# 10-watt PC!



## Janglur (Nov 9, 2007)

CPU:		Via Eden-N		533 MHz, Single On Chip Solution
RAM:		1 GB PC133		2x512 MB, 133 MHz, 3 CAS latency.
Mobo:		EPIA-5000AG		PC-133 SDRAM 1GB max.  10/100 LAN.  4x USB, 2x ATA/133, 1x PCI, 2x PS2, 1x Serial, 1x Parallel, 1x VGA, 1x RJ45
Video:		Integrated 4xAGP	Integrated 4x AGP video accelerator.
Sound:		2 channel AC97		2 channel
Case:		LANBOX Lite VF6000BNS	10"x9.25"x3.125", 80w PSU
HDD:		Samsung 16 GB SSD	16 GB.  Solid-state architecture.  <1ms seek time.  57 MB/s read, 38 MB/s write.  0.2 watts.  2,000,000 MTBF.


Total cost:  $600

Only 10w power draw.  Now that's NICE.  Much lower than even low-power laptops.  My $190 UPS could power it for 29 hours!

Thank you, VIA!  I love thee.  Plus it's friggin' tiny.  And a lot faster than it seems.  The SSD card really gives it an advantage, it outperforms my 10k RPM Raptor.  Plays The Sims nicely.


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## Ron Overdrive (Nov 9, 2007)

Interesting... slap on some solar panels and you got a green PC.


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## Hakumei Ookami (Nov 9, 2007)

I want one to carry around with me all the time.


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## Dragoneer (Nov 9, 2007)

Will it even have enough juice to surf the web well? heh heh.


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## Ron Overdrive (Nov 9, 2007)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> Will it even have enough juice to surf the web well? heh heh.



At 10watts of power and the kind of horsepower it has it should be enough assuming you're using a decent web browser. Firefox is doable, but I think it might have problems since it tends to use a bit of memory. Maybe if you're running some kind of linux distro with konqueror it wouldn't have any issue. But to me it sounds like it would be ideal for a low impact print server, firewall, or even low traffic webserver.


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## Zero_Point (Nov 9, 2007)

Pffft-ha ha ha ha! Look at your little baby machine! *hugs full-tower dual-core SLi rig* [/HeavyWeaponsGuy]

But in all seriousness, that's actually pretty neat.


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## Janglur (Nov 10, 2007)

http://www.talcoelectronics.com/p-61-18-watt-solar-panel.aspx

Ayep!
It runs FF2 just fine.  It also plays The Sims quite admirable!  Averages 32-64 FPS (min/max) depending on the amount of crap onscreen at the moment.  It's rather slow with anything that uses L2 cache, but it has a full SSE1-3 compliment like any modern CPU, surprisingly low latency, and it microcode-cache-emulates less commonly used x86 instructions [which has surprisingly little impact on performance] to allow it to be smaller, cheaper, and use less power.  It also doesn't require a heatsink.  I don't mean just 'no fan', I mean NO HEATSINK AT ALL.  It topped out at 142F max-load for an hour with no heatsink!

It's impressive.. dare I say.. AMAZINGLY powerful for how insanely efficient it is.  I'd admirably love to see a 'bigger' version with dual-core capable of actually hitting 2 GHz or more and competing with modern CPUs.


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## Armaetus (Nov 10, 2007)

It outperforms it because it's a solid-state hard drive.


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## supercutefurri58 (Nov 14, 2007)

where do you buy this


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## Janglur (Nov 15, 2007)

No idea!

I buy the parts wholesale and assemble them.  I find that buying them peice-by-peice always garuntees higher quality parts, better overall performance, functionality and reliability, and all for a lower price.


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## supercutefurri58 (Nov 16, 2007)

oh

ok then

do you have link to ssd?

what about monitor? any good low-power models you know of?


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## Janglur (Nov 17, 2007)

Basically any LCD is low-power.  Smaller uses less.  Not a huge variance between them that i've seen.

SSDs:  http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=636&name=Solid-State-Disks

The fastest on the market ATM are MTron at 73 MB/s and 0.1ms seek.  But I can never locate any.


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## Janglur (Nov 17, 2007)

http://www.dvnation.com/nand-flash-ssd.html

This is the MTron.  Apparently it's actually 97 MB/s.  That puts it above 10k RPM harddrives.

And NOTHING can touch the seek time!


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## benanderson (Dec 21, 2007)

That uses less power than my damn Amiga! (23w) Oo


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## Ceceil Felias (Dec 22, 2007)

Daaang. XD Now let's see if one can get power consumption any lower.

That would definitely be fun to hook up a small battery and solar panel to, though.


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## yak (Dec 22, 2007)

I like this one better. 

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/15/hp-launches-new-low-power-pcs-recycling-program/

Typical Office-level PC, suitable for most office needs - and has 45Watt power consumption, probably making it fanless and really really quiet. Wouldn't that be a utopia for office workers like myself


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## Janglur (Dec 22, 2007)

Actually, that doesn't impress me much.  45W?  That's more than the standard laptop these days.


