Fieldlines.com || Reducing Computer Power Requirements

Front Page - [Homebrewed Electricity-- (wind) (solar) (hydro) (steam) (controls) (storage) (mechanical)] - Classifieds - Site News
Everything - Newbies - [Remote Living-- (housing) (heat) (light) (water)] - Reviews - Diaries - Our Products

Reducing Computer Power Requirements
By wdyasq, Section Controls Posted on Sat May 28, 2005 at 02:35:11 PM MST
Thoughts and some options.

I have been researching reducing the power consumption of my computers. Using CAD/CAM packages takes more power and screensize than reasonably priced laptops can supply. I do use LCD screens. I'm not sure how much power is lost by the power-supplies but one of the things I will do is go to 12V. These power-supplies do not have fans. Than means either they don't produce much heat and they are silent. Not converting from AC mains to DC in various voltages should save some power.
The LCD screens I use can be powered by 12V. This will eliminate two 'power bricks'. This should also eliminate more useless heat and components.
The silent computer folks have been working with 'under-clocking' computers. Another innovation is what one might call an auto-speed adjusting PC. This regulates speed and therefore power consumption to how much is needed for the task. This article - http://tinyurl.com/ddd4d - shows an AMD 1700 and claims using a hefty 4.7 watts.
Well, here are a few links one might fine interesting and constructive.
http://tinyurl.com/cdl4 - silent computer page
http://tinyurl.com/7ranl - Power consumption of computer parts
http://tinyurl.com/cvfdh - power consumption play simulator
Ron

Reducing Computer Power Requirements | 37 comments (37 topical)

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by monte350c on Sat May 28, 2005 at 09:39:32 AM MST

Some of the newer Centrino mobile computing packages are pretty impressive combinations of speed and low power consumption.

http://tinyurl.com/aejwd

Even the highest performance model laptop with this technology only uses around 12 watts of power. Power that would be nice to run CAD apps.

Of course the trick is to find one that doesn't cost an arm + a leg.

Ted.

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by Vince on Sun May 29, 2005 at 02:37:14 PM MST

You can now have the high speed and low power consumption of the mobile chip on your desktop:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/pentium4-05.html

The 'Pentium M' only draws 27 Watts at full throttle, whereas the 'Pentium 4' draws 30 to 40 Watts sitting at idle:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/pentium4-02.html

[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by farmerfrank on Sat May 28, 2005 at 10:29:47 AM MST

This useless heat is only an issue in the summer time. Turning off lights, high efficiency hot water heaters and the like don't save much if you have to turn on the heat to warm the room. Helps in the summer just as BBQ'ing outside when the AC is on does.

Free energy (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by wdyasq on Sat May 28, 2005 at 11:31:39 AM MST

This useless heat is only an issue in the summer time. Turning off lights, high efficiency hot water heaters and the like don't save much if you have to turn on the heat to warm the room. -

Don't know about you - I have to buy or make (the make stuff is much more expensive) the energy in the first place. The energy that goes into heat, and not preforming work is pretty much a waste. I am in North Central Texas where excess heat is a problem 9 months a year. You mileage may vary.

Ron
Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen
[ Parent ]

Re: Free energy (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by farmerfrank on Sat May 28, 2005 at 03:32:38 PM MST

Well I'm in Canada,9 months of winter here. We either have to cook up a big meal or throw another log on the fire. Shouldn't complain I guess since rarely ever need the AC. I guess the ideal location is somewhere between us.

[ Parent ]

Re: Free energy (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by nothing to lose on Sat May 28, 2005 at 03:34:32 PM MST

The heat is always an issue!

It's harder to make electric to power a PC etc.. to produce heat than it is to carry in a stick of wood or let the sun shine in for allot more heat.

Even if heating with propane, a furnace is better than electric anytime. So what you lose in electric is still a waste. In summer it is just a heck of allot worse being you then have to remove that heat you never wanted in the first place, in the winter you just don't care about the heat but it's still like running a 100-300watt light bulb instead of a CFL light.
I would not want to heat my home with light bulbs anytime of year, though I do heat the pump house in freezing weather that way a few days/weeks a year with them.
Only time it would not be an issue really is if you have to constantly make heat as a dumpload anyway to burn off excess electric. Then all the waste is part of the dump load. But how often do we need to do that continously?

Next winter I will probably not use bulbs for that pump house either, probably use a small wood burner and waste oil to heat the pump house, except if I will be away then back to the light bulbs and thermostats. For the pump house I can probably burn trash, paper bags boxes and gift wrap, in that small burner and extract enough heat into the oil to last several days if needed.
I would not put my computer in there for this purpose though :)

For saving power with a PC, build one with the bare parts needed. Forget the super power gaming card video card, forget the extra hard drives, forget the DVD burners ect.. and the power supplie will use less electric and make less heat. Under clocking the CPU also helps alittle, but you lose working speed too so that is a trade off.

