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Fujitsu To Show Off "Zero-Watt" PC At CeBIT
mobile writes "In August of last year Fujitsu announced new 'zero-watt' displays. This means the screens use absolutely no power when put into standby mode, unlike most other screens that use less than 1 watt, but still require some power. Now Fujitsu has announced they will be showing a zero-watt PC later this year at the CeBIT show. The PC is called the Esprimo Green and marks a first, in that it's able to use no power while in standby mode — but this is a feature that will be required from 2010 for new PCs released across Europe."
I assume "standby" means hibernate, not suspend due to the power required to refresh RAM. Or is Fujitsu introducing something with MRAM?
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
I've been looking for a computer powered by zero-point energy drawn from vacuum fluctuation.
Maybe I can transplant the power supply into my car and get infinite miles per gallon?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
How would you know whether the device is in standby or turned off? Normally an LED signifies this.
Perhaps a mechanical indicator? Or, e-ink?
That's AMAZING NEW TECH!!! Zero watts, ha? I can't believe we finally figured this shit out!
You can't handle the truth.
This means the screens use absolutely no power when put into standby mode, unlike most other screens that use less than 1 watt, but still require some power
I don't get this obsession with "standby" power draw... My computer and display and TV and DVD player already draw zero watts when off, thanks to the magic of the switch on the power strip.
And for the record, I don't even do this for the power savings - More than once, I've had my "expensive" electronic toys saved from nearby lightning strikes that took out things like alarm clocks and answering machines (No, a power strip won't stop a direct hit, but they do wonders to stop spikes up to a few hundred volts).
Let's get real. It can't be ZERO watts and still be listening to the net, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Maybe less than one watt with custom CMOS net interfaces. But not ZERO.
To do that
1) They've managed to break the laws of physics or
2) They're lying or
3) They're storing power
And of course, if it's 3, that stored power has to be replenished when the computer is on, causing slightly higher draw then. It's certainly possible that the efficiency of doing that is greater than the efficiency of drawing a very small current from the line. But calling it "zero power" is just marketing. Truly "using zero power" would mean that any internal state of charge wouldn't be depleted either.
The problem with just fixing and selling the small stuff is that this can actually be counter-productive. "Green guilt" has a positive purpose: make people feel bad so they do less of that bad thing. The "eco products" counter that: buy our xxx and you don't have to feel bad. This would be OK except that people often then modify their behavior. Someone that feels bad for driving 5 miles with an SUV might feel they're doing the planet good when they drive 100 miles with a Prius.
Same deal here. I don't feel bad about leaving my computer on any more because the monitor is now using zero Watts.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
1. Invent zero-watt sleep mode for PC.
2. Patent relevant technology.
3. Lobby the Euros for legislation requiring feature.
4. Profit!
(forget about valid strategy of turning off PC--stupid consumers can't be bothered)
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
They are also good to use since in some designs they leave the chassis ground connected. So you can cut power, but keep the case grounded (that's what it's grounded through) and then ground yourself to that by touching it. No static zap.
it looks from here http://sp.fujitsu-siemens.com/dmsp/docs/ds_esprimo_e.pdf like its only the screen that draws 0 watts when ts in standby - looks like the power for the screen is routed through the pc box and so they just make the pc turn off the power to the screen when the pc is in standby. It is a bit hard to tell, as the first part of it seems to be written in engrish
Okay, they'll make a modified one that doesn't keep those features active and opens a relay at the end of the hibernation process which is then closed by pressing a button on the case, triggering restoration from hibernation mode. And You can make hibernate zero-watt by unplugging the device. And you can still do all this by just turning the darn thing off and cutting the power. This isn't a situation that needs technological innovation. It needs people to be educated, then exercise some common sense. Then they can save money without having to spend it on new equipment.
If they want to save some freakin' power in the future, stop loading up operating systems with all this eye candy BS that require multicore processors and 128 megs of dedicated video ram just to work. Put out a "gets the job done" operating system that is rock solid and has a small resource footprint. Then start pushing the new low-power processors like Intel's Atom. Flood corporate America with those things and stop giving core 2 duos to secretaries who spend all day reading email, typing up documents, making powerpoint presentations, and all that other stuff that doesn't need a 100 watt CPU and aero effects.
THAT is where we need to cut power consumption. Saving 100 watts over 8-9 hours, not 1-4 watts over 15-16 hours.
If, for example, mandates like this end up requiring use of suspend-to-disk over suspend-to-RAM, increasing the unsuspend time, the likely effect is that more people will simply leave their computers fully powered on for more time, making the overall power usage worse than before.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
---Worrying over a device drawing milliwatts is silly.
Is it now?
Have you ever heard of QRP? It's a code for power reduction in terms of ham radio. When we're talking QRP, we're talking about 1w or LESS power to communicate anywhere in the world. In the early spring, we can communicate with Midway (the island), and we're in Indiana. We've done satellite communications on .5w, however that was using a parabolic antenna.
So yes, 1w is a lot of power.
My point is not what can you do with a watt, my point is that a watt is a trivial amount of power compared to what our devices use. The monitor I'm looking at right now while typing this is drawing about 60 watts, and it's an LCD. My air conditioner draws around 3500 watts when active. My car can produce nearly 130,000 watts when run to it's full capacity.
So suppose you have a device that draws 1 watt idle. Most draw less, but suppose. Ok that means you can run that for 60 hours before equaling just one hour of my monitor usage. You can run it for half a year before equaling just one hour of my AC. The car, well I can't do an accurate comparison since it doesn't run at full power, but I'm betting you can run an idle device for over a year for the same amount of energy as a short trip.
So, my point is that worrying about that shit is stupid. That isn't where the majority of our energy usage is happening. Saying "Oh we reduced this to zero," sounds nice until you realize that in a single day an AC will use more than that thing will over a lifetime of idle.
I mean take my monitor as an example. As I said, I measure the power draw of it on to be about 60 watts. When it's idle, as in I've pressed the "soft off" switch, it doesn't read a power draw. My meter has a resolution of 1 watt so I don't know what the draw is. Somewhere less than a watt. We'll call it half a watt for argument's sake. I suspect it's actually less, but whatever.
Now I've owned the monitor for about a year, and in that time it's been on for 2090 hours (it's a professional monitor, keeps that in it's firmware). So during it's life it has used about 125kWh. Assuming that it is in soft off mode the rest of the time (I actually shut down my UPS) it would have spent about 6,670 hours idle. That would equal a usage of about 3kWh, maybe less.
So, what's the real thing to solve here in terms of less energy usage? Worrying about making it "zero power" when off (which I can do if I like, either with the monitor's hard off switch of the UPS) or reducing the power used when on by just 5%? Well 5% of 125kWh is 6kWh so over twice the draw as reducing the idle mode. It's also a lot more realistic. An LED backlight would probably get that 5%, maybe more.
That's what I mean. It is worrying about shit that just doesn't matter much. Even if you are just worried about the electronics, the power draw is in their on mode. An hour of on will equal days of idle. However all that pales in comparison to many other devices.
So sure, I see the point in saying "Keep your soft off draw as low as practical." Seems like modern devices do that already. However this "It must be zero watts," is stupid. I reiterate: 1 watt is NOT a lot of energy.
Seriously, this joke has more than run its co