My friend said that if Babbage had consulted an organ builder and used pneumatic components he would have been able to build a working computer at the time. And they were very green, the air from the larger early organs came from water power, displaced by water filling an air-filled chamber. Smaller organs used "chorister powered" bellows.

There's something wrong with conservation

[QuantumG]

Imagine one day you noticed the brakes on your car were squeaking. You need your breaks, they allow you to stop, but if you continue using your breaks you figure they might fail, and then you won't be able to stop. So you ignore the problem for a while, but pretty soon it becomes apparent that this whole squeaking breaks thing is probably serious. Not really wanting to confront the problem head on, you decide to hire someone to "take a look at them" but not actually fix them. After careful study, he informs you that yes, your breaks are shot and won't last much longer.. he can't give you exact idea of how much longer you can keep driving on them, but he assures you that eventually they will fail. So what do you do?

One option is to get them fixed. Of course, if no-one knows how to fix your kind of breaks then it might not be. You could always hire someone to try to figure out how to fix them.. or you could throw them out and get brand new ones. What isn't an option is just using the breaks less. Sure, if you have to keep driving the car it might make sense to lay off the breaks until you come up with a way to fix them, but unless you're actively looking for a way to fix them, you're just delaying the inevitable.

Of course, you could just get a new car.

Yes, this is the worst car analogy ever made, did you like it?

Re:There's something wrong with conservation

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, cince you used an analogy that you know very little about let me fix it for you.

If I want to conserve my Brakes, I simply engine brake. I downshift and let the clutch out to slow the car down, it is in fact incredibly effective and I can even lock up the tires and slow down almost as fast as the brakes can do for me. also On a vehicle with NO brake pads left at all the metal to metal contact will in fact slow you down quite well. Talk to many of the people that drive in Cuba and other very poor countries. They drive daily without brake pads.

So the BEST thing to conserve on a car is the brakes. How to make no brake pads safer? well you could do the most un-american thing and drive slower and carefully to anticipate the problems and choose routes that do not need you to mash the brakes on hard.

Yes you picked the WORST one because brakes can be used long after the pads have failed. the only part of the brake pad system that can not be "conserved is a brake fluid leak, if you ignore that leak and let it continue to spurt while you conserve you precious time and money you will get to a point where you will not be ableto use that pedal to stop you, you still can mostly stop with the engine by downshifting, if you war ok with stalling, you can completely stop.

NOTE: 90% of the cars on the road still have the factory brake fluid in them and are heavily contaminated with water (brake fluid is hygroscopic) Most cars on the road are in incredibly poor repair as you need to change brake fluid, transmission fluid, trans-axle fluid, etc... Most people do not do it. People conserve on their cars not out of need but out of lazyness.

Re:There's something wrong with conservation

[OneSmartFellow]

Yes, this is the worst car analogy ever made, did you like it?

No, because your misspelling of the trivial word brake, confusingly spelled correctly on the first usage, then never spelled correctly again, made me wonder what the hell you were getting at !

Re:Green == production and Green power

[Ed Avis]

copper mines that poison areas bigger than Los Angeles have no obligation to pay for what they destroy.

If the copper mine were situated in the middle of Los Angeles, it would certainly have to pay for the destruction it causes. You can't just poison other people's land without their agreement. Who does the land belong to and why aren't they vetoing the construction of the mine if it would poison what they own?

If the country they live in is corrupt and ignores the wishes of the landowners; or if the people there are just serfs, working land that belongs to somebody else, being a rich landowner or the Party; then that is something that needs a political answer to fix the underlying problem.

(BTW I agree with everything you said)

Refurbished Laptop

[clay_buster]

Go green? Go get a refurbished laptop. They consume less power and come with a built in UPS. My Dell only has a 65 watt p/s. A used laptop has reduced environmental impact since no new raw materials must be mined or refined. Get a refurbished one from the manufacturer's leasing outfit (say Dell dfsdirectsales.com) and you get a manufacturer's warranty. I have a couple Dell Latitudes. The port expanders use a little more juice (less than 90watts) but support two external monitors in addition to the internal LCD.

The greenest PC

[EmagGeek]

Is no PC at all...

Re:Green == production and Green power

[nicklikesfire]

Except that the indigenous people living in Peru and in Namibia might not have the same concept of ownership as the western world. Land that they had lived on for hundreds or thousands of years was most likly taken without their consent, or otherwise stolen, because they have chosen not to participate in this train wreck we call modern society.

Wattage is the new penis size

[smchris]

Not my original quote. It's true. I replaced the PS on 24/7 MythTV and DSL web server machines and my 17 hour/day desktop with 300 w 80Plus PSes. Work fine. Dropped my power bill by $10-12/month.

I have to believe some huge corporation will catch on to this and _demand_ 80Plus for their next thousands of machines and in 10 years we'll be amazed that computers were sold without efficient power supplies.

