After my roomie "Digital World" said the electric bill for last month was 180$, I was bound and determined to so my part to save energy.

System Specs:

AMD XP2500+ Mobile 1833MHZ 1.65v LINK
Shuttle AN-35N Ultra
Thermalright SP-97/80MM Tornado 100CFM at 12v, running on 5v (40CFM?)
Antec 550 watt "True Control" PSU
ATI X-800 Pro (With OD off) I wil see about "Underclocking" this too)
1GB of "Leftover" ram (Geil BH-5 512MB PC3500, Kingston Hyper-X 256MB PC3500 BH-5, Corsair "Value" PC2100 all running at @ PC2700 2-3-3-8)


Normally, my "Daily Driver" settings are at a sane 2.4GHZ...It can bench at over 2.7GHZ, but only with the ambient temps are well under 65F, and the Tornado 90MM CPU fan running at full blast...kinda annoying for gaming and surfing.

Anyways...I reset the Bios back to nearly stock, wich means I dumped the voltages down from 1.7V CPU to 1.60v (1.65v is what it detected in Auto, typical of the desktop version of the 2500+)

The ram voltage was also reduced from 2.6 (Max on this motherboard...one of it's downfalls) to 2.5v, and the AGP from 1.6 to 1.55v.

For the moment.. CPU speed I am running now is 1833 MHZ (Stock 2500+ speed) but I will be "Playing"with it a bit more tonight to see how low I can get the CPU voltage, and yet be stable...I did some testing on the CPU long ago when I went and did some "Passive cooling" testing, and found it would run with as little as 1.1v..but that clock speed was a bit low..around 800MHZ, not realy enough for gaming...that is also something I will be investigating...I bet I can live with around 1200MHZ and 1.2v,especiallysince I will be using a CPU fan this time.

I aslo normally "Overvolt" the 12v, 5v and 3.3v by .2 on the PSU's control panel..I have reduced them to "Stock" and turned down the fan speed in an effort to further reduce temps and power consumption.

My real big question is..how can I compare my actual power usage before and after? I know I could probably use Fuelman's PC Apex "Power Calculator to do an estimate..but I am looking to see if there is a beter way to measure power draw at the wall socket.

I doubt it can be done with the multimeter I have, and I don't think I can afford one of those devices some review sites use (Like Anandtech does here >LINK< Unless someone can point me towards something reasonably priced (30$ or less)

Any info would be much appreciated...

Unfortunately, I will also have to stop "Folding" since that makes the CPU run 100% al the time.

These actions should reduce my PC's montly power consumption by 50-75%!!!!

I will be also looking into drivers to enable "Cool and Quiet" or whatever the hell it's called on AMD XP CPU's, I did not have much luck with it when I have played with it in the past on this board...if all else fails, CBID or Crystal CPUZ has the ability to adjust settings "On the Fly"

I will probably be going through each PC in the house soon and giving them the"Treatment" too since I have vowed to Digi to become an "Energy Nazi" (No OC's FOR YOU! )

So does this mean you won't be engaging in the Forum Wars 2007?

EDIT:I believe AntiM has one of those Kill-A-Watt thingies, you may want to ask him about it.

Awesome Beetleman! that is EXACTLY what I'm looking for!

+REP!!!!!!!

Here is my first atempt at seeing "How low can you go"



1333MHZ, 1.375v CPU (Bios)

I realy like how the "Delta" between CPU idle and load is a mere 3c!





EDIT: No godfoot, I will still be participating in the Forum Wars..for that I will be entering 2PC's, the E4300/6800Ultra for class A or B, it will have to be rebuilt on the test bench, the Dry Ice AMD Sempron is on there now..and the second PC for the Unlimited class will be a bit of a surprise!

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Some mainboards have a *66MHz* bus option. The old ECS K7S5A with unofficial BIOS for example. I used to sometimes run a Duron 1.6 at 800 because it defaulted to that as safe value, and I didn't need the performance (it was a glorified LCD TV)

I think by energy efficient I meant;
I cleaned out the lint from the dryer so it only takes one time to dry the clothes now (Hopefully) and trust me there was a full box of lint to be cleaned....That also saved me from the misery of momma wanting to buy a new dryer.

I changed all the frequently used lights in the house to energy efficient 13 watt fluorescent replacement bulbs.