As far as NOT having all the bells and whistles, you can have a second NON-work system with those for part time use. When working long hours use the low power system for 8 hours a day, then if needed transfer the files through the network to the second system (about 5 minutes) and burn the DVDs etc.. after shutting off the low power system again. For high power gamming use the big system then, no way around eating power and making heat if you game with a $500 video card!

If you can find a good cheap 12V power supply that's good too, if it don't cost $300-$500 of course, if you get into too much money for one of those, might as well just put up a small extra gennie to make the power you lose in heat and then you have it for everything not just the PC. A gennie will most likely last longer than a P/S and is far more versitale, so have to figure where money is best spent and the needed use.
As for getting rid of wall-worts, well seems if you can run off 12Vdc it would not matter if it was a computer power supply or batteries providing that power, so I think you should still be able to do that, though I don't know your monitor so you'll have to check that yourself.

One of these days I will get around to wiring all my DC stuff direct to batteries and put in togle swithes to turn it totally off when not in use, but have to remember it then is not portable unless you have or take batteries to the next location, or keep the wal wort handy and a plug on the scanner/printer etc.. to connect it back on when needed. I myself will probably tap the standard plug connector inside the case with extra wires for the direct dc input, then the wal-wort can still be used if needed later.
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.
[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by scottsAI on Sat May 28, 2005 at 08:50:12 PM MST

Very hot topic for me.
I have 16 SETI computers.
Together they use 1.5MwHr per month of power.
All computers are Desktop, built for speed.
Use Kill-o-watt meter to measure power use.
Lowest power computer is 67w. Runs Linux,
Has: Motherboard, CPU, Fan, floppy 256mbDDR. With network.
No: video, HD, keyboard, mouse, CD, sound

Same computer with HD, Video, running windows, uses 94watts.
I have tried to run windows disk less, cant get it to work. Also without video?
I use KVM to monitor and control all the computers.
Highest Power computer is 2.5ghz, 1gbDDR, two HD, CD, Floppy, 3 fans, Fast video + TV tuner. Uses 120 watts. All computers have UPS. Adds about 5 watts each.

Looked into 80% efficiency power supplies, cost $100 vs $13. Payoff is 80 months - years, not good. I have no idea if I will keep doing this for even 3 years.

I bought an AMD mobile processor, power is not quite half... I hope to do a little over clocking and power reduction.
The overhead of the rest of the system is high in power. A 1.6 g system and a 3 g, the power is only about 30w higher for twice the speed, stripped systems.
I plan to retire two 1.2g processors, replacing with 2.5g or higher.

The power required in a motherboard is 12v, 5v, 3.3v, 5vsb. How do you plan to use only 12v to power it?

I have considered making a Y cable for the ATX power. I plan to run up to 4 computers on one 500w PS. The efficiency goes up as the PS is loaded. I worry about doing this, it will max out the PS. The cheap PS I use, don't know how they will take it. Sometimes when the PS fail they destroy the motherboard. I have a stack of MB to prove it. And the dead PS. (8 PS in 3 years, 4 MB)

Considering using water cooling, eliminate the 2.5w fan on each processor. Problem the pump and the heat exchanger's fan will draw more power. At least it will be quieter. PC are mostly in the room where I work all day.

I will be very interested in how this turns out for you. Keep us or me posted.
Thanks for the links, a good read.
Have fun.

12V power (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by wdyasq on Sat May 28, 2005 at 09:15:28 PM MST

Scott,

If I were faced with your delima I would think about a single box with all the computers in one silenced box. I would have a large fan or two and duct air to the individual processors. There would be a custom power supply outside the box containing all the computers. VPN and/or SSH would control the computers and there would be one server, one screen and one keyboard controlling.

http://www.mini-box.com/site/index.html has the 12V power supplies. I think one could build powersupplies with some big power transisters and the proper chips to control them.

Ron
Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen
[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by scottsAI on Sat May 28, 2005 at 11:02:56 PM MST

Like the link. Very interesting PS. At 95% eff. my power should drop by 30%. I do not have a source of 12v. Any method to produce it will have it's own efficiency issues. I wonder if I could put 10 in series, NOT - just kidding!
This idea bears further thinking.
Have fun.

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by ghurd on Sat May 28, 2005 at 11:31:15 PM MST

Are you powering from a UPS?

Every RE watt to the UPS batteries is a free watt, right?