Green Software + Hardware

[Ngarrang]

We would not need to worry about the topic of 'green' PCs if we did not have such bloated software that continues to require ever more CPU cycles per second to accomplish their task. There was a time when software was written in to be tight and memory efficient. WordPerfect for DOS comes to mind.

Low-power PCs are a good idea, sure, but we need our software to also be efficient. The two, together, could get us a long way toward truly 'green' computing.

And while I am ranting about bad software design...

AC-to-DC conversion is messy and lossy. Fortunately, we do have servers that can take DC directly from a shared AC-DC power supply. This concept needs to move into the home. Why should my PC, monitor, printer and God knows what else all each have their own AC-DC power converter box? Homes could have a single large converter and then have DC-only outlets for all those appliances that need it.

Re:Green Software + Hardware

[Stachybotris]

AC-to-DC conversion is messy and lossy. Fortunately, we do have servers that can take DC directly from a shared AC-DC power supply. This concept needs to move into the home. Why should my PC, monitor, printer and God knows what else all each have their own AC-DC power converter box? Homes could have a single large converter and then have DC-only outlets for all those appliances that need it. That's such an insipidly great idea (especially when you stop and consider that all of your consoles, your TV, your stereo, and pretty much every other electronic device in your house is running a rectifier of its own) that you just know it won't even be considered. From the hardware standpoint, however, it wouldn't actually be that difficult to implement - you'd just have to get a standardized power cable and outlet. Oh, wait, we have those already - we use them in racks.

And from an economical/'green' standpoint, that's just another cost that can be rolled into the price of a new home. Everybody wins!

Re:Green Software + Hardware

[ps236]

Switched-mode power supplies (as found in most 'big' computing equipment like PCs, monitors, printers etc) are pretty energy efficient, and can use almost no power in 'standby' mode.

Having one big DC supply with lots of outlets in your home is likely to be less energy efficient (because of the large voltage loss over long cable runs at high currents) than having local ones.

That's not to say that having one SMPS per PC, with DC outlets on the back of the PC for monitor, printer etc wouldn't be a good idea - in fact I'd have thought that would be an excellent idea. (As would having DC outlets on the back of your TV for the DVD, TiVo, XBox etc).

The problem might be that there's a patent on this (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5768600.html) :(

Re:Green Software + Hardware

[TigerNut]

You can design a switching power supply to be 90% or more efficient but only over a relatively narrow current range. So the problem becomes one of management: when everything goes to 'idle' state, the efficiency of your one-box-does-all converter might drop to 1% and you still consume as much power (or more) than having the single dedicated supply for each device.

A second issue is that while PC's have fairly standardized load requirements and voltage bus definitions, that does not hold for AV gear. Most decent audio amps require supplies of 40 to 60 VDC (and a complementary -40 to -60 supply) because at the speakers, power = V^2 / Z. This means that a 100 watt peak amplifier will produce +/- 28V waveform at the (8 ohm) speaker, and require a correspondingly higher supply. Televisions (especially the old-school tube type) had requirements for all kinds of high voltage to drive the deflector coils; this may no longer be true but I'd be surprised if everything was developed to run off a nice tidy 12 volts even in current state of the art LCD or plasma TVs.

Re:Green Software + Hardware

[petermgreen]

AC-to-DC conversion is messy and lossy.
DC-DC voltage conversion isn't exactly great either, particularlly if you want it isolated.

Distributing at the final utilisation voltage has two problems. Firstly many systems need a wide range of voltages. Secondly long cables at 12V or 5V or worse 3.3V are also very lossy.

Distributing at 48V DC or so means an extra conversion step. There are also issues with safely switching DC.

For datacenters and other UPS supplied systems DC distribution usually at 48V or so can make sense because you can skip out a conversion step and because it's much easier to feed your protected distribution network from multiple sources.

Re:Green Software + Hardware

[Jeek Elemental]

AC vs. DC distribution is a big topic, main obstacle to having 1 central PSU in the home is the low voltage used by most electronics (3-12V). Feeding a 400W pc at say 10V means it pulls 40A which means heavy wiring (roughly same as the feeder to your house).

AC/DC isnt all that lossy and doesnt have to be messy.
DC/DC on the other hand is very lossy.

What I would like to see tho is standard, interchangeable PSUs without fkin fans.

Re:Green Software + Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

"There was a time when software was written to be tight and memory efficient"

There was also a time when software had very few features. Optimization will only get you so far.

what's in your pc...

[pig-power]

1) buying a new pc: $987 2) buying a new monitor: $235 3) one can of Krytox forrest green paint: $3.99 4) owning a green pc: priceless

125 watts?!

[Anonymous Coward]

125 watts at full load being "green"?! That is not even remotely green even if it included the consumption of the monitor. The "green" deal is nothing but another tricky way to suck money out of customers on yet another computer they don't really need. Keep your old machine; there's alot more "green" in doing that.

