I just “downgraded” from a 24 inch LCD monitor to a 23 inch LED LCD monitor to save energy. I just wonder if anyone else has ever done that? I did it to save money as I am always on the third tier on my electric bill and just added a refrigerator in here.
Would to give up CPU power and graphics resolutions to save energy? Would you replace something before it was a necessity to save energy?
I am currently using a 19 inch LCD. I had previously been using a 17 inch CRT. I presume that the larger LCD display uses less energy than the older CRT display.
I also turn the brightness down on my LCD display. I presume that saves some energy, but I do it mainly because I prefer a screen that is at less than max brightness.
Comparing to my previous computer, the current one has more CPU power, higher graphic resolution, but uses less energy. The choices are not always what might seem obvious.
If you are moving to a new spec usually the energy consumption goes down. I went to a 6 core on one of my Ham radio computers and it’s uses way less energy most of the time than the quad cores I run Linux on. They absolutely uses less energy that the dual core I had before.
LCD uses less than a CRT. I am pretty sure with a LCD that is consumes the same energy no matter what the brightness or contrast settings unless the screen is blanked/off.
On 2011-05-14 23:36, FlameBait wrote:
> If you are moving to a new spec usually the energy consumption goes
> down.
I think it is the other way round, in CPUS. Voltage goes down, but
frequency goes up. The power rating of my current CPU is a lot more than my
older P-IV. The fan and cooler is impressive in comparison. The wattage of
the power supply is triple at least. On the other hand, it uses less when
idling.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
Mine hardly breaks 800mhz. Energy consumption is way down on newer CPUs over the long term.
I believe switching power supplies such as computers use don’t draw more current than they currently need. In other words they draw less current with they are at 800 mhz over when they are at 3000 mhz or above and they may only draw that current on one core as opposed to all 2 or 4 or 6 sometimes so they consume less energy over all.
On 2011-05-14 23:06, FlameBait wrote:
>
> I just “downgraded” from a 24 inch LCD monitor to a 23 inch LED LCD
> monitor to save energy. I just wonder if anyone else has ever done that?
Nope.
From CRT to a bigger LCD, yes. And uses way less energy.
I need bigger, my eyesight is no longer young.
When I buy new hardware I take in consideration how much energy it uses,
and I do seek the lowest figures; but I will not change working hardware
just to save energy, because the purchasing price doesn’t usually
compensate the energy savings.
As a rule.
But I have changed most of the bulbs in my house for low power, compact
fluorescents - the power savings are considerable and the prices are much
cheaper than they were 5 years ago.
Although they don’t last as much as they claim, and they contain mercury,
which is a hazard. Anyway, bulbs are no longer made here in Europe, AFAIK,
so must people are forced to do the same, like it or not.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
I would say the major source of energy waste is leaving the machine running when not in use.
300 watts x 24 hours = 7.2 k kilowatt hours which here in PA is about 72 cents per day, which is about $21.60 per month if you leave it run all the time and it is running at full bore.
I have stuff on one machine that I leave running 24/7 so it consumes lots of energy. I am trying to arrange it so all the things I need and activities I need to run 24/7 are on that one machine. Plus I run two monitors but both are LED now and they get turned off when I am going to be away for more than 15 minutes.
On 2011-05-15 00:36, FlameBait wrote:
>
> Mine hardly breaks 800mhz. Energy consumption is way down on newer CPUs
> over the long term.
While the load is low, yes. If it is high, no. 
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
If i could afford it, certainly.
Right now, i prefer to just turn things off to save energy.
That reminds me. I read often that the Linux Kernel has problems (or not) for notebooks. Does that affect also desktops?
I haven’t noticed and problems personally with power management on my desktop systems. I have run KDE power management very little however as my apps need always on an no hibernation so power management is pretty much bypassed.
I just “downgraded” from a 24 inch LCD monitor to a 23 inch LED LCD monitor to save energy. I just wonder if anyone else has ever done that? I did it to save money as I am always on the third tier on my electric bill and just added a refrigerator in here.
By far, in most cases, the major cost savings in the average household include, good wall and roof insulation (this makes a major difference to the cost of heating and cooling the home),
solar hot water, for me this means that for 8 months of the year there is a 3600watt heating element that does not need to be used, and in the other 4 months it only sees a couple of hours use every 2 to 3 days, that is in these weather conditions, it varies.
another, and one of the cheapest is to replace the standard incandescent light bulbs (which are as much a heat source as a light source) with high efficiency light bulbs.
You may notice a trend there, heating and cooling cost big time!
Of course there are free ways of saving money, like if its not needed, switch it at the power point, don’t completely fill the kettle for just one cup of coffee, etc, etc.
With the changes I have made, which include the above plus a (too small 1kw solar PV system, should be 3kw+) I am saving over $1000 per year, but we pay $0.24 per kwh, I notice that in the US for example this can be as low as $0.07 per kwh or even less in some states, in that situation you are being power as a gift!
