Seasonic Power Angel

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:39 am

My new toy.

It's showing the amount of watts used by my HTPC, which at the time was Folding (A64 3500+ with a GF4 Ti4200).

Here are some readings I got with the following systems. They all use similar hard drives (just one Seagate 7200.7 or Cuda V per system) except for my Pentium M Server.

A64 3500+ w/ GF4 Ti4200
Idle = 107w
F@H = 136w

A64 3500+ w/ GeForce 6800GT
Idle = 110w
F@H = 139w
Half-Life 2 = 170w

P4 2.4B w/ Matrox P650
Idle = 84w
F@H = 126w

Pentium M 1.3 Banias (@1.180V) two WD1200JB in RAID 1
Idle = 47w
F@H = 55w!!!

This is a fun little device. I've been plugging just about everything into it in the house.

BTW, just about every single computer when turned off,(but the PSU is still switched on in the back) used about 5watts.

With at least four computers plugged in, but not always on, this means that at least 20watts of power is used to just keep them plugged in.

-Ed

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:43 am

That's actually pretty worrying. What on earth does that 5w get used for? It seems a little overblown just to check for contact from the power switch...

It's also interesting to see how close the P4 2.4 is to the Athlon system while being significantly slower.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:23 am

meglamaniac wrote:That's actually pretty worrying. What on earth does that 5w get used for? It seems a little overblown just to check for contact from the power switch...

The PSU supplies +5VSB to the motherboard whenever the PSU is plugged to the wall socket and the possible switch is on. It is used to power e.g. keyboard/mouse/USB devices (devices which could boot the computer when it's off). If the computer is on S3 (Suspend-To-RAM) power save mode, it's used to power the RAM.

And it's also used to turn the computer on.

Cheers,

Jan

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:49 pm

LOL, I just realized that the Seasonic Power Angel is just an OEM'd Kill-A-Watt. :p Look familiar?

-Ed

Tyrdium · Post by **Tyrdium** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:35 pm

Nicer case, though, and it's only 5 or 10 bucks more. I may have to pick one up...

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:46 pm

You Americans and your crazy power sockets :p
Then again you probably think we're crazy as we use double your voltage.

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:59 pm

meglamaniac wrote:You Americans and your crazy power sockets :p
Then again you probably think we're crazy as we use double your voltage.

Yes, but fewer amps, right?

-Ed

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:20 pm

I used ATiTool's "Find Max Core" and it locked up and rebooted at 554.73MHz. It was running at 70C at the time and system power usage as diplayed by Power Angel was 175w.

Now the A64 3500+ with ATi Radeon X800 Pro is:
Idle = 101w
F@H = 130w

-Ed

CeeJay · Post by **CeeJay** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:56 am

Try using ATItools feature to detect 2D mode and set it to underclock in 2D.
I have my 9700 set to run at 215 core / 250 mem (too low will make it unstable .. I don't suggest going under 210mhz core)

For thoose with compatible boards 8rdavcore from hasw.net can be used to over/underclock the CPU based on temperature or CPU usage.
Thus if your CPU runs idle it can automaticly underclock and undervolt it.

Also to reduce the 5w usage in off , try to see if your board have jumpers for disabling power-on by keyboard and/or power-on by USB.

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 4:11 am

Wooo.

I'm going to have to try that.

Cool N Quiet made no difference in temps or power usage. for me. Maybe I didn't install it correctly?

-Ed

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 4:22 pm

At 215 Core / 250 mem, I get a savings of a whopping 4C temp, and 5 watts of power.

The X800 must conserve some level of power already when not in 3D mode.

I guess it's worth the extra heat and power for the convenience of not having to switch profiles every time I want to play a game. It would not switch on it's own.

-Ed

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 4:09 pm

edwood - try grabbing radlinker. You can set custom profiles up for each game, you just make a new shortcut. Can set AA and AF and stuff as well, it's a great little tool.

griff