Just for comparison: I have a 1.9ghz AMD-equipped machine with 1GB of RAM running on a 5400 RPM 2.5" drive and a capable graphics card that I use, among other demanding things, for playing World of Warcraft (hold the jokes for a while). This machine idles at 45 watts and reaches just under 70 watts when both CPU and GPU is stressed to the limit. The monitor I use is rated for 42 watts at full brightness, which I never have it set for due it being too bright for me. This setup, -including- the monitor, never hits 100 watts.

Re:Green == production and Green power

[Zerth]

Some of us westerners live in mining towns. North Americans may have toned down the strip mining, but we're not above knocking off the top of a mountain if it suits us.

There are people around where my inlaws live that are still dying of mining-related diseases, despite living in "the west".

Notes from the Thinkpad manual

[GameboyRMH]

And you can beat a burglar to death with it. 12-c: Using your Thinkpad as a Weapon

Your Thinkpad can be used in self defense, should the situation arise. If your model is not equipped with a solid-state disk, or a conventional hard disk with a safety accelerometer, the computer should be put into standy or hibernation mode, or ideally powered off before use as a weapon.

Technique

Grasp the Thinkpad firmly with both hands at the front corners, and swing down on your target, striking with the underside and rear corners. Do not swing the Thinkpad by any cords or dongles. Advanced users may hold the unit by the front with one hand for fast melee attacks.

After Battle

Open the unit and ensure that all internal components are seated properly, as some may have come loose during battle. Clean any spills with a slightly damp cloth and dry immediately. If bodily fluids should find their way inside the laptop, hold it upside-down and let the fluids drain out, remove the battery and send it to the nearest Certified Repair Center.

Refer to section 5-a on installation and removal of internal components.

*Note that battle damage is only covered under the Extended Service Warranty.

Re:Notes from the Thinkpad manual

[snarfies]

What is the burglar's got a point-ed stick?

Re:Notes from the Thinkpad manual

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad you asked. Although IBM/Lenovo has been a little hush-hush about this, pending the development of a standardized test, the Thinkpad can also be used quite effectively as a small shield.

While it can take a limited number of straight-on thrusts sacrificially (operability is not guaranteed after the attack), the optimal method of wielding a Thinkpad as a shield is to angle it at approximately the tip angle of the lance or projectile being attacked with. This maxmimizes the contact area, significantly reducing risk of penetration. It also provides a component of force perpendicular the direction of thrust, thereby making possible a deflection scenario in which the attacker is ill-positioned to defend against a counterattack.

As the Thinkpad can transition rapidly between defensive and attacking modes, this deflect-and-counterattack strategy can be highly effective. IBM HelpCenter (accessible via the blue button) includes a handy illustrated tutorial further explaining this tactic.

On a related note, Dell is working on two similar weaponization concepts for their XPS laptops. The first is fairly primitive and relies soley on mass. The second causes severe burns to an attacker on contact with the underside of the laptop and is switched on by default. Both are expected to be included in upcoming releases, although speculation is that currently shipping laptops already have both features, but they are undocumented.

Re:Notes from the Thinkpad manual

[nuzak]

This blood-spattered page intentionally left blank.

Cryptonomicon

[demon driver]

Yeah, I've seen the idea of an organ-pipe based computing machine detailed in Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon'. The fictitious machine was not exactly what we'd call low-noise, though.

people use what they want, not what they need

[misanthrope101]

There is already software that is easier on resources. How many people use Word when Abiword, or even a text editor, would do what they needed? I use OS X, and to tell the truth, Textedit and TexShop pretty much meet my actual requirements. Actually, vi and iTerm would meet them, but you get the point. But people don't use what they need--they use what they like. What they like depends on more than just need. Familiarity, convenience, vanity ("I'm a power user, so Abiword isn't enough for me!)", and who knows what else goes into that.

If Wi-Fi worked out of the box, I'd be fine with Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, or a similar distro on a 5-year old laptop...but it wouldn't be as fun, as shiny, as oooh-aah-ish as the latest and greatest. Well, that is until I wanted to use Handbrake and I no longer had the encode times I get with a dual-core 2Ghz chip. Then all of a sudden the retro thing wouldn't be as cool anymore.

Perfect for the living room

[elrous0]

This thing will go great with my 52" plasma TV! Never let it be said that I'm not environmentally conscious.