And figuring the PC power is from the UPS, from the batteries, from the charger, from the grid.
Every RE watt is more than 1 watt free. No losses in the battery or charger.
Kind of direct feed RE to PC.
(I don't know how all of them work, and have not been inside many large ones.)

G-
Ghurd.info
[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by scottsAI on Sun May 29, 2005 at 01:03:01 AM MST

I thought of mounting the PC in a frame, may of the SETI farms are case less PC, mount them on a frame. Most farms are all the same motherboard. Mine are all different, when I had the money, I would buy what was a good deal at the time.

One box is a very 'quiet' idea.

I just bought a 128mb compact flash card to put in an IDE to CF adapter.
I will put windows in the CF and boot that way. Should make it a very fast booting computer and drop the power 10w.

I have considered using laptop HD, their power is half or less. I have bought 20, 2.5g HD for $6 ea. The laptop HD is 4x or more.
I just checked the power on some HD. 30Gb was 12w, 2.5Gb 6w, Laptop 6Gb 2.5w.
The numbers are from the label, I assume max values. Running should be less.
I have some 60, 80, 100gb HD, will check them, maybe replace with the 2.5gb.
Now I'm wondering if it's worth doing the CF project!
More important to get rid of the Video card. I'm using some low end video cards. PCI when I can find them. Newer systems require 1.5v AGP cards, they are power hogs.

I have set up a computer to run SETI from a ramdisk. The HD is able to shutdown. I saw only couple watts change. Not worth the trouble of doing. When I did it, I was trying to save ware and tare on the HD, had several fail over a few months. That is why I bought the 2.5gb HD. I did not know the 2.5Gb HD were that low power. Happened all by accident!

By the way, the power a system uses depends on the motherboard. I have seen 20w differences with the same setup. I have seen with the same setup 10w or so differences with different power supplies.

You asked about UPS, the smaller ones <1kw have 12v batteries. At 800w and up 24v, above 2kw 36-48v. I have a 3kw, uses 48v battery. I plan to build 6kw UPS to power most of my house. Will use 8 golf cart batteries, expect it to last 2 days. I have a well, no water. I can live without a lot of things. Not water.
I do not have any RE. Wife doen't like how solar panels look. No good for wind.

Thanks for the talk, you have helped me figure out a few things!!
Have fun.

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by sh123469 on Sun May 29, 2005 at 06:44:16 AM MST

My wife has many of the same objections about solar panels. She says they are big, ugly, take up too much space that could be used for something else, just about anything you can think of.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when the attitude was more like, if it works well, who cares what it looks like. What happened to this attitude?

I realize that part of the looks thing is slowly being bred into Americans with all of the illegal construction codes and laws about placement of towers, etc. People are being raised with the previous generation's slow loss of the rights to do much more than breathe on their own property without a government permission slip so they are not used to seeing anything that doesn't conform to the latest store bought, nice and shiny, items in use and certainly nothing ugly. The local zoning, planning, construction codes, safety, DHEC, etc czars won't allow it without a lengthy (expensive) court battle proving that they need to be imprisoned for their crimes. After which, they will get a suspended sentence and be told not to bother you for a few years.

I remember a time when you weren't ostricized for having a car more than a few years old. If you put up a tower, people would come and offer assistance with the construction and be interested in why you were doing it, not come over and tell you that you had better stop because the are going to complain to some idiotic planning commission about your ruining their view of the landfill beyond. If you had an ugly old lawn mower than worked well, good for you. Now they will come over and tell you you should get another. That one is getting too old even though they see you cut your grass all the time with it and know it must be perfectly useable.

We need some major attitude change in the US as much as we need RE. With a little planning, solar panels can be well integrated into your property and are barely noticeable.

Enough of my ranting...I wish you well with the reduction of power requirements for all of those computers.

I also wish the original poster well on his power reduction efforts. Older, slower machines will tend to produce less heat and consume less power. Also, laptops and silent PC's will tend to be more power friendly. processor water cooling can be done with thermo siphon and save a couple of watts on the processor fan. As mentioned above, laptop hard drives consume much less power than desktop hard drives. (They are slower, but not all that noticeably) The more stuff is integrated on the motherboard, the more power it will use. Check out one of the mini-itx boards for low power, quiet, low heat boards. They aren't speed demons, just useable but very quiet and power friendly. You are on the right track with eliminating wall-warts, LCD screens, don't install anything that you don't need. If it's there, it uses power. I know you need a high speed machine for CAD work. Speed tends to be counter to conservation. You will have to find a happy medium somewhere in there.

