How much power does your system draw at idle (Poll)

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Shemale
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2008 11:25 pm
Location: România

Post by Shemale » Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:08 pm

Idle: 116W :(
Orthos+game+dvd spin-up+utorrent+internal rack 320GB 3.5 enabled: 213W

Motherboard: DFI INFINITY 975X/G
CPU: Core2Duo Conroe E6600 @ 3Ghz (334x9) default voltage
RAM: Sycron 4x1024MB 1066Mhz @ 2.1V
Power Supply: Akasa AK-P040FG8 400W, 80+ bronze
Video: Leadtek 7900GS with passive cooler @ 567/1600Mhz
HDD: 1TB WD GP, 500GB Maxtor 7200.10, 500GB Samsung
Optical: TSS 202H PATA
Sound: Creative X-Fi Elite Pro without external module
TV: Pinnacle 310i PCI
Fans: 2x8cm Arctic cooling 1500rpm, 1x12cm 1000rpm @ 12V.
OS: XP x64
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jnh
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:03 am
Location: US (Florida)

Post by jnh » Fri Apr 25, 2008 12:14 pm

This has served as my main workstation for the past 18 months or so, running Gentoo Linux--

AMD Turion MT-37 @ 2.0 GHz/1.1Vcore (0.8Vcore @ 800MHz)
MSI K8N Neo V2.0 (MS-7030) Socket 754 board
2GB DDR400 RAM
EVGA GeForce 6200 AGP
PC-HD5500 TV tuner & capture card (NTSC/ATSC)
Samsung Spinpoint HD510LJ 500GB SATA drive
NEC ND-2510A 8X DVD-RW
M2-ATX DC-DC power supply (similar to a picoPSU)
Only fan is on the CPU, a CNPS-7000-AlCu that very rarely spins up at all, except for a few seconds when first powered on (PWM controller test?)

Idle power draw for the above is 41-42W @ 12VDC. It runs from a battery bank that's kept charged/floated from solar panels during the day (direct DC source), and from an RV-type switchmode AC->DC power converter at night (basically a very large "brick", but with constant-current limiting to help in recharging batteries). Efficiency of that converter's ~82% at low to moderate load, for an incremental AC consumption of about 50W when the computer's running from it.

This machine is a bit dated now, but still meets my needs most of the time.

Its main sources of heat & power waste when idle are the motherboard's Southbridge chip (nForce 3 250), a passive voltage regulator next to it that's only 50% efficient (3.3V in, 1.65V out), and other assorted linear regulators on the MB for 2.6V to the DDR DIMMs, 1.5V AGP I/O voltage, etc.

Such inefficient linear regulators would never be found on a laptop, but they're unfortunately quite common on desktop MB's... one reason why their no-load power consumption is invariably higher.
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amyhughes
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Location: USA

Post by amyhughes » Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:09 pm

E6750 @ 3.0 GHz (375x8, 1.325V)
Ninja rev B, fanless
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800
MSI nVidia 8600GT 512M, fanless
WD 160 GB HDD
Gigabyte i-RAM w/ 4 x 0.5G DDR 400
M-Audio Audiophile 24/96
Samsung DL DVD burner
Antec Sonata, tricool 120mm, 380W PSU (old)
the Ninja's 120mm Scythe fan intake
WinXP Pro

105W at the desktop, processor throttled to 2.25GHz

This machine is about to receive an E8400, which I'll run at the same clock speed but try to undervolt, a Sparkle 250W 80+ PSU, two Nexus fans and a bolt-thru kit.
Last edited by amyhughes on Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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guerby
Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:50 am

Post by guerby » Sat Apr 26, 2008 5:23 am

viewtopic.php?t=47129

- Seasonic S12 II 430 W (220V AC)
- ASUS M2A-VM
- 8GB = 4x2GB of transcend RAM PC5300
- Maxtor 500GB SATA STM3500320AS
- AMD Phenom 9500, AMD stock cooler
- no case (on my test bench)
- cost of about 620 euros with 19.6% VAT included (France).

Using Linux (text display no X), BIOS cool & quiet and powernow-k8 with ondemand scaling_governor for all 4 cores when the system is idle I got: 77 W, 84VA cosphi 0.92.
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amyhughes
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Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:10 am
Location: USA

Post by amyhughes » Sun Apr 27, 2008 12:14 am

AMD X2 4450E @ 2.0 GHz (undervolted, slightly underclocked)
Ninja B, fanless
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G
integrated graphics, no graphics card
G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800
Addonics SATA compact flash adapter w/16G 133x card
no hard drive
no optical drive
Antec NSK-1300
Nexus 120mm
pico PSU 120 w/110W brick
WinXP
measured with Kill-A-Watt

