AMD? Intel? Single Core? Dual Core? Gulp!

[johno]

I need to figure out how to monitor temperatures in Linux.

gkrellm

The underlying tool is lm-sensors . sensors-detect scans for the needed modules, and the sensors command will display the current values. For automatic fan control, there is fancontrol, and the associated config utility pwmconfig.

For hard disks, smartmontools is used to probe for SMART information, which usually includes temperature. smartctl is the command to read it.

[woodsman]

I don't want to belabour a point too much, but I've found that one of the single most effective upgrades you can make to an older machine is to upgrade to a newer hard drive. Makes a huge improvement to general desktop work, second only to adding more RAM, in my opinion.

Generally I agree. I recall the boost I received when I updated from my 3.2 GB noisy-as-hell Maxtor to my 7200 rpm 40 GB silent Seagate. Very nice. However, as stated in my original post, my only reason for investigating new hardware is a desire to support hardware virtualization. My old hardware cannot do that. There is a difference between software and hardware virtualization. Yes, my current hardware theoretically supports software virtualization, but I am not going to waste time trying.

I honestly believe the older drives will "drag down" a new PC a little bit.

Could be, but new hard drives definitely will be a part of any second wave of improvements, not the first wave.

Consider that my Seagates are 7200 rpm. Pretty good and rates the same as modern drives. Throughput is rated at ATA-100, which means a maximum burst speed of 100 MBps or 800 Mbps. Many of the motherboards I have looked at as candidates support SATA only up to 1.5 Gbps, or 1500 Mbps. Those numbers too are maximum burst speeds, not average speeds. But okay, that is almost 2x my current throughput. And yes, the newer drives support 3 Gbps. Sure I might see a difference with a new hard drive but compared to what? I emphasized in my original post that anything I buy new will be significantly fast to me. Significantly. Everything else associated with a new motherboard --- dual core processor, much faster video, etc., will so overwhelm me that I am unlikely to notice that my older hard drives are "slow."

Consider too that if, as a previous poster mentioned, that with a new motherboard my current drives max out at only about 40 MBps (320 Mbps). Still pretty fast. Most of the data files on my hard drives are measured in kilobytes. So although my current drives can push and pull files at an average rate of 40 MBps, most files are not even close to that size and my hard drives will complete any file operations in less time than I take to blink. Although there would be improvements, I don't see SATA providing anything dramatic to me. Where I will notice speed improvements is the screen display and CPU operations.

My point is that my current silent drives will suffice. At least for a while and perhaps for a long time. In the mean time I ask this thread stick to issues about CPU performance and energy consumption.

Can you define a bit further which guest OSes you're going to run under the Ubuntu host OS?

I never mentioned Ubuntu. I stated that I would run in Slackware. And my guest OS will be NT4 Workstation, which I have been using since I bought my primary box. I like NT4. Everything just works for me and NT4 was the last of the benign operating systems delivered by Microsoft. I stripped IE, Outlook, and ActiveX from my system several years ago. I rarely see BSODs and I really mean rarely. Further, NT4 is not bloated like W2K or XP and should be mighty snappy in a virtual environment because NT4 is might snappy right now on my 400 MHz K6-III+. I watch the task manager regularly and with my habits of usage, I seldom exceed 150 MB of RAM in usage at one time. I'm not a multi-tasker. The only time RAM usage creeps high is when I run Firefox all day.

I see a lot of presumptions by people in this discussion with how they think I work. Those presumptions are all based upon W2K, XP or the latest bloated GNU/Linux distro. Or based upon heavy gaming, video, or software development environments. I appreciate the advice and warnings --- and I am paying attention, but none of those uses apply to me, as I stated in my original post.

SeaSonic S12 380 (you want the 380 instead of the 330 for the beefier heatsinks)

Ah, good to know. I missed that in my reviews. Thanks!

If you absolutely insist on keeping the 'Cudas, make sure you get the P150/Solo or the NSK2400 so you can at least suspend them.

Too bad nobody here believes me that my drives are silent. Sigh.

I still say mobile chip is the way to go

I tend to agree, but are those chips supported by mainstream motherboards?