Quick and cheap advice

[Aceticon]

Here's a couple of quick and cheap tricks for turning your existing computer greener:

• Get one of these Intelli Panel or similar (there are other brands). Basically it's an "intelligent" panel where you plug your computer to a master socket and all the peripherals to the other sockets. When the computer is on, all the other sockets get power, when the computer is off, all the other sockets have no power. If you add up the trickle power consumed in standby mode by the power sources of all the peripherals (usually at least 3 - monitor, printer and loudspeakers) you will see that this thing pays itself after a while (for the typical techie setup this thing pays itself in no time)
• Under-clock your CPU. Really! Just do the exact opposite of all those over-clocking articles: reduce the frequency (say, 10%), reduce the Voltage if possible, remove the enormous fan from the top of your CPU cooler. The power vs frequency behaviour of a CPU is non-linear - especially at the top of it's frequency range - so a small reduction in speed = a large reduction in power consumed. See http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWDT05003_WinHEC05.ppt (page 13) for an example. Ditching the fan and getting a quieter machine in the process is just a pleasant side effect of this.
• Under-clock the GPU and memory of your graphics card. (i bet that at this point most hard-core gamers out there are doubting my geek credentials). Ditch the fan if you can. Same rationale as for the CPUs.
• If you still have a CRT monitor, get an LCD one instead. No explanation needed here IMHO

This should be enough to save you quite some $$$ in your energy bill and polish up your green credentials.

For a more radical approach, consider getting a notebook instead of a desktop for your next upgrade: notebooks will, by design, consume less power than desktops.

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[kitgerrits]

Just a simple hint:
If you have an AMD CPU: Turn on Cool 'n' Quiet in your BIOS and set your Power Management in windows to 'Minimal Power Management'
Intel Core CPUs have teh same trick, but I don't know what it's called.

CnQ will automatically un-clock your CPU for you and raise the clock speed when you need it.

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[Optic7]

I noticed that those intelli panels have UK plugs or something and wondered if there was a US version. There is. It looks like the same people that make the Kill-a-Watt power meter have the same type of power strip here.

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[nuzak]

The problem with the Smart Strip is that they don't make UPS versions of it. The CPU has to go into a UPS, the rest don't -- even if the one plug in the UPS is rated for the load of a strip, you don't want your peripherals sucking down battery.

Better to shop for equipment (and demand it in standards) that includes the ability to turn standby mode off, with that being the factory setting. My TV does this, and while it's a bit of a bother to wait the extra 5 seconds for it to power up, the energy savings are significant. Lots of power companies are asking for this (which seems strange, but they're running past capacity every summer and that hurts them).

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[Anonymous Coward]

>Ditching the fan and getting a quieter machine in the process is just a pleasant side effect of this.

Seriously. I'd be very happy if my desktop could operate in fanless mode, at least most of the time.

OpenWRT on a WRT54GL (and getting rid of a noisy server I was using in my living room) has gotten me really enthused about silent systems. It's really, really pleasant to get rid of that annoying background white noise. Frankly, I can see "silence" being a much bigger selling point than "being green", especially if the reason someone is "being green" is to cut resource consumption that constructing the parts for a new computer just drives up.

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[sciurus0]

Instead of an intelli panel, you can get a UPS and plug all your devices into the battery-backed sockets. Turning off the UPS cuts off all power to those sockets, so do it whenever you're not using the computer.

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[Optic7]

Good points, thanks. Cool link on your signature by the way. I'm checking it out...

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[Aceticon]

I suggest a passive water cooling system. I've been using a Reserator from Zalman for this. You can eliminate both the CPU and the GPU fan with one of these without compromising in performance (actually you can overclock both your CPU and your GPU with one of these). Since it has no fans it's very quiet (it does have a water pump which can become noisy if not tightly fit to the bottom of the water tower, just replace it with an external pump - it's a lot easier to wrap a water pump in sound-dampening material than it is to sound-proof a fan).

The next step is a power source with a 12 inch fan instead of the traditional 9 inch fan ones (larger = slower = quieter). Power sources with 12'' fans are quite common nowadays.

After that there are noise reduction cradles for your hard-disks and sound proofing for your computer case ...

Just beware that the quest for a silent PC is a never ending one. Once you get rid of the loudest sounding noise source in your PC, you start to notice the noise from the previous second loudest source.

Re:Quick and cheap advice

[Shadow99_1]

"Under Clock Your CPU"

Or own an AMD cpu powered computer and turn on Cool & Quiet. It under-clocks your cpu when you don't need it and powers it back up when you do. It's usually enabled in all their laptops (& has been for around 5 years) and can be turned on for most desktops in your motherboards bios.

My 'new' PC saves me $50/month on my electric bill over the old while being faster when I need it.

you forgot something

[commodoresloat]

In order to truly make your thinkpad green you will need some of this.

Power Supplies

[SIGBUS]

I am completely under-whelmed by 80+ ATX power supplies and I'd like to find a power supply which reached better than 90%.

On the other hand, even an 80+ supply is far better than older ones. Last year, an old Antec 300W supply died in my file server after a capacitor went *pop* (the classic bad capacitor syndrome), and I replaced it with an OCZ 700W unit (overkill, I know, but it had lots of SATA power connectors, and eliminated a rat's nest of adapters and Y-cables). I was flabbergasted to see that the load on the UPS dropped by 50%.

