Stop playing video games and save!!

[Xringer]

I just got my KillaWatt back from my buddy (4 months later) and
just did a test on my old PC during game play (COD4).

Normal usage of the PC shows about 100 to 120 watts of power used.
Just read 113w. Turned off the LCD and it dropped to 80W.

~

When I started playing COD4 (Call of Duty, on-line war game),
the wattage shot up to over 200 Watts!!

So, I got to wondering about how many hours I've played this game.?.
When I checked the game hour log, it said 42 days, 11 hours & 38 minutes.
Which works out to approximately 219.3 kWh or $43.86 !!

However, in my defense, many of those hours were during cold weather
and that extra wattage helped me & the wife keep warm!!

[NiHaoMike]

My laptop only uses about 15-20w when I'm playing Nethack. I can connect a hybrid bicycle to it to make it off grid, but I think I'll just build my own grid tie inverter to get a real workout when I feel like it. (I wish I was as skinny as Allie Moore... And if I can get closer to that goal while saving lots of energy by not using the heater as much and also generating renewable electricity, so much the better!)

[Xringer]

I have not read anything about a 'green' desk top PC yet. I assume someone is selling them.
It would be nice to have some good computing speed without all the wasted heat.
When I replace this old Dell 4600, I'll try to find something that doesn't think it's a space heater.

Building your own grid-tied inverter sounds like a real task. If I was going to hook
anything up, it would be an Enphase unit. And at $200, it might be as cheap as DIY..

[NiHaoMike]

I actually have a Dell 4600 as well. The really hot one with the 2.8GHz Prescott. (I don't use it very much now, of course.)

I think it's time to abandon the x86 hogs and go for something more efficient like ARM. Yes, even the Core 2 Duo is a guzzler compared to a TI OMAP.
My concept for an energy efficient PC - CleanMPG Forums
(Yes, I realize the irony in the hot environmentalist and the cool CPU...)

From what I've read, a grid tie inverter is little more than a regular inverter plus synchronization and protection circuits. In fact, it has been said that a grid tie inverter is simpler than a regular inverter as the line commutates it and shapes the waveform. There are a few DIY grid tie inverters in the following link but they seem to be based on low frequency transformers: Alternative Energy - Electronic Circuits Projects Diagrams Free
In contrast, my design will use a modified high frequency transformer from an old CRT monitor. It is used in a flyback converter that operates as a current source. A simple comparator circuit driven from a voltage divider drives the MOSFET to connect the current source to the line when it is of proper polarity as well as gating the flyback converter. Add a little logic to detect faults and there's a grid tie inverter. (I'm aiming for a continuous power rating of about 250w. And the total cost, using new parts, will be way below $200.)

[Piwoslaw]

I would think that a desktop should have the same energy usage of a laptop, or even lower: it can be make from the same components, or even better ones since you don't have to sacrifice efficiency for weight/durability, plus less problems with cooling. So why do most desktops consume 3-5 time more energy than laptops?

[Daox]

Because they design desktops with the idea that they have an unlimited supply of power available. Now, in more recent years they have been designing more to the efficiency side. A lot of power saving technologies have been developed in the past 5 years (hybrid SLI, cool'n'quiet, speedstep, etc.)

However, with laptops, you only have a limited amount of watt hours available until your battery dies. So, in order to put out something that actually has a usable life, they make power efficiency much higher on the list when designing. They usually have totally redesigned video cards or processors that go into laptops specifically because of this. The price for this is usually on the performance side.

[Xringer]

Since I'm an old semi-retired guy, my PC (like the one at work) stays on most of the day.
So, I've tweaked the power settings to the greener side again.

Now it shuts off the LCD display & disk drive after 3 minutes and the system goes into standby after 5 minutes.

So, when I go make a cup of hot beverage, the KillaWatt is displaying 11 watts when I get back.
Most of that 11W is from the wall-warts plugged into the power strip.
The only one that isn't on the strip (which goes off at night and when we are away), is for the wireless router.

I really don't like using the MS power save 'standby' feature.
If I leave Firefox running (unattended), it comes back up with errors about half the time.
I get the windows message that it wants to send an error report to Bill Gates,
because FireFox had to be shut down..

Maybe it's the disk shut down at 3 min..?. I'll try changing that to 5 min, and make it sync with 'Standby' mode..


The only hardware thing I've done to cut power waste is get rid of the video card fan.
I took out that loud fan and installed an Arctic Cooler heat-sink heat-pipe gismo. Works fine and makes no noise..

I still see a lot of video cards with big fans them.. One would
think someone in the industry would get the message and create
some fast processors and RAM without all the current flow..

[NiHaoMike]

Use Ubuntu.

And TI is one of the big companies behind energy efficient CPUs. I just don't know why their energy efficient CPUs aren't being used much in consumer PCs. One of the TI presenters at my university claimed to have built a laptop (based on the OMAP) with a battery life of 17 hours!