Antec Aria Pentium M System Power Usage Tests

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:26 am

Hi All,

I just finished running some power usage tests on my Antec Aria Pentium-M system. For those who missed the earlier posts, here are the system specs:

Antec Aria case and modded PSU. Nexus 120mm fan on thermistor.
Aopen i855 Pentium M MB with 1.8Ghz Dothan CPU
BFG 6800 OC (350Mhz) Graphics card with NV5 cooler
1GB Corsair XMS RAM
Samsung/Nidec 80GB SATA drive
Samsung DVD/CD-R Drive
WinXP SP2

Photos are located at http://www.sheltons.net/aria

I have a Kill-a-watt meter, so I ran some tests on this system, as well as some other machines I have. Here are the results:

Pentium M System Power (at the wall):

86W / 87VA - Bootup (Active PFC!?)
73W - Fully booted at idle in WinXP
66W - Aopen "SpeedStep" utility activated (slows CPU from 1.8->0.6)
81W - Prime95 Run. 100%CPU at 1.8Ghz
85W - Prime95 Run. 100%CPU at 2.3Ghz (145x16)
108-115W - UT2004 Botmatch Benchmarks @ 1.8 (very high GPU load)

This implies (to me) the following:
CPU power at idle 0.6Ghz - 3W (published figure)
CPU Power at idle 1.8Ghz - ~9W
CPU Power at load 1.8 Ghz - ~21W (back out PF and fan speed increase)
CPU Power at load 2.3 Ghz - ~ 25W

Also, the 6800 GPU idles around 12W, so it seems to draw 35-40W at load.
I suspect a system using the integrated VGA would idle at <55W.

Here are some power figures for my other machines:

Apple PowerMac G5 1.6 - 160 W boot; 110W idle
2Ghz Celeron + Radeon 9000 GPU - 97W boot; 60W idle
P III 800Mhz Sony Desktop - 60W boot; 45W idle
AthlonXP Server, U/C 1.3 Ghz, 3 HDs - 110W boot; 99W idle

Much of the relatively high Pentium-M usage is attributable to my Graphics Card...

Apple 20" Cinema Display LCD - 60W (est)
Sony 15" LCD - 20W
Personal Laser Printer - 14W at idle

Kind of interesting...

Rich

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 10:31 am

That system is absolutely beautiful. What is the sound profile like? The most I've stuck in a quiet Aria was a A64 Mobile 2700+ and ATI 9600.

Any details to the fan mod? What CPU heatsink is that? Is the fan even running? Have you considered a better hard drive mount?

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 10:53 am

Thanks! The overall system is very quiet, but not silent. The sound profile boils down to one thing -- the NV5 GPU cooler. I put a very hot & fast graphics card in because I wanted good gaming performance. So... I have to live with a bit of air there! The NV5 is very loud compared to everything else in the box, even though the NVidia driver is throttling it to ~50-60% speed most of the time. My next experiment will be to hook it up to a fanmate and see what that does. I have to cut off the GPU connector wires, so I've held off on that so far.

The PSU fan is inaudible (~600-700 RPM nexus), and when I turn the CPU fan on and off in software, I can't hear any difference. The heatsink is the OEM sink that comes with the AOpen P-M motherboard. Since the CPU was so cool, and the fan so quiet, I didn't bother changing it.

I cannot hear the HD except when it is accessing. There is a dull "HD access" sound. I may play around with a better mount system.

Here's some info on the PSU mods and performance from another thread:

I just added a Nexus 120mm to my Aria Pentium-M rig. I soldered it in exactly as the original, so the thermal control circuit on the PSU is operational. Interestingly, the fan only runs at 550-700 rpm (vs 1000rpm max), so it's inaudible. When the PSU was totally cold, the Nexus did not start on one occasion! I assume the voltage was too low. I restarted it and it was fine.

So...if I were redoing it, I'd probably figure out whether the thermal control circuit can be bypassed and set it to run at 1000RPM.

However, with the Pentium-M and Nvidia 6800 GPU + NV5, the NV5 is now (by far) the noisiest thing in the case. I may fanmate it next.

As far as temps go, the PSU exhaust is warm, but not hot. I assume it's OK thermally since the fan is nowhere near 12V even with Prime95 running. My temps under Prime95 are as follows:

Ambient: 22C
CPU (1.8Ghz + OEM heat sink @ 1700 rpm): 45C
Motherboard = 33C
GPU: 42C (50C under UT2004)
PSU Fan = 695 rpm

In normal use, SpeedStep throttles the CPU to 600-1200Mhz. Under these conditions, temps are:

CPU: 39C @ 888 rpm
Motherboard: 31C
PSU fan: 650 rpm

I probably wouldn't try the Nexus mod this way without a cool CPU. But...Since my average PSU load is ~70W, and peak is only ~115W, I'm comfortable that the components can't overheat. The thermistor doesn't seem to go past ~8V on full load in gaming...

