OT: Bios / power saving features...

August 28, 2008

....also seperateley posted in hardware i.e. cross posted to wrong NG

A few weeks ago I switched on "Intel Speedstep" in my "old" main PC's bios,

and selected XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme,

and tweaked other settings for ages to find out what the best settings were,

to get the most of this "power saving" feature,

closely watching various motherboard frequencies with CPU-Z, and Hot CPU

Tester Pro etc. to keep an eye on what was going on with motherboard

frequencies.

(Asrock Conroe865pe|D935|4xCorsair512mbPC3200/ddr400|3 hard disks|Seasonic

430wSII psu|2xDVD drives|card reader etc.)

And also around that time, for my 2nd PC, I downloaded AMD's

dualcoreoptimizer.exe, processordriver.exe, and powermonitor.exe, and

installed them, and switched on its' "Cool'n'Quiet" feature, and selected

XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme, and tried various bios

configurations to determine which was the "best" set-up. i.e. certain

settings have to be on "Auto" or cpu will not drop to a lower frequency

whilst idling.

reader|Seasonic 380wSII | etc,

....and tonight, just out of interest, I plugged my TCM mains power "guage"

in (UK 240 volts btw), and my {AMD PC+monitor+11 watt desklamp}, into it, to

see what they were using, and was ATONISHED to note the difference in mains

power consumption, between "idling" with cpu at 1ghz, and making the thing

do a lot of work i.e. cpu working at 3ghz -

73 watts whilst cpu idling, and 131 watts with cpu under load !!! Surely

that's good, ...but, also a little ridiculous ? :-)

regards, Richard

ps before someone gets clever - that cheap plug in "mains power guage" is

pretty accurate i.e. current drawn in amps matches a pretty accurate

ammeter.

August 29, 2008

RE: OT: Bios / power saving features...

It is my experience that manufacturers of all electronic devices (for some

unknown reason) overstate the power usage by a very large margin. Thus, a PC

with a "500W" rating doesn't use anything like that. In your case 150W or

less even without processor-idling mode working, less still with it working.

"RJK" wrote:

> ....also seperateley posted in hardware i.e. cross posted to wrong NG

>

> A few weeks ago I switched on "Intel Speedstep" in my "old" main PC's bios,

> and selected XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme,

> and tweaked other settings for ages to find out what the best settings were,

> to get the most of this "power saving" feature,

> closely watching various motherboard frequencies with CPU-Z, and Hot CPU

> Tester Pro etc. to keep an eye on what was going on with motherboard

> frequencies.

> (Asrock Conroe865pe|D935|4xCorsair512mbPC3200/ddr400|3 hard disks|Seasonic

> 430wSII psu|2xDVD drives|card reader etc.)

>

> And also around that time, for my 2nd PC, I downloaded AMD's

> dualcoreoptimizer.exe, processordriver.exe, and powermonitor.exe, and

> installed them, and switched on its' "Cool'n'Quiet" feature, and selected

> XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme, and tried various bios

> configurations to determine which was the "best" set-up. i.e. certain

> settings have to be on "Auto" or cpu will not drop to a lower frequency

> whilst idling.

> reader|Seasonic 380wSII | etc,

>

> ....and tonight, just out of interest, I plugged my TCM mains power "guage"

> in (UK 240 volts btw), and my {AMD PC+monitor+11 watt desklamp}, into it, to

> see what they were using, and was ATONISHED to note the difference in mains

> power consumption, between "idling" with cpu at 1ghz, and making the thing

> do a lot of work i.e. cpu working at 3ghz -

>

> 73 watts whilst cpu idling, and 131 watts with cpu under load !!! Surely

> that's good, ...but, also a little ridiculous ? :-)

>

> regards, Richard

>

> ps before someone gets clever - that cheap plug in "mains power guage" is

> pretty accurate i.e. current drawn in amps matches a pretty accurate

> ammeter.

>

August 29, 2008

Re: OT: Bios / power saving features...

Hi, You're right about the "overstating," ...there is a simple formula

somewhere in the rails/amps sticker usually on the side of psu's i.e. amps

are all rounded up and averaged out to give a rating somehow, ...read about

it a long time ago - can't remember even half of it !!

....rely on Antec.com's wattage calculator nowadays :-)

regards, Richard

"Anteaus" <Anteaus@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:41185A43-25CF-4002-BB96-8B5B58E6D65C@microsoft.com...

> It is my experience that manufacturers of all electronic devices (for some

> unknown reason) overstate the power usage by a very large margin. Thus, a

> PC

> with a "500W" rating doesn't use anything like that. In your case 150W or

> less even without processor-idling mode working, less still with it

> working.

