• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Help lower my power consumption...

I

i-bystander

n00b
Joined
Jan 16, 2011
Messages
47
I have an X2 250, 4GB RAM, 2 SATA HDD (1 320GB & 1 1TB), HD4650, and an Antec SP-500 pulling in around 100-110 from the wall. What can I do to lower the power draw? (Aside from going Intel or Zacate!) :)
 
Get larger, fan-less heatsinks for the cpu and gpu.
 
Three things:
1) Are those wattage figures at load or idle? Doing what?

2) That PSU is fairly inefficient and full of issues:
The Truepower I and II series as well as the Smartpower series were well known for their above average death rates due to a poor choice in caps and cooling design. In more specific terms, Antec/CWT specified/used caps (Fuhjyyu caps) that did not respond well to heat. Unfortunately, Antec made the decision to have the PSU fan only ramp at really high temps in an effort to keep the PSU quiet. However, just medium to high temps were enough to screw up the caps so really high temps were murderous. Over time, this degraded the quality and performance of those PSU series.

And then there's the efficiency issue: that PSU was barely 70% efficient at normal and peak loads. New and quality PSUs are generally around 80% at minimum. So you should get a 10W drop minimum in power draw from the wall.

So basically, I would recommend getting a new PSU. Not only would you have a more efficient PSU but you would also get a PSU that's not very likely to die soon or cause harm to the PC. Someting like this:
$40 - Antec Earthwatts Green EA380D 380W PSU

3) Note that the numbers you're getting from what ever device you're using to measure power usage should be taken with a grain of salt. So there's a very very good chance that the wattage draw you're seeing are not accurate at all. There's a chance that it could be lower but also a good chance that it's actually higher.

And to answer some other questions:
Underclocking does affect performance. Undervolting doesn't necessarily affect performance. Dunno of any concrete numbers of what savings you'll see from an undervolt/underclock or replacing your HSF.

At the end of the day though, you still have an AMD CPU that uses a 111W at full load when factoring in the CPU, mobo, single HDD, and GPU.
 
I don't know of any performance issues with undervolting, as long as the CPU is still stable it will still perform the same. Its a trick that is used in laptops to make them last longer on battery power. I've done it to a Dell i9300 back in the day; do not have any concrete evidence that it did allow the laptop to run longer on batteries, but I never tested it either.

If you underclock the CPU to get lower volts, then yes. You'll see a difference in performance as the CPU will not perform as fast as it once did. Depends on what you do with your computer though.
 
Thanks for the input. I don't want to sacrifice whatever performance I could squeeze out of the CPU, so I guess I should look into getting a new PSU.

If I were to totally dump my current system, what's the cheapest way to go while also getting low power draw? (Or should I create a new post just for that?)
 
i-bystander said:
If I were to totally dump my current system, what's the cheapest way to go while also getting low power draw? (Or should I create a new post just for that?)
Click to expand...

Unless the costs of electricity in your area is extremely high, it is not exactly cost-effective to go for a new PC no matter how cheap the build is.

With that said, if you're gonna ask for build advice and really want to go for a new build, please answer the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!" so that we can help you better.
 
I'm a bit curious on why you are so persistent on saving power consumption to be honest. What's the deal?
 
Danny - Thanks for your input... I appreciate it!

Skillz - Just wanted to save electricity (and money) to be honest.
 
Is that 100-110 including the monitor? If not, what monitor do you have?

Do you have lights turned on in the room where your computer is? If so, simply turning them off is going to save you more power than a change to your current system, although i will always put a plug in for efficient power supplies.

Do you have a fairly new-ish/efficient appliances? Air conditioner / heater, water heater, and refrigerator are the big energy hogs. Are your heater and water heater gas or electric?

How much does power cost per kwh where you are?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top