Kill-O-Watt readings for HTPC

[tvmaster2]

In hopes of reducing my skyrocketing electric bill, I bought a Kill-O-Watt device to estimate usage of home appliances.
The HTPC costs approximately $15 per month, one of the higher expenses on the list.
Does anyone know of a way to put the HTPC to sleep until Sage needs for it to be awoken for a recording or when a request is made from a media center device (HD200 etc) for file playback?
This would likely reduce my usage by at least half, as opposed to how things are now, leaving the unit on 24/7.
thanks

[jptheripper]

ugh im so scared to do that exact same thing. My electric bill was 200 bucks this month, and that is the lowest it has ever been. 400 was the highest.

What a waste.

[wrems]

Babgvant wrote some articles on sleeping and waking HTPC's over at the MissingRemote.com:

http://www.missingremote.com/guide/c...ndby-your-htpc

Worth a read. I've set up my server like this to go to sleep between recordings. It helps a lot and the early morning hours. I've changed out some hardware to cut some of the watt sucking power my old server had too. My old server idled about 130 my new one is much better at 75. My next build will be more focused on a lower footprint machine.

I couldn't get my HD200 to wake the machine I know there's a way to do it with multiple nics where any udp or tcp wake the machine. I havent done that since I already had USB running through the walls and connected to my server in the basement. So I have a mouse and keyboard next to my HD200 along with a run of HDMI. I can wake the server if I'm going to watch with a few clicks of the mouse. Works well.

[Savage1701]

Well, here is one thing you could try - you can UNDERCLOCK your CPU in many machines. I did that in one and my Kill-A-Watt went from it drawing 150 watts to 100 watts, roughly. You just go into the BIOS and turn down the FSB setting. If you have a CPU with an unlocked multiplier you could turn that down also. Best to try and do it in a way that matches your memory so you maintain a 2:1 ratio of FSB to memory, at least with many machines. Added benefit will be a little more stability since you are asking less than what your CPU and memory are rated for. Less heat also.

It was a little slower on reboots and such, but that was with one of the old Core Duo 775 CPU's. I guess maybe not so good if your HTPC is in your living room. I tested mine on my Sage Server in my basement, and it did not really matter since the HD-200's did the heavy lifting. If you are watching it, that could be different as H.264's would probably really slow down.

I've never wanted to venture into the sleep and wakeup thing either.

Yeah, it's scary when you figure out how much energy servers use.

[Chriscic]

I've been thinking of looking into the same; my server runs 24/7 and given all my internal and external drives inmy WHS setup I'm sure it's using a lot of juice.

I do seem to recall that the HD200 can't wake up a PC, but a HD300 can.

[Fuzzy]

My entire server closet draws about 340 Watts when everything is recording. that's with everything on a UPS as well, so there's the extra inefficiencies in that. Still, that only ends up costing about $30/month. Worth it, to me.

[Bagal]

I thought it was just a case of setting the power settings in the Control Panel Power Options i.e. set it to go to sleep after being idle for 30mins etc. and making sure the appropriate power settings have been set in the BIOS to allow the machine to wake up again.

Personally I don't set mine to go to sleep as I think it's just too much hassle for a server machine, however I do set my HD's to power down after about 15-20 minutes of inactivity, this can translate into a delay on the client sometimes as the appropriate drive has to spin up, but I think it's worth it.

It would probably be useful to know what your actual power draw was and what components you've got in your server as some newer parts may actually reduce your power usage. My old server was running a P4 3GHz and used to idle at 120w, I upgraded to some newer, lower power components and reduced that to 60w, that was not quite 2 years ago and I've recouped my costs in savings since (and of course I probably would have upgraded at some point anyway.... )

[Savage1701]

One other possibility is laptop hard drives. They are pretty fast now, and at 1TB they still draw less than a decent performance drive without the spindown/crappy lifespans/dubious reliability of "Green" drives. Stick 'em on a decent RAID controller and they do pretty well.

My 6TB Sage Server draws about the same as Fuzzy's, and I could probably get another few TB of space on it and a lower-power-draw CPU that has more horsepower than the present Wolfdale Dual Core. Another good place to cut a corner is the video card if the server is just sitting in a server closet.

You can get video cards that draw very little wattage; no need for 5000 or 6000 series ATI Eyefinity cards.

Also, as I understand it, the power draws on the extenders are tiny.

For me, worth it as well.

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by Bagal

I thought it was just a case of setting the power settings in the Control Panel Power Options i.e. set it to go to sleep after being idle for 30mins etc. and making sure the appropriate power settings have been set in the BIOS to allow the machine to wake up again.

Personally I don't set mine to go to sleep as I think it's just too much hassle for a server machine, however I do set my HD's to power down after about 15-20 minutes of inactivity, this can translate into a delay on the client sometimes as the appropriate drive has to spin up, but I think it's worth it.