>

> "RJK" wrote:

>

>> ....also seperateley posted in hardware i.e. cross posted to wrong NG

>>

>> A few weeks ago I switched on "Intel Speedstep" in my "old" main PC's

>> bios,

>> and selected XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme,

>> and tweaked other settings for ages to find out what the best settings

>> were,

>> to get the most of this "power saving" feature,

>> closely watching various motherboard frequencies with CPU-Z, and Hot CPU

>> Tester Pro etc. to keep an eye on what was going on with motherboard

>> frequencies.

>> (Asrock Conroe865pe|D935|4xCorsair512mbPC3200/ddr400|3 hard

>> disks|Seasonic

>> 430wSII psu|2xDVD drives|card reader etc.)

>>

>> And also around that time, for my 2nd PC, I downloaded AMD's

>> dualcoreoptimizer.exe, processordriver.exe, and powermonitor.exe, and

>> installed them, and switched on its' "Cool'n'Quiet" feature, and selected

>> XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme, and tried various bios

>> configurations to determine which was the "best" set-up. i.e. certain

>> settings have to be on "Auto" or cpu will not drop to a lower frequency

>> whilst idling.

>> reader|Seasonic 380wSII | etc,

>>

>> ....and tonight, just out of interest, I plugged my TCM mains power

>> "guage"

>> in (UK 240 volts btw), and my {AMD PC+monitor+11 watt desklamp}, into it,

>> to

>> see what they were using, and was ATONISHED to note the difference in

>> mains

>> power consumption, between "idling" with cpu at 1ghz, and making the

>> thing

>> do a lot of work i.e. cpu working at 3ghz -

>>

>> 73 watts whilst cpu idling, and 131 watts with cpu under load !!! Surely

>> that's good, ...but, also a little ridiculous ? :-)

>>

>> regards, Richard

>>

>> ps before someone gets clever - that cheap plug in "mains power guage" is

>> pretty accurate i.e. current drawn in amps matches a pretty accurate

>> ammeter.

>>

August 29, 2008

Re: OT: Bios / power saving features...

RJK wrote:

> Hi, You're right about the "overstating," ...there is a simple formula

> somewhere in the rails/amps sticker usually on the side of psu's i.e. amps

> are all rounded up and averaged out to give a rating somehow, ..

> read about it a long time ago - can't remember even half of it !!

> ...rely on Antec.com's wattage calculator nowadays :-)

P = VI (voltage x current) (for each output). But what's specified on the

side is the *rated* (maximum) current, not the actual current used, which

depends on the current drawn by the computer.

The same basic comment applies to the power RATING of the supply, vs the

actual power used by the supply, which is generally much less.

>

> "Anteaus" <Anteaus@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

> news:41185A43-25CF-4002-BB96-8B5B58E6D65C@microsoft.com...

>> It is my experience that manufacturers of all electronic devices (for

>> some

>> unknown reason) overstate the power usage by a very large margin. Thus, a

>> PC with a "500W" rating doesn't use anything like that. In your case 150W

>> or

>> less even without processor-idling mode working, less still with it

>> working.

>>

>> "RJK" wrote:

>>

>>> ....also seperateley posted in hardware i.e. cross posted to wrong NG

>>>

>>> A few weeks ago I switched on "Intel Speedstep" in my "old" main PC's

>>> bios,

>>> and selected XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme,

>>> and tweaked other settings for ages to find out what the best settings

>>> were,

>>> to get the most of this "power saving" feature,

>>> closely watching various motherboard frequencies with CPU-Z, and Hot CPU

>>> Tester Pro etc. to keep an eye on what was going on with motherboard

>>> frequencies.

>>> (Asrock Conroe865pe|D935|4xCorsair512mbPC3200/ddr400|3 hard

>>> disks|Seasonic

>>> 430wSII psu|2xDVD drives|card reader etc.)

>>>

>>> And also around that time, for my 2nd PC, I downloaded AMD's

>>> dualcoreoptimizer.exe, processordriver.exe, and powermonitor.exe, and

>>> installed them, and switched on its' "Cool'n'Quiet" feature, and

>>> selected

>>> XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme, and tried various bios

>>> configurations to determine which was the "best" set-up. i.e. certain

>>> settings have to be on "Auto" or cpu will not drop to a lower frequency

>>> whilst idling.