Re:Power Supplies

[bhima]

Good point. Also makes wonder if there isn't some Website for a company that will build a custom wiring harness for a PC to order.

Re:Power Supplies

[Optic7]

I'm not sure I understand what you guys are going on about regarding a power supply wiring harness, but they make power supply units nowadays that have removable individual device cables, so that you only have to have the power cables that you really need inside the PC case.

Re:Power Supplies

[bhima]

The highest efficiency mains to the various DC voltages needed for a PC power supply I could find is from a company called N2Power. These power supplies do not come with a wiring harness of any sort. However they do have a something like a 94% efficiency rating. I find this more compelling than 80 Plus standard you see in ATX power supplies on the market today. As I said, I'm not so enthused to make my own wiring harness. However, after reading the poor reviews of many companies' power supplies, I'm probably wind up doing just that. I already have two supplies I'm using for other projects and I'm really happy with them.

Re:Power Supplies

[Optic7]

Ah, I think I see. You're talking about a power supply that's not really designed specifically for PCs, to fit in a PC case? Then I don't know. 94% sounds cool though, as long as it can handle the currents that you need for each voltage, running for long times. Good luck!

The greenest PC is the one you don't buy.

[toby]

n/t

What does this sentence mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

The minimalist approach of Sparkle/Fortron-Source's minimal-materials-used green GLN and HLN series is probably the best approach here.

Anyone?

Go to Walmart for a Cheap Green PC

[angus_rg]

They have some of the best prices on Rustolium green paint I've ever seen.

VIA for how much?

[wytcld]

$267 seems like a lot for a VIA mainboard, when one with the same CPU goes for as little as $60 shipped. The one they're featuring has better video outputs, but is that feature alone worth $207? And the board they're featuring only accepts a gig of RAM, while $60 and $70 VIA boards take 2 gigs.

Seems to me like affordability is a big part of going green. First, it means that you can get enough people to do it for all those percentage savings to add up. Second, and more importantly, almost everything you can do to make the extra money to blow on more expensive hardware involves its own externalities - often involving energy use, and greenhouse and other pollution. If you can lessen your economic activity, while getting equivalent value in goods at lower cost, both you and the environment are better off. The only loss is to somebody else who could have made more money off of you. I have a personal ethical commitment to the health of our ecosystem; but should I have an ethical commitment to boosting the GDP by needlessly spending too much?

That's rich

[CopaceticOpus]

A green gaming PC... so you can feel good as you sit inside by yourself, the blinds drawn to keep out the sunlight, avoiding the world and doing nothing for it, wasting time playing games.

Where do I order?

45nm GPUs will be a benefit gamer.

[BrendaEM]

Fourty-Five nanometer GPUs will be a benefit gamer, until then, Nvidia, ATI, and Intel should work more on 2D power consumption, and adaptive underclocking.

Technology is bad for the environment

[mcvos]

I agree completely. 5 year old computers are still way better than the super computers of 20 years ago. The real polution in computer usage isn't the electricity bill, it's buying a new PC every couple of years.

The problem is, we have to buy a new PC every couple of years, because we want to use the latest software, play the latest games, join in the latest fad, and for that, we need a fast PC.

While in many areas, technological progress often means more efficiency and more environmental friendliness, in PC use, it just means our hardware gets obsolete sooner, and we want to buy new stuff that still works perfectly well.

Unfortunately I'm just as guilty of this as most: I'm currently in the process of buying a new PC, because my old Athlon 1800+ can't handle the last couple of years' worth of cool new games, and is generally just not as good and fast as what I've gotten used to. And although that new PC is as quiet and energy-efficient as possible, it'd be a lot better if I simply stuck to older games (there are plenty I haven't tried yet), and perhaps cleaned out the dust so the fans won't be as noisy.

Actually, I was even planning to buy a small new server that consumes as little electricity as possible, but instead I think I'll clean my old PC, perhaps replace the occasional fan, and reuse it in a new role. It even saves me money. I just hope I can get that bloody thing a bit quieter.

Green PCs make not one Green

[TexasGuitar]

I think the real people who care are actually going to make sacrifices in order to save the environment. For instance carpooling - you can find one easily with RideSearch.com. Or even just recycling, not wasting water, turning off all of the lights and everyday things can add up. Even a green PC adds to the mix. Its a good idea but there needs to be more.

Human or pet powered generator

[fitten]

Ride a bike or make your dog/cat run on a treadmill to turn a generator to produce the electrical power for it. Otherwise, it isn't that green.

No, there's nothing wrong with conservation

[jsiren]

Imagine one day you noticed your gas gauge read almost empty. You make a quick mental calculation: you know how far the nearest gas pump is, and you know approximately how far you can go with what gas you have left, and subtracting the former from the latter, the result is close to zero, if not slightly negative. Now, if you conserve by driving in a very economical manner, you may well get to the gas station with fuel to spare. Then again, if you drive in your usual aggressive style, you will certainly run out of gas and have to walk or get a tow truck.