Steve

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by BT Humble on Sun May 29, 2005 at 02:48:01 PM MST

I just bought a 128mb compact flash card to put in an IDE to CF adapter.
I will put windows in the CF and boot that way. Should make it a very fast booting computer and drop the power 10w.

I'm doing this for the computer lab I'm constructing for my Fiji Project. I picked up nine P133 laptops from E-bay for about $10 each, and being ex-corporate machines they've all had their hard drives and caddies removed for destruction.

I was fortunate enough to have one in the batch that still had the HDD and caddy though, and testing revealed a 500mA saving at 12V by using a CF card instead.

It now has a 30-second delay between switching on and being ready for work (I'm running DOS/GEOS rather than Windoze), and it's eerily silent too! ;-)

BTH

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#17)
by nothing to lose on Sun May 29, 2005 at 11:04:17 PM MST

"I use KVM to monitor and control all the computers. "

You need a video card for that I think, have you tried networking the systems and using VNC to control the systems? One monitor, mouse, keyboard, video card on main box, none on the rest once set up to run. No video card should save power, network card I think can be set to sleep and save power and to wake when accessed from remote system.
I think! I have not tried that part of waking remotely.

VNC is free, I have used it some but not alot. I think it may work well for this type use though. Probably slower display maybe than KVM since the video is comming over the network, maybe not though? I was running over slower wireless network when I used it, not wired cat5 which is about 2X's as fast I think than my wireless box.
Also I probably had more graphics on it than you would need displayed for Seti?
VNC works well for me when I used it. I can control this box from my main box in the bedroom, even surf the net without sharing it, this box is on the net, displays to the bedroom box that is not on the net at all ever, then I can download file to this one and transfer to that one. Kinda cool really, and if I get a virus it's on this one not my work system as if I were actually sharing a connection and surfing with it. But that's also a few times display was a bit slow, up dating fancy webpages like that. But I was multitasking both systems at once, each was doing 3-5 jobs at one time plus surfing and large file transfers part time.

VNC or Tight VNC, free so if you have a network those systems are running on might as well give it a try, if you like it, ok, then see if your systems will bootup without video cards at all. I think some will some may not, but worth a try. May have to change Bios settings to NOT halt on errors, specifically video errors since it will probably consider lack of video card an error. Or change First Video device or something to none, I forget what it's called in most Bios's.

With alot of systems running this might save a good deal of power. You can always put cards back in if wanted later.
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.
[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#19)
by scottsAI on Mon May 30, 2005 at 10:46:42 AM MST

I wish what you suggested would work.
I had looked into that a couple years ago, I was hoping after your comment things had changed. I looked it up again. From VNC help:

WinVNC relies on various aspects of the video card and driver; in particular its ability to BitBlt correctly, and several users have solved their problems by updating the driver.

Looks like a video card is required. I use the oldest card that will work in the mother board, frequently using PCI video, low power. I use 3 computers for daily use, they have a faster video card, Two are nice and fast.

Since the video is required, I use the KVM, I do not want any other software running to slow the computer. I strip out anything I find is not needed. I do use setihide seems to keep seti working better, plus I get better updating and cacheing of work.

I keep the HD off, I used a network drive, found the network slowed processing by almost 10%, I will pay the couple watts for the HD.

This whole thing has been frustrating. I have tried dozen of different things, most do not work, or very little benefit. I think sharing the PS with several computers will save 10%, not enough to get excited about, but worth doing. Someday. But I have thought this before and it did not work with other things...

I have bought couple Barton chips, with new motherboards. Running at 2.5ghz, seem to run 10% faster than the 2.5ghz Thunderbird CPU. The memory is faster on the newer chips, power is lower at the same speed. I just acquired the Mobile version of the chip, not done any benchmarking yet. I plan to overclock, keeping power where it was. The mobile 2.5ghz were cheap on eBay at 80$. Most people claim 3.2ghz which cost $121.

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#22)
by commanda on Mon May 30, 2005 at 03:02:10 PM MST

Have you considered running Linux, and using ssh to administer the boxes?
I have several networked servers, and do this. Probably difficult if you have no prior experience with Linux. Most windows people get put off by a command-line interface.

Do a google for Linux Seti Distribution, there's one that runs from a floppy, hard drive optional.

Amanda

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#24)
by TomW on Mon May 30, 2005 at 04:09:47 PM MST

Amanda;

I, also, run several headless Linux machines. Laptops of a low order for the most part doing fileserving, datalogging and some control functions. Once installed ssh handles everything just shut down video power on those. They pull maybe an amp or so tops when the hd is running.

Cheers.

TomW

The Truth is the Truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#25)
by TomW on Mon May 30, 2005 at 04:33:01 PM MST

Sorry, folks;

That amp is at 12 volts which i run strate to the power port for the power brick.

