Lower power consumption Win 7

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RogueTrip

2[H]4U
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Feb 22, 2003
Messages
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Recently I did a few upgrades on my machine and noticed APC Powerchute is showing a bit more power consumption than before near or in idle conditions. Before I got it down to 80~94watt typical usage. Now trying same tricks 112~126w usage.

Been using windows 7 Pro x64 since release.

System before:
AMD x4 960T
ASUS M3A78-T (AM2+)
8GB (4x2GB) G.Skill DDR2 800MHz
MSI GTX260
Intel 1Gb Nic PCI-E
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Fatality Pro PCI
Corsair TX850 Watt
2x 64GB G.Skill SSD Raid 0 (Main OS)
1x 640GB WD Black
1x 2TB Seagate Green
2x IDE DVD-Burners
1x Fan controller
4x 120mm (2x Scythe Slipstream 1900rpm, 2x Yate loon mids)
1x 90mm (side fan)

Since then changes are:
ASUS M5A97 Evo
2x 4GB Samsung DDR3 1600 @ 1.45
MSI 570GTX
1x Samsung 830 128GB SSD (Main OS)
1x Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD (Games)
-Removed DVD Burners
-Removed Fan controller (using fan reducer/resistors)
1x 200mm CM Fan (Side)
2x 140mm fans (top intake / 5.25 bay)
1x CM Sickleflow 2000rpm (on ASUS Q-Fan Chassis) for CPU
2x Cougar case fans 1100rpm (front intake / rear exhaust)


In Win7 Typical things I did was balanced power saving with max power savings on vidcard, wifi, multimedia and turn off hdd's after 10mins.
-Disable Hibernate
-Make sure 2nd monitor wasn't selected (enabled it can pull 166w with 2nd monitor off even).
-Disable LLC in bios, C1E, CnQ, unneeded accessories.
-Disable Aero and use modified Win Basic theme (now use 55mb video ram vs.100+ w/Aero)
-Use K10Stat to setup P-states (idle cpu is 1500MHz at 1.00v)


Anyone just think it could be the fans causing 20~30+watts extra draw. I just cannot see the fans doing that much difference...

And of course why I posted it here. Any OS setting I may have missed? I'd really like to get back to under 100w usage.

*If a mod feels this should be placed elsewhere please speak up and Thank You!
 
Last edited:
C1E and CnQ should NOT have been disabled if you wanted to lower idle power consumption. These two features downclock and undervolts your processor when it is idling.

AMD processors typically idle at ~800 mhz, so that 1500 mhz idle might be the culprit.
 
Thanks for responding.

Before I had C1E and CnQ disable with the lower consumption. I didn't want it to interfere with my OC loaded is 3.9GHz.

Does anyone know what the voltage at 800MHz is?

I keep thinking I'm missing something in windows settings though.
 
What's the power consumption if you unplug all the fans? I seem to recall each fan adds about 5 to 10 watts to the power consumption @ the wall.
 
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