Now, is there something wrong with conservation?

DC

[Crispy Critters]

"Having one big DC supply with lots of outlets in your home is likely to be less energy efficient (because of the large voltage loss over long cable runs at high currents) than having local ones."

Think about what you are saying and try again.

The ArsTechnica article says that the difference between a good power supply and an inefficient one is 10-20% of the total power thrown out. This might be 10-50 W depending on the computer. That is a crap load of power.

Now look at the power lost by sending 10 amps over 10 meters of 16 gauge wire (which is pretty thin wire). It is under 2 watts. Use 12 gauge wire and it is under 1 watt.

So by using a central, high-efficiency AC-to-DC converter you save tens of watts but you lose a watt in distributing the power. Sounds good to me.

Now consider how many really inefficient DC power supplies there are lurking around the house. How about the devices that put the power switch on the low-voltage side of the transformer so they burn watts whenever they are plugged in (I had an HP printer like that)?

I doubt we could ever get manufacturers to agree on a single DC voltage to use, though. I don't want outlets with 15 different plugs covering every DC voltage everyone wants to use.

Re:DC

[ps236]

I'm not entirely sure how you get the power loss there to be under 2 watts.

16 gauge wire has a resistance of about 0.013 ohms/metre, or 0.13 ohms for 10 metres. So, power = I^2 * R, so 10 amps is a 13 watt power loss. For a 12V power supply that's about 11% power loss.

Even with 12 gauge wire, you'd lose over 5 watts.

This ignores all the extra losses you'd get because you'd have to have the DC supply producing a higher voltage to handle the voltage drops. If you want to run a high-end PC off it, you may need it to produce, say a kilowatt - that's 83 amps at 12V. You lose half a volt per metre cable run at those currents with 12 gauge wire (never mind the cable melting :) ) so for a relatively short 10 metre run, you need to generate at least 17 V at the supply. Now, for anything closer, you have to throw away the extra 5V (using a linear voltage converter, which is cheap, but very inefficient), or use a switched mode DC-DC converter (which is more expensive, and will still have some losses in it). If you're going to need switched mode DC-DC converters everywhere, then why not use a higher voltage so you have less power/voltage loss in the cables? Oh, we're back where we started...

To actually carry your 83 amps at 12V, you'd actually need 3 gauge (preferably 2 gauge) copper wire. That's 6mm diameter - good luck with routing that around your house. If you want to run two PCs and a TV, you'll need 0000 gauge, that's 11mm diameter!

OK, with 0000 gauge wire, you'll only lose 16W with a 100A current (1.3% loss at 12V) so it's quite efficient, but it won't be fun sourcing and then installing a couple of 11mm diameter 'cables' in your house, while maintaining cable integrity every time you go around a corner.

Re:DC

[Crispy Critters]

"I'm not entirely sure how you get the power loss there to be under 2 watts."

Easy. I was in a hurry, and I screwed up the calculation. Thanks for not calling me an idiot even thought it is justified.

Let me try again. 10 m of 12 gauge wire has a resistance of 0.061 ohms. If we say that we don't want to lose more than 5 W at the highest load, that lets us carry 9 A. That also means a half volt drop. Assuming a 12 V system, that means I am losing 10 W (have to count the return too) to power a 108 W device. Hopefully, a well-designed dedicated DC power unit could be 10% more efficient than a PC power supply. But 108 W is really too small for what we want. We can tweak things to get a factor of two here or there, but it is really not adequate.

So we have to go to extremes to make this work in a residential dwelling. First option, put the DC supply next to the computer and run wire for low power devices (chargers, clocks...). Second option, keep all devices low power (green PC, not a server). Third option, run 1" bus bar through the basement, send cable up through the walls for the outlets. Bus bar is probably easier to work with than 1" cable, because for the latter you need to get lugs to make connections, but you can just drill holes in the bus bar.

Re:DC

[ps236]

I think if you could get manufacturers to standardise on standard voltages (+/- 12V/5V) and standard power connectors, then you could use either option. People in existing houses would probably use localised PSUs (eg one by the TV, one by the PC etc). New builds may include bus bars (you'd need 5, one for each voltage)

All manufacturers really need to do is to have an option to disable their own PSU (if it's internal) and feed DC power in directly. Devices with external PSUs would just need the standard connectors instead of proprietary ones.

However, I doubt this will happen in the near future without legislation, because there's no motive from the manufacturer's point of view.

(BTW, I get 85% efficiency PSUs for PCs I build or for replacements when the manufacturers' ones go, so you can get good PC PSUs - the 'bargain' ones are almost certainly a lot worse though).