The Truth is the Truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#28)
by scottsAI on Mon May 30, 2005 at 09:08:58 PM MST

A short 2.84 years ago my first SETI machines were 133mhz PC, two were laptops. I measured the power, found they were drawing 20% less then a 500mhz computer, which was a few watts lower than the 1.2ghz computer. I bought two 1.6ghz and retired anything below 1.2ghz. To keep cost low I switched over to Linux. No video, no nothing. CPU memory, network, floppy only Linux. Power was low, 60 something watts. Later I had 14 Linux computers and 6 windows computers. I was comparing the production of work between the various computers one day to see what there was to see. Found the Windows computers produced 20-25% more work for the same clock speed!

A friend got me a couple dozen win98 license from work. ebay 2.5gb HD for 5 to 7 dollars. Video cards were 8-$10. This is also when I discovered KVM. Windows needed a mouse and keyboard for each. Good thing they were cheap! I retired the extra with the KVM. The benefit to cost ratio was too great not to switch to windows. I developed a cost per Ghz along with the power cost. When including the power cost, the faster machines cost less per Ghz than the slower. 1.6ghz vs 3.2. Higher speed start loosing out again. I use the power cost over two years. Ends up costing as much for the power in two years as the computer cost!

I spent a lot of time trying to find out why the crappy windows was faster. The answer is the compiler for SETI Linux is not as efficient as the SETI windows compiler. I found some Linux experts since then and they confirmed it. Darn, I liked Linux.

I started using computers in 1971, I taught teachers in High school how to program. Been programming off and on since! My real passion is electronic hardware. The pay is in analog design engineer, so that is what I do.
Have fun.

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#29)
by commanda on Mon May 30, 2005 at 09:59:36 PM MST

Things move fast in the Linux world. I know there was a major re-write of gcc not that long ago. Things may have changed.

Amanda

[ Parent ]

Re: 12V power (3.00 / 0) (#36)
by scottsAI on Sat Jun 04, 2005 at 01:32:48 PM MST

The speed of Linux was not the problem. It's the actual SETI code that is. The code was written a while ago. No chance of a rewrite. SETI has switched to the new bionic, I have not. If and when I make it to the top 1000 I might switch!
I have looked into Linux running windows programs, was complex. Found a group doing it. The results were mixed. Decided, due to complexity to skip it.
Have fun.

[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by John II on Sun May 29, 2005 at 08:16:20 AM MST

On the trail of whether Solar Panels look good or not.....

As someone mentioned earlier on this form... everyone thinks cell towers are just "a ok" but they hate wind machines.

They don't think they can stand to look at a sea of glossy blue solar panels, But power lines run everywhere is "ok".

They think a coal fired generating plant or a nuke plant right in the back of some other persons's yard is just fine so they can watch tv and do their laundry and have "cool air".... but won't allow solar panels in their neighbors yard to help prevent the need to build additional nuke and coal plants. Is there not something wrong with this ?

Another strange fact. It's amazing the way folks can justify a new $ 40,000.00 Sports Utility Vehicle.... and they are usually the first to ask if your Solar Panels " actually pay for themselves " ! Just get a load of that rational!

To me Solar panels are fantastically beautiful. When I look at a cluster.... I see less smoke from coal plants and less radioactive waste being dribbled over your food production sites from nukes. I see more green forest and meadows and fresher air. But if you are into gross genetic modification and self mutilation perhaps you have always dreamed of a nice nuclear power plant setting right beside your house.... you never know when they'll have to vent a little gas from a reactor dome, and it can make life a little more exciting when it does, even though you may not live nearly as long as you had once planned..... haha

To me, a sloping face of glass that powers your house is more eye appealing then a lump of metal that spews carbon monoxide and has rubber wheels that you call a sports car and it's acclaimed that "everyone wants one"!

There are ways of hiding and at the same time protecting your solar panels such as building a car port with a flat roof and mount each individual panel on a slope on top of it. You won't see them from the ground. A overhead trellis plant arbor would also provide a cool spot with plants growing up the sides, and the panels providing shade from above would be another good way to go with finicky brainwashed neighbors who just can't stand clean silent energy production.

As far as energy efficiencies... It doesn't matter what your energy sources are, you had better be concerned with energy usage.... after all it's the ethical, environmental.... financially smarter thing to do : )

John II

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by finnsawyer on Sun May 29, 2005 at 09:07:50 AM MST

By the way, would you like to live (and raise your children) right next to a high voltage transmission line. If they decided to build one near me, I'd be gone (maybe to Ontario).
GeoM
[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by Chagrin on Sun May 29, 2005 at 09:55:47 AM MST

Grow up.