Put all the Ac units on Energy Saver and set them all above 72 Degrees versus the below 66 setting I had before. Yes it felt good, but I am sure I wasn't helping the environment any.

I have a wall of pets that includes 3 snakes ranging in size from a baby python to a 6 foot red tail Columbian boa constrictor. They all require 75 - 100 watt heating lamps, regular lighting, and then there are turtles with filters, calcium UVA, UVB lighting requirements etc.... the whole wall rack has wattage of around 1000 watts. So I split it all up on to three circuits and put them on digital timers that kick on at different times... Giving the snakes the required amount of heat time and light time, instead of leaving lamps on for periods and sometimes forgetting to shut them off etc....wasting energy.

I also put my Childs TV on a cheap power timer tonight so that he can go to sleep to his TV and it won't run all night by itself entertaining nothing. Now it shuts itself off at 12:30 am and doesn't allow the power back on until after 8pm every night so he no longer finds himself stuck in his room watching it. Forces him to go out and play.

I am looking for so many other ways to control energy costs this summer. I just started being less lazy and riding a bike a little more and walking a little more and driving a little less...

Hoping just maybe one man can change a little bit.

Necro is determined to make the pc's in this house more ECO friendly but I just don't know if I can give up the performance yet...He has to sell me on that one.

Digi

Quote: Originally Posted by Hak Foo Some mainboards have a *66MHz* bus option. The old ECS K7S5A with unofficial BIOS for example. I used to sometimes run a Duron 1.6 at 800 because it defaulted to that as safe value, and I didn't need the performance (it was a glorified LCD TV)

I can take the FSB down to 100MHZ..but no lower.

However...since my CPU is multiplier "Unlocked" I am much better off to reduce CPU speed that way, and keep the FSB as high as the ram will let me.

If I dumped that PC2100 stick, I can easily run 420+FSB with the remaining 2 BH-5 based sticks, running the fastest FSB for a given CPU speed will always result in better overall performance...however, Doom3 and other games realy lag out with less then 1GB, so I will take total capacity over raw memory bandwidth in this situation.

As a side note, this board used to be able to run at 480FSB with my old Geil PC4000 with Micron chips, they realy clocked well with low voltage, but has long since been traded away for other PC hardware.

And Digi..you know me well enough by now to know that I love to take things to the "Extreme" when pushing hardware's performance..I can't help myself!

This case is no different, only it's about max energy savings, not max OC

Other things you can do?

Here's some of the things that I do to save energy. Ceiling fans make a big difference in moving the air around and cooling it down. In the wintertime, switch the direction to push the hot air up there downward.

If you're not using your electric stove, flip the breaker switch. Microwave? Unplug it when not in use. TV not on? Turn the power strip off. Turns out a lot of these 'energy saving devices' are still pulling juice. The clock on the stove and the microwave are still pulling energy, and so is the DVD, VCR, TV, and surround sound system by being in the standby mode rather than fully off.

Leave your alarm clock plugged in, though...might need it.

Unplug the cell phone chargers. They pull juice whether or not the phone is charging or even for that matter, plugged into the charger.

How about these lightbulbs?
ThinkGeek :: LED Light Bulbs

Apparently the fluoride ones need to be properly disposed of in order to be properly eco-friendly. And with the LED's having a lifetime of about 10 years, well...

And does anyone remember the statement in a news report from the UK that 10% of all energy used in the UK is from the red lights on appliances which are not turned on?


150 LED Light Bulb, Frosted, Warm White, E265X30-WW at X-Treme Geek.com
These bulbs would probably do a better job of distributing the light.

good job pat's not running that huge fan ( turbine more like !! lol) anymore then hey digi?!
what was the consumption on that finger chopping curtain blowing beast anyway???

wow, i missed this thread....

I use 13w fluresent bulbs in my house too, run F@H at 90% in the summer, and even have surge strips hooked to everything (like the stove microwave, tv etc...) turn them off in the day when no ones home, and have the AC off for this year. (yea central air is expensive with a 16 room house...)

That pull that phone chargers and other pull all the time, also kills about 5% of the avg electric bill.

To top all this off, our bill is still around $150 a month, and we have 16 rooms, and five computers F@H 90% 24/7