My power consumption figures, just for comparison

[Rick17JJ]

I have two computers and a couple of Kill-A-Watt meters, so here are the power consumption figures for my two home computers just for comparison:

My most power efficient computer at home is 1 year old and has a 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, Windows XP and is hooked to a 20-inch LCD flat screen monitor. Not counting the monitor it uses 24 Watts. The 20-inch flat screen. monitor uses 40 Watts (or only 1 Watt when in the sleep mode). This is not a laptop computer, it is a very small desktop computer, but it does happen to have a very small motherboard which is normally used in laptop computers.

My other computer is hooked to the same keyboard, monitor and mouse through a KVM switch. I had room for more than one computer but not more than one monitor.

A 2-year old AMD-64 computer running Kubuntu Linux is my main computer, which I am using at the moment. It is a dual-core AMD-64 4200+ and is hooked to the same 20-inch LCD flat screen monitor. It is using 82 Watts at the moment, plus an additional 40 Watts for the monitor. It can use more power under heavy load. When the monitor goes into the sleep mode it's power consumption drops to only 1 Watt. The computer has 2GB of RAM and 2 large hard drives. It has a 380-Watt 80+ power supply that is over 80% efficient. I use Kubuntu 7.10 Linux and by default it has the AMD-64's Cool n' Quiet feature enabled which saves power by dropping the CPU's clock speed from 2.4 GHz down to 1 GHz when the computer is idle or not doing anything difficult.

By the way, it does use 7-Watts even when it is turned off.

• Kill-A-Watt meter
• What is an 80 PLUS power supply?

Re:Green == production and Green power

[gobbo]

Land that they had lived on for hundreds or thousands of years was most likly taken without their consent, or otherwise stolen...

Yes, and the GP post also overlooks the participation of the mining/resource-extraction company in further disenfranchising the locals, and how much secrecy there is. It's easy to say 'lay your life down for your liberty' typing at a keyboard in comfort.

This is the biggest problem with the way globalization is going: a lack of accountability. The shareholders and regulators don't know how land/culture/society is being raped, because it's being done over there. Corruption pays both foreign companies and local politicians (who were often installed by economic hit-men and political fixers), and it's all hush hush, though if someone does squawk, usually very few listen anyway. There's lots of published evidence, but the GP is willing to post opinions without doing the research.

this train wreck we call modern society.

Here's my dilemma when upgrading or buying a new computer: they're all 'dirty' through various parts of the production chain, and it is literally impossible to purchase a truly ethical or green computer (other than recycling old crap, I guess). Now, I know it's like this with much of the industrial system, shirts and shoes made by convicts and strawberries killing workers with fungicides, yadda yadda, but often there are options. Not with computers.

Via is a company that really needs to go away.

[vision864]

with that crap low power is low power you'd probably get better performance per watt from a celeron 300a.

Lifecycle assessment (LCA)

[emj]

Actually you can know how much something effects the environment, there are standardized ways to evaluate a products effect on the environment through its life. I don't think you will get the whole picture with mines etc, but you will get CO^2 emission levels.

There is a recent study on e-readers vs. paper magazines done here in Sweden.

Re:Lifecycle assessment (LCA)

[Anonymous Coward]

you will get CO^2 emission levels.

CO squared? That's just stupid. Take a look at the wikipedia page on carbon dioxide and try to do better next time.

Re:Lifecycle assessment (LCA)

[gobbo]

Thanks, that's quite interesting... however I wasn't just thinking about the environment, but social justice too. Don't like the idea of 12-year olds going slowly blind in a sweatshop, or miners communities dying of mercury poisoning... etc.

The Article Misses a Few Critical Components

[Plekto]

Perhaps the best solution of all is to find a way to ditch the fans. A typical system's 5-7 fans eat up a total of 100W, and this is something that the article blithely ignored.

GPU fan
Intake fan
Exhaust fan
Fan on the power supply
CPU fan

And that's not counting 2 fan power supplies, northbridge fans, and so on.

Check out this setup I found online:

Silverstone TJ-04, Corsair VX450, E8400 Wolfdale @ 3.6Ghz, Gigabyte P35 DS3R, Scythe Ninja!/bolt through, 2 x 1GB Corsair PC6400 DDR2, HD3870 (859/1300) + Accelero S1, WD 250GB SATA II, Samsung Bk-203 DVD-RAM SATA

74W idle, 190W full 3d/cpu/drives stress test(124W normal use playing games). 2 exhaust fans. Virtually silent.

This was tested with a voltmeter and is actual from-the-wall power draw. Adding up a bunch of parts together on paper and claiming it's "green" is just wrong.

No need for silly "green" technologies - just less fans and some reasonable choices and you're better than the setup in the article. And this is a full-blown E8400 system with a HD3870.

Note: With a passive power supply and a bit of careful choices about the drives, 175W should be doable.

turn it off

[djfake]

if you really wanted a green pc, just turn it off an unplug it. Limit yourself to one (1) hour at max of web surfing. But at the very least, don't waste energy wading through worthless /. comments like this.

Despite the talk about "green" PC's...

[sethstorm]

...Nvidia is unavailable for comment.