[bean1975]

Consider that my Seagates are 7200 rpm. Pretty good and rates the same as modern drives. Throughput is rated at ATA-100

Rated. Means nothing. Current harddrives are rates 300 mbyte/s. No hard drive comes close to half that. And the guy suggesting mobile Intel chips were giving you good advice. I am the happy owner of a T2300 based machine and the CPU cooler is (do not laugh!) is a Zalman 3100...

[johno]

Rated. Means nothing. Current harddrives are rates 300 mbyte/s. No hard drive comes close to half that. And the guy suggesting mobile Intel chips were giving you good advice. I am the happy owner of a T2300 based machine and the CPU cooler is (do not laugh!) is a Zalman 3100...

The reason it means "nothing" is that the rating is for the IDE interface speed, not the drive speed. However, you do want the interface to be faster than the drive, so that it doesn't become the bottleneck. The exact speed doesn't matter that much though. The newer drives are faster, but in this application woodsman is sure speed isn't considered important.

I don't know about the mobile chip solution though. What motherboard would you suggest? Do you have power consumption data on your system? The only point of reference I have is the Mac Mini, which seems to draw about 20W at idle. Idle seems the relevant point to compare for this application. However, once we add in the two 3.5" hard disks and go back to a standard ATX power supply, the power draw would be up to around 50W idle. In comparison, I'd estimate a single-core Athlon system with a suitably chosen standard desktop motherboard would come in around 55W-60W.

I don't think that's such a big improvement to justify the expense and trouble of the mobile parts in this application. It's most worthwile when you are using a very efficient supply and 2.5" or solid-state drives. Then by the time you assemble all that, why not just get a mac mini or laptop in the first place?

[sjoukew]

I don't think win NT will run on the current hardware. No driver support, no go.
Even win NT won't install if it cannot find any drives because it cannot use the disk controllers. I figured that one out 6 years ago when it wouldn't install.
About the cpu support for motherboards, asus has a very nice tool for that. They have all information about all cpu's plotted against all their motherboards. cpu support.
In the specs you can read what kind of motherboard chipset it has. Then you roughly know what the competition is delivering.

There was a time when powersaving features were only found in mobile cpu's. Since they are default on all desktop cpu's and even server cpu's are equiped with them, it isn't useful anymore to try to get a mobile cpu in a desktop case. It will only cost more money, will be slower, you only can choose from 2 mainboards which are more expensive and that would be it. I really don't see the point, but that can be my shortcoming .

[johno]

Even if the modern hardware isn't supported with Win NT, wouldn't you be able to emulate older hardware under the virtual machine?

It is encouraging to see the desktop motherboards getting closer to the mobile boards. That's more the case with AMD than Intel though. There are still efficiency problems on the motherboards themselves that drives the power usage up. Some just have inefficient core voltage power converters or peripheral chips that aren't designed for low power. Unfortunately we just have to work from anecdotal evidence to see which ones are efficient and which ones aren't. At least with the mobile ones you should be fairly confident it is an efficient board.

[sjoukew]

You can simulate a network card in vmware, but if you don't have drivers for the real one, the simulated one isn't going to transfer data to your real network

[woodsman]

I am the happy owner of a T2300 based machine and the CPU cooler is (do not laugh!) is a Zalman 3100...

Is this a desktop box? Which motherboard are you using?

I don't think win NT will run on the current hardware. No driver support, no go.

Irrelevant in a virtual environment because a user can simulate/use generic drivers/hardware.

Even if the modern hardware isn't supported with Win NT, wouldn't you be able to emulate older hardware under the virtual machine?

Yes, that is my understanding.

They have all information about all cpu's plotted against all their motherboards. cpu support.

Thanks for the tip.

There was a time when powersaving features were only found in mobile cpu's. Since they are default on all desktop cpu's and even server cpu's are equiped with them, it isn't useful anymore to try to get a mobile cpu in a desktop case.

Interesting point.

[Jasper]

You can simulate a network card in vmware, but if you don't have drivers for the real one, the simulated one isn't going to transfer data to your real network

Yes, but it's the Host OS that needs the drivers, not the guest OS. The guest OS -- under traditional VMware software virtualisation that is -- just sees 'virtual' hardware. How Xen does things, OTOH, I have no idea. I suspect it's something similar though.