[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#18)
by finnsawyer on Mon May 30, 2005 at 09:00:44 AM MST

Too late, as I'm already approaching my second childhood. Just keep in mind that your body is infused with ions, some of which take part in the operation of your nerves. The ions coursing (that's moving) through your body can be affected by magnetic fields such as those that high tension lines create. In fact researchers are using magnetic fields to modify brain function. So, I don't think I'd want my grand children subjected to the weak, though persistent, fields from high tension lines.
GeoM
[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#27)
by ghurd on Mon May 30, 2005 at 06:05:22 PM MST

It is proven to reduce milk output at dairy farms almost overnight.
Something must be there.
G-
Ghurd.info
[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#31)
by richhagen on Tue May 31, 2005 at 12:22:45 AM MST

There was a lawsuit in Wisconsin of the health effects some years back. I don't know if any health effect was proven, but I don't think I'd want to have too strong of electromagnetic fields in my home. Rich Hagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#21)
by richhagen on Mon May 30, 2005 at 02:34:28 PM MST

Ron, those 12V dc/dc atx power supplies look interesting. I have grid power and a 12V system where I live. For the future, I have been wanting to put up a linux server for a domain name that I own. It would be interesting to see if I could power it 24/7 from the energy that I make. If I can keep the power to a couple of KWH a day, then I should be able to make it work. I could set the server to restart in the event of power failure, and potentially rig it with a relay for a low voltage disconnect. Hmm, maybe a flash memory drive instead of a hard drive, it wouldn't need that much. You've got me thinking . . . . If only I had more time. Rich
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#23)
by BeenzMeenzWind on Mon May 30, 2005 at 03:11:54 PM MST

I could post a snide comment here and point out that the last thing we want to do is discover an extra-terrestrial intelligence. They'd take one look at the back-
biting comments on this thread and nuke us out of existence.

Unfortunately, I use my idling PC for the same thing, so I can't.

Oh, and if my wife started complaining about solar panels and windmills, which she doesn't because she's intelligent and enlightened as well as beautiful, I'd have a big pile of lumber and bricks dropped off outside the house and tell her they are hers.

When she asks why, I'd tell her..... There are the materials, build a bridge... then get over it!!
'....If I even knew that I know nothing, that'd be something. But I don't!'

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#26)
by nanotech on Mon May 30, 2005 at 05:51:40 PM MST

[QUOTE] When she asks why, I'd tell her..... There are the materials, build a bridge... then get over it!! [/QUOTE]

ROFL!!! I have GOT to remember that one!!! :P
__________________________________________
My ship finally came in, but it was the Kobayashi Maru!
[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#30)
by Mink on Mon May 30, 2005 at 10:40:29 PM MST

Here is a great site for those interested in reducing PC power cosumption.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/ and here is the article about the 4.7w Athlon http://www.silentpcreview.com/article164-page1.html The site (as the name states) is about keeping them quiet,but mainly this is by reducing power requirements. My next PC will be an Athlon 64, which, when teamed with the right motherboard, apparently reduces core voltage and clock speed when required, and so, power consumption. Those 12v power supplies look like a good thing - 95% efficiency. Our house is run on a 24v system (solar only as yet) but I keep thinking for things of this type running off half the bank. A dc/dc converter would be a nice solution, but it all starts to seem a bit expensive and lossy. Probably still a lot less than 24-240-12 volts though....

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#32)
by nothing to lose on Tue May 31, 2005 at 05:03:46 AM MST

I really hate to ask this, but is looking for aliens really what Seti is all about??
I mean are people really running 10-20 Pcs looking for life on another planet somewhere??

Or is it more like medical research looking for cures for cancer and the common cold?

Maybe a bit of both or choice of either??

I mean I know of some people running systems just for this Seti stuff that really can't afford the cost of daily life, let alone cost of Pc's and power to run them etc... but they do it anyway like an addiction. Like gotta have beer, gotta have ciggs, gotta have drugs, gotta have Seti..
But they ain't got money for food and gas for the car to get to work half the time. More of those payday loan/ hold your check/ cash for titles suckers.
Hate to say that, they are friends, but that's the way it is with them, and I ain't saying names talkin bad about them. They live kinda far away now, but still do seti I think.