Re:Green == production and Green power

[zsau]

Woah! As if western countries don't do mining? Australia's only significant exports are sheep and stuff that's come out of the ground! Not that I really know the damage mining causes, but that's because I live in the city. I reckon people from Beijing would have just as hard a time imagining it. Point is: There's no reason to be racist about it. It's distance and experience, not cultural background.

Re:Green == production and Green power

[zippthorne]

Well environmentalists who oppose lopping of the tops of mountains deserve to be dropped in the same bin as the ones who oppose terraforming mars (putting aside the practical issues) as if the desolation itself is a habitat worthy of preservation.*

Certainly, there are aesthetic issues, and it would be nice to have a few pristine views, but those views only benefit people who can access them. Above the tree-lines, there is nothing but rock. If that rock contains minerals whose extraction will benefit people, improving their lives, I'm gonna have to say, lop off that mountain-top. Aesthetics that only a few people will ever experience should always be subordinate to quality of life of millions of people.

Further, given the choice between strip-mining and underground mining, I think the recent spate of trapped miners should gives us a bit to think about on that issue.

* Obviously, areas where things actually live deserve more consideration. I'm just talking about the "lopping off a few mountain tops" where it really ought to be an easy decision. In the case of Mars, discovering actual life would change the equation quite a bit. Assuming that it will ever be possible to turn it into something we could talk about living on. There is plenty of time yet before any of our descendants could have the slightest chance of having that decision to make.

DDR3 power comsumption

[twistedcubic]

The article claims DDR3 uses 10W per DIMM more than DDR2. Is this true? If so, that's pretty outrageous.

try this

[alizard]

You can find out how I got my Debian desktop running with suspend / hibernate here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

And thanks for posting, I thought I had "cool and quiet" running on my x2/4200, turns out all I've done was turn the capability on in BIOS, for more information on turning it on (Debian/Ubuntu), try this article.

just tried the instructions in that technowizard

[alizard]

article on getting processor power reductin ... they appear to work. My computer is doing nothing much right now (a VMware server running a W98 session, Opera with a couple of dozen windows, a couple of Firefox sessions)

# cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 002: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2006
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: powernow-k8
CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0 1
hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.20 GHz
available frequency steps: 2.20 GHz, 2.00 GHz, 1.80 GHz, 1000 MHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.20 GHz.
The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).
analyzing CPU 1:
driver: powernow-k8
CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0 1
hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.20 GHz
available frequency steps: 2.20 GHz, 2.00 GHz, 1.80 GHz, 1000 MHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.20 GHz.
The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).

Seems to work so far. as to how well this plays with suspend, I'll know the next time I spend a few minutes away from the computer.

just tried turning on cool & quiet - DON'T DO

[alizard]

Looked great with the CPU running in low power mode and running up to full power when needed.

Right up until it crashed, turning the video into a blank with short lines across it and locking up the keyboard so hard that even SysRq S - U - B wouldn't reboot the system, I had to unplug it and power it back up.

There may be a conflict with the nvidia video driver, but I don't have any more time to deal with this.

The problem is not with suspend, it wasn't enabled for the second crash.

Re:Green == production and Green power

[Eivind]

Indeed, I lived about 10 miles from a actively running open-pit strip-mining operation up until 2 years ago -- in Germany.

Re:Green == production and Green power

[Eivind]

You frequently -can- poison other peoples land without paying for it. The problem is known as an "externality" and is a known problem of capitalism.

If I can produce widget X for 10$ a piece, and there is a market for a million of these widgets a year sold at $15, it would appear that my factory produces 5 million worth of wealth in that the outputs from the factory are worth 5 million more than the inputs.

If, however, the factory produces noise and pollution sufficiently that there are 10000 people in the area surrounding it which would be willing to pay $500/year to have the factory closed (that is: the running of the factory produces negative value for them of $500/year or more), then infact the factory is a net COST to society.

It's just that the profits go to the owner (me!) and the losses are distributed among a lot of unlucky ones who can't do anything about it, assuming that the factory are within legal limits at its locale.

Re:just tried the instructions in that technowizar

[bcrowell]

This was all enabled for me by default in ubuntu gutsy. I didn't have to do anything special. The article you linked to appears to be relevant to older kernels.

uname -a

[alizard]

Linux terrarium 2.6.22-3-k7 #1 SMP Sun Feb 10 21:04:14 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

(Debian testing/unstable)

Re:Green == production and Green power

[MilesAttacca]

Excuse me, but above the tree line, there are still plenty of small plants -- and the animals who use them for food and habitat. Life doesn't just stop at a certain altitude, and even though people may never bother to go and watch the pretty little critters, that doesn't mean their part in the ecosystem is any less important to the overall "quality of life of millions of people" when you consider how everything in this world fits together.

Re:Green == production and Green power

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the mountain goats will just have to learn to like running across parking lots.