27W idle at the windows desktop, cnq not enabled
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amyhughes
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Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:10 am
Location: USA

Post by amyhughes » Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:42 pm

E8400 @ 3.0 GHz (375x8, 1.05V)(note non-standard clock)
Ninja rev B, fanless
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800
MSI nVidia 8600GT 512M, fanless
WD GP 500G HDD
Gigabyte i-RAM w/ 4 x 0.5G DDR 400
M-Audio Audiophile 24/96
Samsung DL DVD burner
Antec Sonata, Nexus 120mm, Sparkle 250W 80+ PSU
the Ninja's 120mm Scythe fan used for intake
WinXP Pro

77W at the desktop, processor throttled to 2.25GHz
Last edited by amyhughes on Thu May 01, 2008 12:52 am, edited 4 times in total.
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matt_garman
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Location: Chicago, Ill., USA
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Post by matt_garman » Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:38 pm

Copied my post from this thread.

FYI... My fiancee's computer is all but finished (it's running on a single 1 GB RAM stick; had to RMA the 2x1 GB Ballistix because one stick was DOA).

Anyway, specs:

Code: Select all

Case		Lian Li PC-A05B	
PSU		picoPSU-120 DC-DC + EDac 110W AC-DC brick	
Motherboard		Biostar Tforce TF7025-M2	
CPU		AMD Athlon 64 BE-2350	
HSF		Scythe "Ninja" SCNJ-1100 (fanless)	
Fans		2x Yate Loon D12SL	
Video		Integrated GeForce 7025	
RAM		Crucial Ballistix 2x1GB DDR2-800	
HD2		Samsung 160GB PATA
With the PicoPSU in place, AC power draw is 33/75 W idle/load. CPU temps are about 31/40 degrees C idle/load.

I'm quite happy!

Matt
Last edited by matt_garman on Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Icharus
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 8:20 pm

Post by Icharus » Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:03 am

dragmor wrote:Does anyone know where you can get a 220v version. No one seems to stock these in Aus. The only thing that I've seen are $1000 multimeter.
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ms6115
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ajemm
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:24 pm
Location: East Coast U.S.

Post by ajemm » Tue Apr 29, 2008 7:48 pm

The system in my sig = 85W

My HTPC (Forever a Work-In-Progress)
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
X2 BE-2400
Ninja Mini Fanless
2 x 2GB Geil DDR2 800
Western Digital WD7500AACS 750GB (Green Power) HD
Lite-On LH-20A1L SATA DVD Burner
Onboard Radeon Xpress 1250 Graphics
2 Yate Loon 120mm Fans @7V

59W (Cool N Quiet Enabled)
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Kriz
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Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:16 am
Location: Australia

Post by Kriz » Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:34 am

I'm in the middle of upgrading a PC and decided to do some power consumption tests with some of the new parts:

CPU: Intel E8400 rev. C0 at 1.1V (set in BIOS)
M/B: Gigabyte 73PVM-S2H - GeForce 7100/630i chipset with DVI+HDMI
RAM: 1GB Kingston DDR2-800
HDD: 2.5" WD 160gb Scorpio Black 7200RPM SATA
DVD: LG GSA-4120B 12x DVDRW IDE (old)
Fans: Stock Intel CPU fan + Antec Tricool 12cm on low
PSU: PicoPSU 120 - 80W 12v brick, unknown efficiency (MGP brand, model: F10903-C)

Power Meter used is said to be accurate down to 10w, NOT the one from Jaycar.

PicoPSU:
Idle 39W (at Vista desktop) / Load 69W (Prime95 Small FFTs)

Seasonic SS-300SFD 300W PSU:
Idle 41W (at Vista desktop) / Load 69W (Prime95 Small FFTs)

Using an old NeoHE 430W PSU:
Idle 49W (at Vista desktop) / Load 78W (Prime95 Small FFTs)


While I have the SS-300SFD installed, I decided to find the lowest idle power I could get by underclocking and undervolting the CPU even more:

Seasonic SS-300SFD 300W - CPU 1.00v and FSB changed to 200Mhz (1.8Ghz) :
Idle 38W (at Vista desktop) / Load 52W (Prime95 Small FFTs)

If I disable the onboard audio it reduces the idle power by another 2W, the same happens when I disconnect the DVDRW and Tricool fan together, and again when I unplug the LAN cable, ending up with a minimum of 32W with this setup.

edit: 1. Added Seasonic SS-300SFD data. 2. Transcribing errors. 3. Added link to Power Meter info
Last edited by Kriz on Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:21 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Ralf Hutter
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 8636
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
Location: Sunny SoCal

Post by Ralf Hutter » Tue Sep 02, 2008 11:51 am

IBM T42p

12W @ idle.

33W @ full Orthos load.
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