Not knocking it, but what is it really all about anyway is what I want to know. From those actually doing it, not reading stuff from some unknown sight I never saw before.
I did start to get into it once, just as a group thing, they were trying to get so many points, or take the lead or something, so I installed the stuff on a PC back then, but it slowed it down alot or something and I ended up taking it all back off again when I had to install a fresh Win98 because of alot of crashes that were happening.. That was long ago though and a low power system by todays standards that I had then, though it was a new one at the time. So was Win98 SE, new too then :)

With all my Pc's, this office one ran about 6-12 days this year, big good system just seldom come to the office anymore, the back room Pc at home a good work horse turned off about 75% of the time or even more, the kids system is no sloucher either and turned off most the time, and the main home box which we use internet on, well that ones almost always on line or doing other work or both. Then I got about 4 older systems I haven't turned on in over a year at least, and just sold a brand new one I built about 6 months ago, only turned on long enough to burn in and install the O/S. Was supposed to be a spare office system. Sat unused for 6 months :{

So I kinda wonder, is this Seti stuff something I should be messing with myself???
I got the power for it sitting around unused all around me.

Why do people do it also? Is it just fun, nice feeling, hope you find something like hoping your the one to hit the lottery this week? Is there money in it? If you make first contact with Xeonaphobes do you get to ride the first ship to visit thier planet?? Or is it just something good to do like find a cure for cancer and help others?? Make the world a better place?

Although I joke a bit, I do want to know what it's about, and maybe set up a system?
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#33)
by jimjjnn on Tue May 31, 2005 at 06:31:43 AM MST

Seti started other research groups into considering doimg the same thing. Last I heard was computers being used for lots of different large computations that some researchers couldn't afford the necessary computer power to do. I think Seti was good in that respect. I did the seti thing for 2 years and admittedly it was interesting.I had a lot of crashes too but the Seti researchers have since solved that problem. They had "Hackers" . I wouldn't mind allowing my PC to be used for a better research but feel Seti isn't what I want to do now as there are more pressing things for computers other than looking for aliens.
Denver,CO
[ Parent ]

Re: Reducing Computer Power Requirements (3.00 / 0) (#34)
by scottsAI on Sat Jun 04, 2005 at 01:06:07 PM MST

I will take a stab at answering your question. Sorry about the delay, out of town.
I have been running SETI for 2.857 years. My rank out of 5432010 total users is: 1332nd place. (as of writing this).

Why? Because I can. It defines who and what I am. I like to do things others do not.
Like most of you. This is how I do my job. I work in Sales, I'm the geek on the sales team. I help people, make sure they do it right so their project will succeed. So the sales team succeeds.

When the other distributed projects came on I looked at the medical. I thought about it long and hard. Realized pharmaceutical companies will be the larges benefactors of the results. If they thought doing it was so good, the budget for couple thousand computers would be a low ticket item. Same with the finance programs.

Why SETI? What is the chance of results?
I do NOT expect to find anything.
SETI claims to be able to detect signals from 100 light years (LR). Others claim that is not real, more like 70 LR. Considering the number of suns this represents, what chance is there another civilization at or near our technical level of development? SETI is based on the “other” civilization intentionally sending a Tera watt signal out for us to find. Our civilization did this for a few years in the 70's. Many armature radio dudes are beaming signals, most are using 1kw transmitters or pulsing 10kw, rumor of a group at 100kw. This is very far removed from the assumed Tera watt.

So why do it? Well it's kind of like winning the lottery, you have to buy a ticket...
Running SETI is my ticket. And, yes I can afford it. This is my largest hobby expense. I do not rebuild cars, etc. (I used to:)
Two years ago my mother gave me 1k$, I bought 10 computers with a little more cash. Brought me up to 20 SETI computers. Sum of processor speeds was 40Ghz. My electric bill went up to $235/mo. Last year I gave away 6 computers to collage students. I wanted the SETI power bill to be around $100/mo.

Today I'm looking at replacing some of the AMD cpu with AMD XP-Mobile cpu to reduce my power, along with other things mentioned in my other posts.

What should you do? You have access to several computers. I find they last longer when left on all the time, assuming they are protected by a UPS. The power difference running SETI vs nothing is <10 watts using a Kill-o-watt meter. Before SETI, I had 5 computers, turned them off/on everyday. I had one, maybe two fail each year. (I use cheap PS). The PCs PS fail only when turned on. Since running SETI 3 fail of 16 computers each year. When the PS goes, <50-50 chance the motherboard gets fried. All computers are on a UPS, maybe why I have less fried computers, don't know.

So, find something that interest you, medical, SETI, what ever! Feel like your part of something big. Harmless hobby, and who knows, maybe your name will be written down as the co-finder of ET!
Have fun.

[ Parent ]

Re: SETI (3.00 / 0) (#35)
by BeenzMeenzWind on Sat Jun 04, 2005 at 01:31:41 PM MST

Does the transmitted signal really have to be that big for the SETI recievers to notice it? Surely if the signal pattern was distinctive enough it would be relatively simple to pick out of the background noise even if the amplitude was tiny?