[aaa]

Personal experience:
Tforce6100 AM2/X2 4000/CNPS8000
Fan never turns on when idle w/ CnQ. Fan does turn on at full load though, even when undervolted to 1.1v. I suppose it might be different if a bigger passive HS were used.

[grosskur]

woodsman: Take a look at the Rosewill IDE Device to SATA Device Mini Vertical Bridge (for IDE device) Model RC204- Retail. Currently on sale for $12/ea (down from $20/ea) at Newegg. I haven't used them myself, but from what I've read these bad boys should let you connect your IDE drives to SATA ports with no problem. (Some reviewers mentioned a slight performance drop than with a pure IDE connector, but I doubt you would see this with your older drives.)

I run several VMs on a daily basis and definitely recommend multiple cores and multiple drives---both make a big difference. Best to put your NT4 VM on a different drive than your host OS if you want things to really fly!

And don't replace your drives if you don't want to---just wait for SSDs to become cheap. By then LogFS should be ready for prime-time. Just make sure you keep your Barracudas backed up in case one bites the dust, or use Linux software RAID 1. (This is what I do for all my systems.)

[Mars Warrior]

I don't know about the mobile chip solution though. What motherboard would you suggest? Do you have power consumption data on your system? The only point of reference I have is the Mac Mini, which seems to draw about 20W at idle. Idle seems the relevant point to compare for this application. However, once we add in the two 3.5" hard disks and go back to a standard ATX power supply, the power draw would be up to around 50W idle. In comparison, I'd estimate a single-core Athlon system with a suitably chosen standard desktop motherboard would come in around 55W-60W.

The 55W-60W can easily be beaten. The following system
- Asus AM2 690 board with HDMI
- 1GB RAM
- WD 500GB HD
- DVD Burner
- AMD 3800 45W CPU
- Coolermaster iGreen 430W (80plus PS)

Takes under Windows XP and tweaked using RMClock 37W idle and 55W under full load

Even a comparable system (same mobo, AMD X2 4600 65W CPU, no 80plus PS, 2GB RAM but with extra wireless PCIe card and cardreader) uses without any tweaking 52W in idle mode...

So yes, the 690 based AMD board is very energy efficient if you compare it with an 6150 based board (Gigabyte M55plus, 2GB RAM, WD 500GB, DVD Burner, AMD X2 3600+, iGreen 430W), which takes 56W idle and 95W at full load, where idle load is more than the tweaked 690 system at full load

[lm]

How come you want to save power on the cpu, but not on the hard drives? one modern hard drive is faster and uses much less power than 3 old hard drives.

[woodsman]

Hi All,

I want to thank everybody who participated in this thread. I've been busy the past few weeks with life and have not responded. In between I have been busy researching the advice provided here and wanted to better grasp that advice before responding. I have narrowed my hardware criteria and I will post new threads regarding those topics.

To clarify a misunderstanding in this thread, I do not have three hard drives installed in one box, nor will I. I use three Seagate Barracuda IV drives. As noted in the local web site articles, the "legendary" Barracuda IV. I have one silent 40 GB drive in each of my two boxes and I use a third silent 60GB Barracuda IV for backups using a removable hard drive caddy. Please do not compare the current Seagate drives with the "legendary" silent Barracuda IV drives. There is no comparison. These three drives are silent/inaudible and the "legendary" description is dead-on.

Money is tight right now and this project will have to proceed in a methodical piece-meal fashion. A new motherboard, CPU, RAM, case, and power supply are first on the list. For any new box, initially I will only migrate like-for-like. That is, initially I will move the one silent 40 GB Barracuda IV from my old test box to my new box. Possibly, and likely, after getting the new box tweaked to taste, particularly after configuring my virtualization software the way I want, I then will move the one silent 40 GB drive from my primary box to my new box and that second drive will store all of my virtual OS images. Thus, at maximum I will have only two drives in my new box and with virtualization, that is a good idea anyway rather than run both host and guest OSs from one drive.