>>> reader|Seasonic 380wSII | etc,

>>>

>>> ....and tonight, just out of interest, I plugged my TCM mains power

>>> "guage"

>>> in (UK 240 volts btw), and my {AMD PC+monitor+11 watt desklamp}, into

>>> it,

>>> to

>>> see what they were using, and was ATONISHED to note the difference in

>>> mains

>>> power consumption, between "idling" with cpu at 1ghz, and making the

>>> thing

>>> do a lot of work i.e. cpu working at 3ghz -

>>>

>>> 73 watts whilst cpu idling, and 131 watts with cpu under load !!!

>>> Surely

>>> that's good, ...but, also a little ridiculous ? :-)

>>>

>>> regards, Richard

>>>

>>> ps before someone gets clever - that cheap plug in "mains power guage"

>>> is

>>> pretty accurate i.e. current drawn in amps matches a pretty accurate

>>> ammeter.

August 30, 2008

Re: OT: Bios / power saving features...

"Bill in Co." <not_really_here@earthlink.net> wrote in message

news:uENOgZaCJHA.528@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> RJK wrote:

>> Hi, You're right about the "overstating," ...there is a simple formula

>> somewhere in the rails/amps sticker usually on the side of psu's i.e.

>> amps

>> are all rounded up and averaged out to give a rating somehow, ..

>> read about it a long time ago - can't remember even half of it !!

>> ...rely on Antec.com's wattage calculator nowadays :-)

>

> P = VI (voltage x current) (for each output). But what's specified on

> the side is the *rated* (maximum) current, not the actual current used,

> which depends on the current drawn by the computer.

>

> The same basic comment applies to the power RATING of the supply, vs the

> actual power used by the supply, which is generally much less.

>

>>

>> "Anteaus" <Anteaus@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

>> news:41185A43-25CF-4002-BB96-8B5B58E6D65C@microsoft.com...

>>> It is my experience that manufacturers of all electronic devices (for

>>> some

>>> unknown reason) overstate the power usage by a very large margin. Thus,

>>> a

>>> PC with a "500W" rating doesn't use anything like that. In your case

>>> 150W or

>>> less even without processor-idling mode working, less still with it

>>> working.

>>>

>>> "RJK" wrote:

>>>

>>>> ....also seperateley posted in hardware i.e. cross posted to wrong NG

>>>>

>>>> A few weeks ago I switched on "Intel Speedstep" in my "old" main PC's

>>>> bios,

>>>> and selected XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme,

>>>> and tweaked other settings for ages to find out what the best settings

>>>> were,

>>>> to get the most of this "power saving" feature,

>>>> closely watching various motherboard frequencies with CPU-Z, and Hot

>>>> CPU

>>>> Tester Pro etc. to keep an eye on what was going on with motherboard

>>>> frequencies.

>>>> (Asrock Conroe865pe|D935|4xCorsair512mbPC3200/ddr400|3 hard

>>>> disks|Seasonic

>>>> 430wSII psu|2xDVD drives|card reader etc.)

>>>>

>>>> And also around that time, for my 2nd PC, I downloaded AMD's

>>>> dualcoreoptimizer.exe, processordriver.exe, and powermonitor.exe, and

>>>> installed them, and switched on its' "Cool'n'Quiet" feature, and

>>>> selected

>>>> XP's "Mininal Power Management" scheme, and tried various bios

>>>> configurations to determine which was the "best" set-up. i.e. certain

>>>> settings have to be on "Auto" or cpu will not drop to a lower frequency

>>>> whilst idling.

>>>> (Asrock AliveNF6G|6000 2x3.0ghz|2x512mbPC2-5300|2 hds'|1xDVD

>>>> drives|card

>>>> reader|Seasonic 380wSII | etc,

>>>>

>>>> ....and tonight, just out of interest, I plugged my TCM mains power

>>>> "guage"

>>>> in (UK 240 volts btw), and my {AMD PC+monitor+11 watt desklamp}, into

>>>> it,

>>>> to

>>>> see what they were using, and was ATONISHED to note the difference in

>>>> mains

>>>> power consumption, between "idling" with cpu at 1ghz, and making the

>>>> thing

>>>> do a lot of work i.e. cpu working at 3ghz -

>>>>

>>>> 73 watts whilst cpu idling, and 131 watts with cpu under load !!!

>>>> Surely

>>>> that's good, ...but, also a little ridiculous ? :-)

>>>>

>>>> regards, Richard

>>>>

>>>> ps before someone gets clever - that cheap plug in "mains power guage"

>>>> is

>>>> pretty accurate i.e. current drawn in amps matches a pretty accurate

>>>> ammeter.

>

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