[mythtv-users] Lower power usage ideas? (for backend)

[Alexander Varakin]

It is a good  idea  to use older hardware, e.g.   P3 667 or Celeron 533 are 
very good. They were designed before gigahertz wars and they 
consume very little power, about 15W. Just add PVR250 and you will get a very 
nice backend which consumes about 30W in total. Also get a cheap 300W PS and 
replace fan by low speed fan (or maybe without fan at all) and you will get 
almost silent server which can 
run 24x7.   CPU plus mobo can be found for around $40 on ebay or for free  
in friend's basement. 
Be very careful with CPU selection though: P3 slot type  CPUs are very bad, 
you 
need socket 370 type CPUs with Coppermine core if I remember correctly. 
P3 667 has enough power for playback so it can be used for low noise  backend 
and frontend. 
I think this setup will also work as HDTV backend.

You can see CPU power consumption here:
http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm


On Monday 14 March 2005 23:33, Justin Hunt wrote:
>
> Your idea of using a pentium M is a good idea, my laptop draws about
> 25 watts max with a lcd screen (1.4ghz) and if you clock it down it
> drops to about 15ish, although the a/c adaptor draws quite a big load
> to charge at about 40watts (says 1.5 amps at 120v) but if u used a
> laptop based on p-M you wouldnt need to have continuous power to run
> it, and if u get a system with decent sized battery can run for 10
> hours on a charge the ibm t40 (i think) does this nicely, i wouldnt
> recommend the dell inspiron 600m for battery life i have 3 batteries
> (1 main and 2 cdrom) and i can get about 5 hours out of it on a good
> day.
>
> Hopefully that helps a bit?
> Justin
>
> On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:19:07, colliepon <colliepon at webport.veris.org> wrote:
> > Just curious both what other people are doing, and feature discussion
> > (not b*tching :) on other methods of reducing the power use of a myth box
> > since it can build up over awhile. (and my next move may very well be off
> > grid - satellite TV, running off solar or wind, so power use is critical
> > but i'd prefer an alternative to the VCR) A few examples i'm thinking of:
> >
> > Could you schedule an expected time-on and time off to work with a normal
> > block of programming?  By shut down time I mean to properly suspend all
> > tasks like commercial flagging without screwing up data or not doing them
> > during the week at all.  This would let you use a standard analog or
> > digital wall timer to turn on the computer and satellite receiver for a
> > given block of time (for instance 6:30pm to 10pm if you mostly like the
> > evening block, or 11pm to about 3am if you like Adult Swim) since I don't
> > know any other way to tell a computer to turn on at a given time.  :)
> > (though if someone knows of a computer-programmable wakeup solution
> > please tell me!)
> >
> > Or perhaps having a C3 machine with a PVR500 for 24hr recording which can
> > wake up a P4 with another card for overflow during peak hours, and also
> > to do things like commercial flagging or recompression. (which also might
> > need to schedule file moves, for instance a 120gig drive on the C3 and
> > 500gig on the P4 as primary storage)
> >
> > Or maybe speed throttling certain cpu's might work - some of the new
> > Centrino motherboards for desktop use
> > http://www17.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20041224/index.html, laptops
> > with a USB grabber, or even the underclocked Athlon XP
> > http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041001/index.html - does anyone use
> > anything like this? (or have any experience/insights worth sharing?) 
> > I've no clue how/if throttling is supported in linux, or mythTV or
> > anything else, but it would be nice to let the cpu idle during daily
> > recording and to speed up for flagging and transcoding.
> >
> > Is anyone else using a lower power design or strategy with Myth?
> >
> >
> > Colliepon
> >
> >
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