The best of the worst, really.



If i'm gonna build a low-watt PC, it must play windows XP Pro.  It must play The Sims.  And it must have at least 512 MB of RAM.  And above all, it must use less power than a laptop.

The only way I can make the 10-watt-wonder any lighter is removing something.  Since the video and sound are built-in (and required) and as low as it gets anyway, the CPU is also as low as it gets..
I could try hunting for lower-watt RAM, but that'd save a quarter of a watt at best.
The best bet is to remove the hard-drive and replace it with a solid-state-drive.... which i've done....
And remove the CD-ROM drive.  That thing wastes some power.
Also disabling hardware in the BIOS that's not in use. Like serial ports and some USB ports and junk.


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## yak (Dec 22, 2007)

It still consumes 255Watt less then an average office PC, and is completely silent to boot. Which were the primary qualities i'd be looking for.


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## DragonTrew (Dec 22, 2007)

Really nice! But 533MHz is enough? I mean (talking about windows) some modern applications requires more than 533 MHz to run...

I don't know, It would be nice to have some extra power for a little more Watts, perhaps 1GHz at 20W? Still way better than a laptop (in terms of Wattage).

Still, I really enjoyed the idea of hooking a solar panel to it and make it a green computer, and of course use it with Linux /UNIX would be neat! XD


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## yak (Dec 22, 2007)

VIA has a 1.5GHz chip at 7Watt as opposed to 1Watt per 533Mhz used in that PC.  However, i have seen winXP successfully installed & used on a 400MHz Celeron with 128M memory. More RAM is what you generally need. CPU can manage it.


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## DragonTrew (Dec 22, 2007)

yak said:
			
		

> VIA has a 1.5GHz chip at 7Watt as opposed to 1Watt per 533Mhz used in that PC.  However, i have seen winXP successfully installed & used on a 400MHz Celeron with 128M memory. More RAM is what you generally need. CPU can manage it.



Yeah, I'm running XP on a 550MHz/256MB system... But after installing some necessary softwares it goes madly slow... I mean, I can use it but it's suffering...


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## Ceceil Felias (Dec 22, 2007)

yak said:
			
		

> VIA has a 1.5GHz chip at 7Watt as opposed to 1Watt per 533Mhz used in that PC.  However, i have seen winXP successfully installed & used on a 400MHz Celeron with 128M memory. More RAM is what you generally need. CPU can manage it.


I'll beat you there.

I've gotten Windows XP installed on a Pentium-MMX clocked at 200MHz with 128MBs of 72-pin SIMMs (completely maxed out!) with no trouble. I've also installed it on a secondhand laptop that had a 400MHz Pentium 2 with 256MBs of memory, but that's not as interesting.

Though I think the OP's 10-watt computer will have no problem with memory issues.


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## Janglur (Dec 23, 2007)

Actually, the average PC uses 180 watts.  IE, the normal ones sold by Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc.   I've seen real gamer rigs press 500w and up.

Anyway tho..

I've run WinXP on a 486DX with 96 MB RAM.  It was pagefiling like a madman but it FREAKING RAN!  All my other PCs DIAF'd.

WinXP needs not much for resources.  It's amazing for that, and to be an OS of it's generation.  It is the best, and perhaps last, good idea Microsoft has had.

S'why the Via uberstupidlowwatt PC is still quite useable.  It squeezes that wattage as low as possible without sacrificing capability.
Plus, SSD drives give it an unfair advantage.  It rarely swaps but if it ever has to, it has speeds equivalent to EDO RAM!  Dozens of times faster than even the best 15,000 RPM server drive.  So that really gives it a nasty kick for being otherwise so bleh.


I wanna go lower still.  I want a AA powered computer.


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## DragonTrew (Dec 23, 2007)

Janglur said:
			
		

> I wanna go lower still.  I want a AA powered computer.



Use joule thiefs to squeeze all the possible juices out of the AA hehehehehe

But seriously, only the processor itself uses more than the 1.5V@whatever-Amps an AA battery can offer... You'll need many of them, the amount of Amps one (or a short series of them, 4 for example) can offer isn't enough to power an entire system yet... Perhaps on the future with molecular transistors, nanotechnology and stuff, you'll be able to put together an AA powered system...

In the meantime why don't have a soler powered system like said above? It's cool enough for me ^^'


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## Janglur (Dec 23, 2007)

Uh, what?

AA batteries using Alkaline can hold 1700-3000 mAh at 1.2v.  THat's 2.04-3.6 watts each.


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## DragonTrew (Dec 23, 2007)

Janglur said:
			
		

> Uh, what?
> 
> AA batteries using Alkaline can hold 1700-3000 mAh at 1.2v.  THat's 2.04-3.6 watts each.



For how long? Does it worth using it? If you squeeze that amount of power out from one, it won't last for a long time. So if you don't use a set of rechargeable ones, you'll expend lots of money only on batteries...


