Building a Green PC 190
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."
I don't have a green PC (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
OLPC XO laptop (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Green == production and Green power (Score:3, Interesting)
I have no idea if it is true but (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mac mini (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/ [mythic-beasts.com]
Re:I don't have a green PC (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember less gas != less CO2. Just check your lawn mower.
125 watts?! (Score:1, Interesting)
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 Software + Hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Want a real green pc for free? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.