Rich

Bean · Post by **Bean** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:54 am

Nice indeed except for the added the holes in the PSU. I think they reduce the airflow through the factory placed openings which is where the air needs to go. in any case it looks like it would be easy to test since you already did the hard part.

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:04 pm

Bean wrote:Nice indeed except for the added the holes in the PSU. I think they reduce the airflow through the factory placed openings which is where the air needs to go. in any case it looks like it would be easy to test since you already did the hard part.

That is something I thought about before I did it, and was a little worried about it. But I found another guy with similar mods, a hotter CPU, and he hadn't had any issues. I do believe there are far too few factory vents on the psu for even a low-speed 120mm fan. If the thermistor is located near the hot components, I should be OK since the thermistor voltage continues to remain so low.

Maybe I'll put some electrical tape over the holes and try some before/after tests to see if the fan speed drops! Alternatively, I wouldn't mind running the Nexus at something closer to 1000 rpm, although I'm a little unsure of how to bypass the thermistor without the psu control circuit getting upset...

Bean · Post by **Bean** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:16 pm

shelt wrote: ...... If the thermistor is located near the hot components, I should be OK since the thermistor voltage continues to remain so low.

Maybe I'll put some electrical tape over the holes and try some before/after tests to see if the fan speed drops! Alternatively, I wouldn't mind running the Nexus at something closer to 1000 rpm, although I'm a little unsure of how to bypass the thermistor without the psu control circuit getting upset...

I'd like to know where the thermistor is located. Got anything that can measure the psu exhaust temps. If PSU runs cooler that would confirm.

pd8 · Post by **pd8** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:23 pm

shelt wrote:
My next experiment will be to hook it up to a fanmate and see what that does. I have to cut off the GPU connector wires, so I've held off on that so far.

Just for info but on my Aopen 6800GT with NV5 + fanmate 1 it is possible to simply connect the NV5 fan cable directly to the fanmate. Admittedly it is a 2-3pin bodge (make sure you get the wire ploarity right) but it works fine and you don't need to cut any wires. Also with the fanmate @ 5v I can OC the GPU from 350/1000 to 400/1160! OK, so its not as quiet as my old 9800PRO with VGA silencer on 'Low' but it is a massive improvement over the stock cooler. GPU temps don't go over 75c either which, apparently, is fine for a 6800.

PD.

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:20 pm

pd8 wrote:
shelt wrote:
My next experiment will be to hook it up to a fanmate and see what that does. I have to cut off the GPU connector wires, so I've held off on that so far.
Just for info but on my Aopen 6800GT with NV5 + fanmate 1 it is possible to simply connect the NV5 fan cable directly to the fanmate. Admittedly it is a 2-3pin bodge (make sure you get the wire ploarity right) but it works fine and you don't need to cut any wires. Also with the fanmate @ 5v I can OC the GPU from 350/1000 to 400/1160! OK, so its not as quiet as my old 9800PRO with VGA silencer on 'Low' but it is a massive improvement over the stock cooler. GPU temps don't go over 75c either which, apparently, is fine for a 6800.

PD.

Thanks for the tip! I hooked up a fanmate at 5V. Big difference!! The GPU seems to be stable at 43C (vs 135C alarm level!?) under light 2D load. I'll run it hard on some 3D next to see how hot it gets. It was only 50C or so in UT2004 before, so I'm guessing it wont get much hotter. [UPDATE: only 52C after a long UT2004 session!]

BTW, i think the NV5 fan is pretty inefficient due to the low cross-sectional area in the fin path. At ~8V+, a great deal of air is seemingly "rejected" from the fan area -- much more than gets through the fins. Put your hand next to one. It's a strange mixture of drawn air and rejected air. So.... I'm not sure the net airflow through the fins at 5v is hugely different, but the noise sure is!

Now I'd have to say the aria is nearly silent. A faint whirring of air, and a bit of HD access noise. Very cool!

Linus · Post by **Linus** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:33 pm

Any chance you could run some SiSoft Sandra benchmarks and post the Multi-Media Integer result? I'd be interested in comparing to other results in this thread: Lowest power consumption for DivX encoding.

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:01 pm

Linus wrote:Any chance you could run some SiSoft Sandra benchmarks and post the Multi-Media Integer result? I'd be interested in comparing to other results in this thread: Lowest power consumption for DivX encoding.