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## Janglur (Dec 23, 2007)

That's enough that one battery can power the CPU for one hour at max load.

But for the entire PC, you'd need ten batteries to be worthwhile.  That's why i'm trying to get it lower still.


Shit, a 9-cell laptop battery can power the desktop for a good 16 hours!


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## DragonTrew (Dec 23, 2007)

Janglur said:
			
		

> That's enough that one battery can power the CPU for one hour at max load.
> 
> But for the entire PC, you'd need ten batteries to be worthwhile.  That's why i'm trying to get it lower still.
> 
> ...



Yeah that's the point, there isn't an advantage to use the AA batteries yet... If you can use other more efficient methods like the laptop batteries or the solar panels... But I don't meant that it is impossible, it just don't worth the costs in my opinion.


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## Janglur (Dec 23, 2007)

Actually, NiMH batteries are a lot cheaper than Lion.

Besides, reducing the wattage is very cost-efficient.
Average desktop uses 180 watts average load.
Almost all my PCs are on 24/7.  Servers and NAS's, routers and so forth.  And a lolinux box.

This system uses 10 watts.  It replaced a 933 Mhz Celeron with 384 MB SDRAM and a 40 GB HDD.
That's 1,489,200 watts saved a year.  $134.03
And we have VERY cheap power here, too!

The system pays for itself.

Let's face it, if it wasn't for people like me you <excel> ignorant masses </excel> would just settle for less and technology would only get faster and less efficient, instead of more efficient, lighter, smaller, and cheaper.

I mean, d00d.  CPU+Mobo+Video+Sound for <$100.  That'd run me $200+ on normal parts.


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## DragonTrew (Dec 23, 2007)

Janglur said:
			
		

> Actually, NiMH batteries are a lot cheaper than Lion.
> 
> Besides, reducing the wattage is very cost-efficient.
> Average desktop uses 180 watts average load.
> ...



I have to agree here... People are very comfortable with the things being the way they are (not excluding me). If there was no one to force things down, the systems would become real power-consuming monsters (and actually they are...).

I totally understand your side now... It's really expensive to keep running systems 24 by 7 by 365 PLUS cooling... So less consumption mean less heat and less worries about the bill at the end of the month...


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## Janglur (Dec 23, 2007)

And this PC has NO fans WHAT SO EVER!

At max load under long-term use it never break 110F.  After all, a CPU using 20w or less needs no fans.  Less than 4w needs no heatsink!

So the PC is fine as long as it's vents aren't covered.  Convection handles the rest!


Right now, i'm still trying to find ways to reduce consumption.  I'm trying to find what SSD drive uses the least power.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147021  This one is frighteningly fast and still uses only 200mA on the rail.  However I can't find what the voltage is, so i'm unsure the wattage.


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## DragonTrew (Dec 23, 2007)

Janglur said:
			
		

> Right now, i'm still trying to find ways to reduce consumption.  I'm trying to find what SSD drive uses the least power.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147021  This one is frighteningly fast and still uses only 200mA on the rail.  However I can't find what the voltage is, so i'm unsure the wattage.



Well assuming those "mobile" storage stuff generally uses the +5V line (don't know exactly though) And this SSD uses 200mA, then we have: 5V@0.2A will lead us to 1W of power... It's pretty low (2.4W if it uses the 12V line). Also as it uses Flash memory. We can assume that it, like USP drivers, uses the +5V line... Again I'm doing some assumptions here, it may be not the total truth... But it's damn close I think...


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## FF_CCSa1F (Dec 29, 2007)

Neat.

I wish I could measure my laptop! It's a freaking miracle machine! It's a 466MHz P2 Celeron, 256MB PC100, 13GB HDD and a 15.4" screen. It runs 3.5 hours on a 4-cell battery from 2003, whiles watching a DivX movie, wich actually puts quite a lot of strain on that old CPU.

Me having two batteries and an external HDD (Wich doesn't affect battery time much at all), this computer is a lifesaver on bus trips.

Do note that I'm actively using this laptop to date, and it's not at all as slow as you'd expect it to be.


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## DragonTrew (Dec 30, 2007)

Freezer said:
			
		

> Neat.
> 
> I wish I could measure my laptop! It's a freaking miracle machine! It's a 466MHz P2 Celeron, 256MB PC100, 13GB HDD and a 15.4" screen. It runs 3.5 hours on a 4-cell battery from 2003, whiles watching a DivX movie, wich actually puts quite a lot of strain on that old CPU.
> 
> ...



Well you can try one of those Amp. meters and then make the math: Amp*Volts = Watts. It's important to remember that the wattage of those systems have to sides Before and After the power supply... If you measure before the power supply you have the wattage that the system is consuming from the outlet, measuring it after the PS you'll have the wattage of the system itself, now the cool thing is: with those two measurements you can calculate the power supply efficiency XD


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