[mythtv-users] Low power backend suggestions?

[John Johnson]

I haven't used it, but there is support for "wake a backend" in MythTV. 
One method writes the wake-up time into the PC's CMOS, then shuts down. 
The PC wakes itself to record. If you happen to have another PC that 
stays on all the time, you can send a Wake-On-LAN packet to the backend 
PC, assuming it has WOL support.

As far as quiet, possibly lower power, you might squeeze the base 
system onto a compact flash drive. Set the recording drives to sleep 
when not in use.

You could look into solar panels too :-)

Regards,
   JJ

On 17-Jan-2005, at 01:38, Greg Cope wrote:

> What's wrong with what you have?
>
> The Mprocessors and motherboards are very expensive - to the point
> that I thought the cost/benefit would be an issue.
>
> Thought about the VIA stuff?
>
> Greg
>
>
> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:48:55 -0800, Kristo Kriechbaum
> <klk+myth at robotics.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> So I'm looking to build a backend only machine that consumes the least
>> amount of power.  My first thought is to go with something like a
>> Pentium-M, so if I need a little extra cpu for transcoding or
>> something, I can get it, but can throttle it down when I don't need
>> it.
>>
>> Right now, my backend/frontend is:
>> P3 900 MHz
>> 512 MB ram
>> 2 x Avermedia M179 (just like a PVR250)
>> 1 x 200 gig ide hd
>> 1 x 250 gig ide hd
>>
>> and I have a third 200 gig ide hd sitting around while I build this
>> machine.
>>
>> My main requirements:
>>
>> 1. Low low power.  I don't want to be keeping the electric company in
>> business :-)
>> 2. quiet.  I don't want the room this machine is in to sound like an
>> airport.  I don't mind hacking in a bigger slower fan.
>> 3. ample PCI slots for my M179's and at least one IDE controller (and
>> maybe an hdtv card in the near future).
>>
>> I hardly ever transcode anything, and I have the mpeg2 encoder cards,
>> so I don't really need much raw processing power.  This machine will
>> also share out my music, videos, etc.
>>
>> Like I said above, my first thought is to go with a Pentium-M 1.6 GHz.
>> I would just as easily go with AMD, as they are much cheaper, I just
>> don't know as much about their mobile processors.  My laptop has a
>> Pentium-M, so I know that the cpu throttling "just works" with
>> cpuspeed.  I've found various related threads in the archives, but
>> nothing that ended up verifying my thoughts.
>>
>> Thanks for any help/suggestions!
>>
>> Kristo
>>
>>
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>>
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