Here you go (I posted this in the other thread as well):

Per a request, here are the benchmarks for my Pentium M 1.8 Dothan running in an Aria case with a BFG 6800 OC graphics card. Wattage is during the cpu intensive part of the test. It spikes 10W during the Mandelbrots, which is purely a graphics card load so I ignored it for the purposes of these tests:

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
Integer x4 iSSE : 17309 it/s
Float x4 iSSE2 : 19147 it/s

The power draw on the Kill-a-watt was 77W, so the ratio is 225 Ints/watt. If you remove the hot 6800 video card and use onboard VGA, the ratio should be ~250 or so. Hope this helps!

Rich

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:04 pm

I overclocked to 2.3Ghz (144x16). Here are the results:

21287/79W = 270 ints/sec! That's pretty good value...

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
Integer x4 iSSE : 21287 it/s
Float x4 iSSE2 : 23487 it/s

Performance Test Status
Run ID : DOTHAN on Thursday, December 02, 2004 at 5:09:06 PM
NUMA Support : No
SMP Test : No
Total Test Threads : 1
SMT Test : No
Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance : No
Processor Affinity : P0
Rendered Image Size : 640x480

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.80GHz
Speed : 2.31GHz
Performance Rating : PR2766 (estimated)
Type : Mobile
L2 On-board Cache : 2MB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 8-way set, 64 byte line size

C

Tyrdium · Post by **Tyrdium** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:30 pm

shelt, in the picture, it looks like your NV Silencer 5 is hitting the drive bays. Am I right? I was thinking of using the Thermaltake fanless VGA cooler, but it looks like it may not fit...

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:49 pm

Tyrdium wrote:shelt, in the picture, it looks like your NV Silencer 5 is hitting the drive bays. Am I right? I was thinking of using the Thermaltake fanless VGA cooler, but it looks like it may not fit...

The NV5 just touches the bottom of the drive bay. When I compress the lid, it does put a little pressure on the video card -- probably not the best thing for it. It is very snug. I probably should dremel a bit of the clear housing. I would guess less than 1/64" would solve the problem, but I'm not sure how thick the plastic is! If you have a passive sink any taller than this, it definitely won't fit...

Rich

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:32 pm

shelt wrote:
Tyrdium wrote:shelt, in the picture, it looks like your NV Silencer 5 is hitting the drive bays. Am I right? I was thinking of using the Thermaltake fanless VGA cooler, but it looks like it may not fit...
The NV5 just touches the bottom of the drive bay. When I compress the lid, it does put a little pressure on the video card -- probably not the best thing for it. It is very snug. I probably should dremel a bit of the clear housing. I would guess less than 1/64" would solve the problem, but I'm not sure how thick the plastic is! If you have a passive sink any taller than this, it definitely won't fit...

Rich

Well, I took the 6800&NV5 out and flattened the top of the housing with an orbital sander. I estimate i took ~1/64" off, and the housing is a little thin on top... When I replaced everything, it now clears the drive bay completely. Definitely a worthwhile mod if you're careful...

Tyrdium · Post by **Tyrdium** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:19 pm

Hmmm... How much space is between the end of the expansion slots (i.e., the external ports for cards) and the drive bay? A 6600 GT may still fit...

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 5:59 am

Tyrdium wrote:Hmmm... How much space is between the end of the expansion slots (i.e., the external ports for cards) and the drive bay? A 6600 GT may still fit...

The end of the AGP slot (the locking slot) extends ~1.4" under the drive bay enclosure. Here's a new photo that might help -- it's taken perpindicular to the center of the AGP retention clip:

http://www.sheltons.net/test/ViewPerpin ... GPClip.jpg

Also, I do believe you probably need some sort of fan to remove air from this side of the case. If you run a decent passive card, you'd probably want to use the included cyclone slot fan. I chose to combine the two in the form of an active cooler. The other alternative (if heat load isn't too high) would be to run the PSU fan at a higher speed to compensate.

Tyrdium · Post by **Tyrdium** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:04 pm

Ick. Maybe I can stick a ZM80-D on and side-vent the case...

Edit: Actually... how much space (in mm, preferably) is there between the top of the card itself (not the NV Silencer 5) and the drive bay?

shelt · Post by **shelt** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 6:27 pm

Tyrdium wrote:Ick. Maybe I can stick a ZM80-D on and side-vent the case...

Edit: Actually... how much space (in mm, preferably) is there between the top of the card itself (not the NV Silencer 5) and the drive bay?

Not a lot of room. There is about 3mm at the minimum point between the top of the 6800 PCB board and the bottom of the Al drive bay... I think most of the 6800 cards are similar height. My guess is that the drive bay was designed to clear a standard height AGP card with a little room to spare:)

Tyrdium · Post by **Tyrdium** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 7:21 pm

Damn. I may have to use an NV Silencer 5. >.<