Best low power box...

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spotdog14

[H]ard|Gawd
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I am currently looking at a mini-ITX VIA C7 mobo, what I want to do is create a home firewall/dhcp appliance. How much power would this thing draw from an outlet. I am looking for the smallest amount (because every watt is money).

Thanks.
 
spotdog14 said:
I am currently looking at a mini-ITX VIA C7 mobo, what I want to do is create a home firewall/dhcp appliance. How much power would this thing draw from an outlet. I am looking for the smallest amount (because every watt is money).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I used a mini-itx via c3 for a while. I ended up turning it off and using a VM under linux (kvm) with 3 nic interfaces. I'm not sure on power but a C7 should be pretty low power (sub 20w). It also supports power saving features as well (similar to amd's cool'nquiet). The neat thing about the c7 is the hardware accelerated encryption.
 
OP is sort of contradictory when he says he wants to built a homemade router but then goes on to say 'every watt is money'. if every watt is money, then every router is a retail one. basic router with modified firmware and you're looking at a fully capable device for less power and less money then what you can build on your own.
 
spacetrader said:
OP is sort of contradictory when he says he wants to built a homemade router but then goes on to say 'every watt is money'. if every watt is money, then every router is a retail one. basic router with modified firmware and you're looking at a fully capable device for less power and less money then what you can build on your own.
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You are right, I have a Linksys WRT-54G at home that I have flashed with Tomato and love it.

I guess what I really am looking for is a super low power usage home server. I have three options I am looking at, the first is using my current HP dv1040 laptop that has a Pentium-M 1.6ghz processor in it, or a Via C3/C7 box or an Intel Atom box (probably the Asus Eee Box). I am leaning more toward the laptop and clocking it down to 600mhz I think it should have the smallest power usage out of them all.

What do you think?
 
If its a server, what are you using for storage? If a laptop, then no more than 500 GB? If you have more it has to be using an external which adds significantly to your power envelope, let alone the fact that the power brick becomes a vampire load when on, but the server is not.
 
I have X2 3600@ 1.4Ghz @ .875v
160GB SATAII
Gigabyte 780G mATX Motherboard
4GB DDR2 800mhz RAM
Antec mATX case + 350 watts 80% PSU

I am running Win2003Server R2 64bit + Exchange Server + Web + SSH + FTP, couple of VMs, etc

All that draws 35W = idle and 40W load from the outlet by KillAWatt meter

I really want to know how beat that, if any one else have any thing else please post. Like OP said every Watt is Money.
 
annaconda said:
I have X2 3600@ 1.4Ghz @ .875v
160GB SATAII
Gigabyte 780G mATX Motherboard
4GB DDR2 800mhz RAM
Antec mATX case + 350 watts 80% PSU

I am running Win2003Server R2 64bit + Exchange Server + Web + SSH + FTP, couple of VMs, etc
All that draws 35W = idle and 40W load from the outlet by KillAWatt meter

I really want to know how beat that, if any one else have any thing else please post. Like OP said every Watt is Money.
Click to expand...

Wow your x2 3600 (underclocked) uses less power then a Intel D945GCLF2 with a Intel Atom 330 Dual Core.

* E8500 @ 3.16GHz on Asus P5E3 Premium: 92W idle, 118W loaded
* Atom 330 @ 1.6GHz on Intel D945GCLF2: 41W idle, 45W loaded
Click to expand...
Here is a link to prove it.
 
Dell Mini 9 + USB 2.0 nics. 5-6w idle with the screen powered off and ethernet connected. 10-11w 100% load.

img_1175871.jpg


The picture doesn't show it but I removed the lcd and verified it boots without it. The vga output looks like it's os driver dependent though. Still, selling it and the new battery would recover most of the cost for headless builds with web guis and config files stored on flash memory.

The base system goes for $180 in the dell outlet, but all these cheap ones sell as soon as they're posted. I managed to pick up a couple $200 ones with 8gb drives. One is going to be a domain server and the other might become a router.
 
I'm a big fan of the old socket 754 amd turions. the server in my sig runs at 67watts idle, not to bad for a machine with 5 old pata drives.
 
What do you want to run? I run Untangle with web filtering and virus scanning and intrusion prevention and a bunch of other modules on a Conroe-L (single core, 35W Conroe-based Celeron) and the CPU usage can get high if I've got a few dozen bittorrents open. Though usually it's under 10%.
 
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