Power usage question

D

Dexter007

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
147
I'm planning on putting together a home server in the near future using spare parts from older builds. Unfortunately the motherboard I will be using does not have integrated graphics. I really only need a video connection for a monitor in order to get the server up and running and configured, and then if anything needs adjusted. The only option I have then besides purchasing a cheap low-power video card is an old GeForce 7900GTO...not exactly a great energy-saving option for a server, I know.

So my question is does the video card draw power if there is no monitor attached to it...as in once the server is up and running, I would disconnect the monitor.
 
Yes it does. Depending on the video driver, you may be able to reduce the power consumption a bit by using a screen saver, but the video card will always consume power.

I would either suggest you buy a really cheap video card (but do your homework/research to find a low power version) or buy a new motherboard with build-in video adapter or even better an IPMI based server motherboard which lets you manage the server via an IP connection without the need to have any local monitor or keyboard attached to the server!
 
I intend to do something similar (except with an IGP) but I had a question... does X even come up without any connected displays? I had a yucky feeling that the video drivers required a display to initialize. I wanted to do Xnest / Xephyr / XDMCP or something like that to admin the box w/ a full windows manager if I ever needed to.

BTW for the record I have a 7950 GX2 and just disconnected the monitors and the power draw was no different, so that's officially confirmed. :)
 
heh, just rip the video card out of the system, when it's configured.
On my systems, the come up fine without a monitor plugged in.
 
patrickdk said:
heh, just rip the video card out of the system, when it's configured.
On my systems, the come up fine without a monitor plugged in.
Click to expand...

You should be able to do this, but any problems that come up can be annoying to fix if you have to install a vid card. It's annoying for me lugging an LCD into the closet if something goes wrong on my solaris server that lives there.
 
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I would have suggested that. I even have had boards with serial terminals and configured the OS (linux) to output to a serial console however this is somewhat a pain when things go wrong.
 
Looks perfect. Plus nvidia has great drivers so you might even be able to underclock it more.
 
jwcalla said:
I intend to do something similar (except with an IGP) but I had a question... does X even come up without any connected displays? I had a yucky feeling that the video drivers required a display to initialize. I wanted to do Xnest / Xephyr / XDMCP or something like that to admin the box w/ a full windows manager if I ever needed to.
Click to expand...

You don't need X running on the box to do that. Use SSH w/ Trusted X Forwarding.

PHP: 
ssh -Y user@hostname "firefox -no-remote"

Remember the -Y
Requires: xauth

If you need a persistent session, use NoMachine NXserver.
 
If you don't mind taking the risk you could try re-flashing the firmware on your existing video card with slower clock speed and memory timings, it does not take much muscle to run a simple terminal and it doesn't sound like you plan to put that 7900 back into a gaming rig any time soon.
 
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