It would probably be useful to know what your actual power draw was and what components you've got in your server as some newer parts may actually reduce your power usage. My old server was running a P4 3GHz and used to idle at 120w, I upgraded to some newer, lower power components and reduced that to 60w, that was not quite 2 years ago and I've recouped my costs in savings since (and of course I probably would have upgraded at some point anyway.... )

No, I meant actually dialing back the processor speed in BIOS, although most newer MB's offer little utilities that will put a nice GUI front end on that in Windows for you. Those are convenient as well. Obviously you already know the benefits of newer CPU's vs. P4's and computing power per watt, etc. High efficiency power supplies could help as well.

I don't mess with that whole sleep thing either. To me it's not reliable.

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

ugh im so scared to do that exact same thing. My electric bill was 200 bucks this month, and that is the lowest it has ever been. 400 was the highest.

What a waste.

Yes, and the electric co. has you coming and going if you A/C in the summer, since you can add a lot of heat to your house with a computer on 24/7.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

My 6TB Sage Server draws about the same as Fuzzy's, and I could probably get another few TB of space on it and a lower-power-draw CPU that has more horsepower than the present Wolfdale Dual Core. Another good place to cut a corner is the video card if the server is just sitting in a server closet.

Keep in ming that 340W was ALL equipment in my server closet: Huge UPS, 3 Dish Network 211's, 16-port Giga-switch, Cable modem, cable phone hub, wireless router, AND my 5 HDD Phenom II based server.

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

No, I meant actually dialing back the processor speed in BIOS

I've thought about doing that in the past but didn't really see the point when you've spent all that money on a shiny CPU, you want to be able to use it

What would be nice is if you could dynamically lower the clock speed when the machine was idle, just like most laptop CPU's seem to be able to do (although I'm sure I read somewhere that the latest Intel chips could do this, but perhaps that was referring to the laptop versions...)

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Bagal

I've thought about doing that in the past but didn't really see the point when you've spent all that money on a shiny CPU, you want to be able to use it

What would be nice is if you could dynamically lower the clock speed when the machine was idle, just like most laptop CPU's seem to be able to do (although I'm sure I read somewhere that the latest Intel chips could do this, but perhaps that was referring to the laptop versions...)

Any processor made in the last 4 years does this, as long as you turn the feature on (whether it's called SpeedStep, or Coll'n'Quiet).

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Any processor made in the last 4 years does this, as long as you turn the feature on (whether it's called SpeedStep, or Coll'n'Quiet).

That'll be it, I knew I'd read it somewhere

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by Bagal

I've thought about doing that in the past but didn't really see the point when you've spent all that money on a shiny CPU, you want to be able to use it

What would be nice is if you could dynamically lower the clock speed when the machine was idle, just like most laptop CPU's seem to be able to do (although I'm sure I read somewhere that the latest Intel chips could do this, but perhaps that was referring to the laptop versions...)

Actually, what I meant was that there are Windows-based applets most modern MB's have that will allow you to do that from Windows, and to a greater degree that just Intel's Speed Step. One of my Asus boards lets you get it downright miserly, and you can notice a performance change if you are using it all the time. For Sage Servers, something like that is great. I also more meant that on the older MB's sometimes your only option is BIOS, but that's getting to be a thing of the past.

[davephan]

I was also thinking about getting a meter from the library or buying one to figure out how much the computers are costing. I normally have three computers running 24 x 7. I also have a newer and an older refrigerator. I've heard older refrigerators and draw a lot of power and the break-in cost of buying a new refrigerator might be only a few years of operation.

I've been hoping there would be a long term solution to the high cost of electricity. There was a report about "Bloom Energy" on 60 Minutes that was a solution to that problem to take homes off the electric grid at at a competitive cost. I've heard nothing about "Bloom Energy" since
then.

Dave

[wrems]

Originally Posted by davephan

I was also thinking about getting a meter from the library or buying one to figure out how much the computers are costing.

Libraries have killawatts or similar???

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by wrems

Libraries have killawatts or similar???

Yup. I checked one out from my library last year.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by davephan

I've been hoping there would be a long term solution to the high cost of electricity.

Solar is one possible option, which is what I'm doing this spring, but its payback period depends on where you live. NJ has one of the best incentive programs in the US, with payback estimated to be 4-6 years. A lot of other states take much longer; a 10-20+ year payback period wouldn't be nearly as tempting.

- Andy

[wrems]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Solar is one possible option, which is what I'm doing this spring, but its payback period depends on where you live. NJ has one of the best incentive programs in the US, with payback estimated to be 4-6 years. A lot of other states take much longer; a 10-20+ year payback period wouldn't be nearly as tempting.

- Andy

What's the break-even after thieves or vandals get to them? They're going to be popular targets. Do they impact home owners insurance premiums?