On the recent Athlons the max temp has been a range from 55 to something in the 60s/70s.

The "see what temp it fails at" method won't work because the temp you end up finding will be pretty high (probably in the 90s), and those temps will cause damage in the long term.

If the things run off 5v or 12v it should be straightforward. Those are the two voltages provided in the standard connector used for drives and stuff. Just to connect them backwards, or else you'll toast something.

Doing it in the BIOS does save power, about 2w for an Intel. I doubt disabling it in Windows would make as big of a difference.

Some BIOS's have an option called CKE Power Down, which may be enabled to begin with (my laptop does it automatically). It puts the ram into standby when it's not being used, and that reduces power to a fraction of a watt.

You have to remember that there's not much you can do with P3 SpeedStep to begin with, you only have to hardcoded settings to choose from. There's an Intel utility for SpeedStep. I got it from the laptop maker's site, not sure if there's another place to d/l it. http://www.intel.com/support/processo...

Yeah, AMD looks like the way to go. VT is not supported on the cheaper Intels.

Lol. I actually like the "bumpy" feel.

Of course, the easy way is to get one of those Microsoft mice that come have "smooth" scroll already.

scdr wrote:Desktops can also achieve high efficiency and/or low power consumption.
Consider e.g. the Mac Mini (Core2Duo).
(Added advantages - don't have to replace the monitor and keyboard when you upgrade.)

Tha Mac Mini is a laptop on the inside, it uses the mobile Core 2 Duo.

If you don't mind used you can find a laptop (with or without LCD depending on how old) for around 100-150. Considering the 9w idle I got out of my old P3-based E500, it should be interesting. I would recommend the bottom half of a Dell D600, those are very common and have undervoltable Pentium Ms.

The 5200+ would be the fastest, because of the cache, it being 90nm (the 65nm chips are slightly slower even with the same cache), and likelihood of higher overclock. The Brisbanes would use less power and thus be cooler. It is not a huge difference though. The difference between each model of Brisb...

Well if you must buy new, a desktop would be cheaper.

Aside from performance that's the only advantage I can think of, power wise. Since this is Silent PC Review, a desktop has several advantages on that front (lots of space for bigger heatsinks and noise dampening),

Yomat wrote: And how about 'underclocking'? Is it possible on newer generations?
As I recall it was the only way to get old GPUs to work on lower voltage and get lower power consumption.

Underclocking (and some limited undervolting) is controllable via software on most new GPUs.

It's Vista. Either you get 2GB ram or your remove Vista.

First thing off the top of my head is the Microsoft Task Scheduler.

GPUs are already pretty parallel. As in, there's already a bunch of "cores" on there, they don't do things one at a time like CPUs do, Bigger dies = bad (expensive), btw.

If you have a Socket P Core 2, apparently you can get lower voltages. Beta versions of RMClock let you use the "SuperLFM" voltage (0.8-0.85, for when the FSB is reduced) anytime you want. The FSB does not have to be clocked down for you to use it. Mind you, it's still a beta that has crashed for som...

The Core Temp thread on XS:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... 38&page=13

Somebody had a 45nm quad with stuck temperature readings. He switched it out and the new one seems to work fine.

HP DV6000, Intel Edition, C2D1.8/nVidia7300 Default Voltage: 25w idle, screen dimmest, no wifi 29w idle, screen brightest, no wifi 29w idle, screen brightest, no wifi 30w idle, screen brightest, wifi 60w load (dual prime95), brightest, wifi Undervolted to 0.95v at all speeds idle remained the same ...

Most of the newer integrated graphics support Aero. The NV 7050 for example, maybe the Intel 3100 too.

Generally the max operating temp of laptop stuff is about 95-100c. This means: a) You shouldn't operate at this temp regularly b) The GPU may no longer operate properly above this (ie artifacts, crash) c) It will not suddenly die if it hits this temp (over time, however...) 84c is very normal. Sound...

Isn't this sensor on-die and read via a CPU register? That should keep the motherboard out of the equation.

Well the problem with keeping it to play around with (at least for me) is that it would be big and probably electricity-guzzling.Too oversized for a firewall imo, and too much electricity/noise for running 24/7. Seeing as it's worth almost nothing (don't bother ebaying it, sell it locally if you can...

The desktop Core 2's also step down when power is not needed.

Basically there is less of a need for mobile processors because of the above.

Did you also consider AMD processors? They also step down, and there is a cheaper motherboard selection.

Newer Biostar boards tend to overvolt the RAM, from 1.95V basically, in AM2 7050 & 690G series. The only disadvantage comparing to other competitors, sigh, for non-ocers. :roll: Are you saying that if I buy one of these boards--for example, the BIOSTAR TA690G -- I won't be able to run my RAM at 1.9...

I know the regular T series cpus can't go below 0.95v. Basically no reduction in idle power, but improvements at load. Don't know what the deal is with the U series, though (do post your experience!). For NHC: Enable advanced mode to show the voltage tab Set it to *not* start automatically at startu...

Well I want more numbers from other laptops. As you can see, it's mostly old Centrinos here, which is getting redundant. Already I can see the interesting fact that my undervolted old Centrino T40 uses less power than newer laptops (10w vs 15w for the Portege, idle/lcd off). My theory is that it is ...

Well it would vary from chip to chip. In your case 0.9875 worked fine for Orthos, but apparently the SSE unit or some other video related part needed 0.99375. This is kind of random, another cpu could have easily had the roles reversed.

I got a used PCIe gigabit for $30... Main reason was because I wanted to use the PCIe slot for something , as I only have a couple PCI slots that I want to save for other things. Really, the "bottleneck" is only a problem if you have more than one high-bandwidth thing running at once on PCI. (BTW, t...

I don't think the BIOS extrapolates anything, it just disables EIST whenever you change the voltage. EIST on the Core cpus has an arbitrary lower voltage limit (unlike your Dothan, which let you go down to 0.7v). I believe someone mentioned earlier that this limit is 1.15v. So the reason you'd go wi...