The third Barracuda IV, a silent 60 GB drive, will remain external for backups in its removable hard drive caddy. A backup utility like rsnapshot, using the rsync algorithms, can pack a lot of backups onto one disk drive.

The bottom line is that at least for the short term, I have three ATA-100 drives that are silent. New hard drives can wait until the piggy bank is fatter again and my current drives will suffice for the duration. But the "legendary" silence of the Barracuda IV drives might render any such desire moot.

Although several people recommended ditching these IDE/PATA drives for newer SATA drives, initially I will remain with my beloved silent Barracudas. I might later update, but money is tight and initially using my existing drives makes sense. As I mentioned these drives are rated at ATA-100 and my current two boxes support only ATA-33. I never have been able to use these drives at full throughput capacity. Thus, I will notice an approximate three-fold increase in drive throughput. Current hdparm tests show about 12 to 17 MB per second with my old hardware. Therefore a three-fold increase will be noticeable for me.

I realize that many of you are hardware enthusiasts and are accustomed to faster drives, but from my perspective, a three fold increase to approximately 40 to 50 MB per second is virtually a new drive. Plus, I get to maintain my silent status with these drives. Because I am a basic office user, I have in no way exercised these drives in any demanding way and all things considered, these drives likely have a long life remaining. I am not opposed to SATA drives, but silence is more important to me than raw speed. Because any new motherboard will dramatically improve my overall response times, sticking with hard drive silence rather than raw speed will be a reasonable compromise. Several months down the road after I acclimate to my new hardware I might notice that the older drives are a bottleneck. Then again, as a basic office user, I might not.

I also have been busy testing virtualization with qemu. As a basic office user my existing but old hardware actually is sufficient for my computing needs, but one of my original criteria was that I wanted new hardware for running virtual environments. Current virtualization software runs fine without direct CPU support, but if I want new hardware that is a tad future-proof, then I might as well obtain a modern CPU that directly supports virtualization. Eventually software will be refined to take full advantage of that feature.

Still, my recent testing showed me that RAM is the major bottleneck in any virtualization environment, not hardware or raw CPU speed. I was able to successfully run NT4 Workstation in Slackware 11.0 on a 350 MHz PII Deschutes. Once NT4 finished booting the response was adequate. Not blazing like in a native environment, but acceptable for testing and learning some basics. But my test box has only 256 MB of RAM and I could allocate only 96 MB to NT4. In my primary box running NT4 I have a full 256 MB available and NT4 flies. Just for grins and conversation, I'd like to find some used PC100 256 MB sticks and bump my test box to 512 MB of RAM and try again. I suspect I'd notice improvements.

Using an old but noisy spare hard drive, I also learned that running a virtual OS from a second hard drive is faster than trying to run from the same drive as the host OS. My experience confirms what others have said in this regard. Therefore, if I want to run virtual OSs in my new box, using two drives is reasonable and sensible regardless of how fast any one particular drive might be.

I mention this virtualization experiment because as I wrote in my original posts, any new hardware I obtain will be like lightning to me. Try to see things from my perspective, not as a typical hardware enthusiast. A modern dual core 2 GHz CPU is many times faster than my 400 MHz K6-III+ or 350 MHz PII. A FSB of 800 MHz is several times faster than a 66 or 100 MHz FSB. Any modern integrated graphics is dozens of times faster than my dedicated 4MB Diamond Stealth 3D or 16MB Voodoo Banshee AGP 1x. Moving from these old motherboards restricted to only ATA-33 to those supporting ATA-133 --- allowing my current hard drives to run at their rated ATA-100, will not only provide a three-fold increase in hard drive throughput, but because of the other dramatically noticeable speed improvements likely will render hard drive performance a secondary issue. At least for a while until I acclimate to the new hardware.

I have no reason to doubt that those who fiddle and tinker with new hardware on a regular basis would indeed notice a difference with my hard drives. But from my perspective, where my only benchmark and reference point is my current old hardware, a three fold increase in throughput will be very noticeable to me, although probably would seem slow to those who tinker more regularly. And the bottom line is that the size of my piggy bank does play a role in my decision-making process, therefore why not use the existing drives? Especially when silence is more important to me than raw speed?

In all, thanks again for all the time and advice. Much appreciated!