I know from career experience that modern military gear works with signal levels that are miniscule, way below the noise threshold.

Is that what the amateur radio guys are doing, transmitting really distinctive codes in the hope that the content of the signal will make up for lack of amplitude?

Just interested.
'....If I even knew that I know nothing, that'd be something. But I don't!'
[ Parent ]

Re: SETI (3.00 / 0) (#37)
by scottsAI on Sun Jun 05, 2005 at 10:09:59 AM MST

Then you know all about the inverse square law.
The Tera watt is assuming the signal is beamed in our direction!!
100 LR is 400 trillion miles away. Cosmic dust gets in the way. Free Hydrogen is part of the dust, Absorbs and scatters some of the signal.

Does it have to be that big? Well depends on how far you want it to go!
Bunch of links: Then do a search on SETI and see why people disagree.
http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Military gear can see way below the noise floor only when it knows the signal.
A great example of this is GPS. Synchronized sampling of the signal thousands of times gives an effective gain of 20-30dbm, signal can be way below the noise floor.
Unfortunately this does not work for SETI. We don't know the signal.

Amateur radio guys are transmitting signals similar to the government programs of the 70's. Of course, they add their own idea of the ideal signal.
Have fun.

[ Parent ]

Re: SETI (3.00 / 0) (#38)
by BeenzMeenzWind on Sun Jun 05, 2005 at 08:14:58 PM MST

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the link.

You're right about GPS but there are other military applications where the receiver hasn't got a precise idea what form a signal may take. The cleverest of these are employed in, and in the detection of, LPI (Low Probability of Intercept) radar systems. In some of the cutting-edge radar warning receivers there is a capability, though admittedly a limited one at present, to discriminate a signal at a S/N ratio of 0 dBm to -27 dBm.

These units don't know what they are looking for, only what sort of form the signal will probably take if there is one.

I would argue that any extra-terrestrial civilisation attempting to be heard across such huge distances would realise that the transmission of an easily recognisable signal, such as groups of prime numbers, would be the only way they could even dream of being heard.

The practicalities of transmitting a large radio signal, even using a focussed antenna array to magnify the power, make it a total nonsense. If you were to even try to transmit a terawatt signal you'd need superconducting elements in the aerial (unless you were willing to have an Australia sized phased array), superconductors in the feeders, a power source 3 - 10 times bigger than the current electrical generating output of the earth (depending on transmitter efficiency, which might be very good if you already have the superconductors)

I wouldn't want to live within a couple of hundred million miles of the thing though, unless our hypothetical ETs have a liking for being microwaved.

I don't mean to be cynical, as I have used my own idling PC as a SETI node in the past, but hoping that our neighbours are shouting loud enough to hear is just hoping. And a bucketful of hope is worth the bucket.

Besides, any ET civilisation with a hundredth the brains to transmit such a signal would presumably have the brains not to. Be fair, if ET made contact tomorrow the first thing we'd figure out how to do is kill him in his/her boots while leaving their planet inhabitable and technology intact. Then we might reply, if sending the message is easier than launching the first strike.

I totally agree with the aims of SETI but also agree with most members of the space-science fraternity. We need to start launching spacecraft instead of endlessly redesigning them. The Americans pride themselves on the pioneer spirit that forged their country. Trouble is, their too scared to BE pioneers anymore. People might get hurt or killed and that's bad for political careers. (Though in my honest opinion, the absolutely LAST person who should be in charge of a country is anyone who wants the job. It should be like jury service. You get conscripted for a term, preferably a short one)

Assuming we ever get over our timidity and strange view that the potential for loss of a human life is worth saying 'not safe, don't try', we might start going to these other solar systems and actually taking a look for ourselves. Somehow I doubt it though. The resources are being wasted as we speak. In 200 years we'll have squandered them and will NEVER get them back. Makes all the things people on this board are doing seem a whole lot more valuable.

Just my two-cents, though.
'....If I even knew that I know nothing, that'd be something. But I don't!'
[ Parent ]

Reducing Computer Power Requirements | 37 comments (37 topical)

Menu

� create account
� How to use the board
� FAQs
� search the board
� Google search the board

Login

Make a new account

Username:

Password:

Total Views

��168 Scoop users have viewed this posting.

You must be a registered user to post here. It's easy and free, and the link is on the upper right side of your page.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Postings are owned by the poster, but may be deleted or moved at the ADMIN's sole discretion. The Rest � 2009 Forcefield.
You can Email the board ADMIN here. PLEASE include the username you signed up with!