But back to your question
Would to give up CPU power and graphics resolutions to save energy? Would you replace something before it was a necessity to save energy?
No, it needs to die first, even then, unless it’s a major power consumer, I’m likely to revive it and force it to go one more round!
When I buy (if I buy!) new hardware, I keep in mind energy savings. But it
is a bit similar to what dvhenry wrote - in most cases I use the existing
hardware for a longer time than most other people I know (some of them
replace their complete hardware every year).
One thing which should not be forgotten is that the production of the
hardware also costs energy. From a pure economic point of view it is easy to
find out when it is good to replace the hardware and to calculate when the
money spent on buying it is compensated by the amount of energy saved. But
from an ecologic point of view I am not able to calculate that since I have
no reliable numbers how many kwh are use to produce a certain monitor, a
certain laptop or pc. In addition the old hardware I throw away needs to be
recycled which also costs energy and most probably not everything is
recycled and polutes the environment (which will then often be in africa or
some other developing countries and not where I live, which really does not
make it better but even worse).
So the complete answer is: No - I do not replace existing computer hardware
just because some newer hardware is available which saves a few watt.
–
PC: oS 11.3 64 bit | Intel Core2 Quad Q8300@2.50GHz | KDE 4.6.3 | GeForce
9600 GT | 4GB Ram
Eee PC 1201n: oS 11.4 64 bit | Intel Atom 330@1.60GHz | KDE 4.6.0 | nVidia
ION | 3GB Ram
It’s a complex question but I’m mainly on the same frequency as martin_helm and dvhenry: I wouldn’t suddenly decide to buy a low power machine just to save a few watts because making the new machine also consumes resources. But when it’s time to upgrade, I take into account the power consumption and don’t buy more CPU power than I need.
Sometimes I score a win. My old laser printer’s toner ran out. A new cartridge or even a refill would have been almost as much as a new printer these days. It would have been sad to throw out a perfectly good printer to save a few dollars but pollute the environment more. Then I thought to look for surplus cartridges on eBay. I found an original cartridge at a good price. I haven’t created more pollution by buying a new printer or new cartridge; the cartridge has already been manufactured. The printer is now good for another 6000 pages after which it will be truly time to get a new one.
Carlos E. R. wrote:
> But I have changed most of the bulbs in my house for low power, compact
> fluorescents - the power savings are considerable and the prices are much
> cheaper than they were 5 years ago.
The energy gap between incandescent and floresent lighting goes to very near
zero when examined on the entire production energy and emerging real-world
lifetimes. Factoring in what some consider over lighting to make up for the
poorer light quality brings them even closer - and there is no concensus on
the real cost of disposal.
There ain’t no free lunch - and I’ve been working on solar equipment and
design for 40 years. I’m also convinced that the only way to make wind
power pay is to place the windmills directly in front of the politicians
making the current enrgy policiy decisions.
–
Will Honea
JoergJaeger wrote:
> If i could afford it, certainly.
> Right now, i prefer to just turn things off to save energy.
That, and keeping my wife away from the thermostat.
> That reminds me. I read often that the Linux Kernel has problems (or
> not) for notebooks. Does that affect also desktops?
I see a substantial decrease in battery life with the 11.4 kernel (2.6.37)
but I understand that has been resolved in 2.6.39. According to the
estimates power estimates of my UPS, an idle desktop machine with the
monitor off consumes less than 25% of the normal operating power when in
use. Intensive i/o operations are far more power hungry than running the
CPU flat out.
–
Will Honea
I recently upgraded almost my entire machine myself. Since my previous video card was AGP, that was one of the things I needed to upgrade and the choice I made had a very good price, but I made the decision based on it’s advertised “silent” running, i.e., it doesn’t need a fan. The chip is an nVidia 210 and almost the entire card is covered in a heat sink. This is partly what allowed me to build with a 600w power supply and have very decent performance overall. I figured that going “green” would be ideal for me since I would experience a much more satisfying performance than what I’d been used to no matter what I went with. I’m very glad I did it.
On 2011-05-17 04:42, Will Honea wrote:
> Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>> But I have changed most of the bulbs in my house for low power, compact
>> fluorescents - the power savings are considerable and the prices are much
>> cheaper than they were 5 years ago.
>
> The energy gap between incandescent and floresent lighting goes to very near
> zero when examined on the entire production energy and emerging real-world
> lifetimes. Factoring in what some consider over lighting to make up for the
> poorer light quality brings them even closer - and there is no concensus on
> the real cost of disposal.
I calculated the figures for my case time ago, and it was “go”. As for the
cost of disposal, I only have to deposit them, the rest is out of my hands >:-)
In any case, currently there is no option, to buy traditional bulbs we have
to go to the black market, they are forbidden. Or install halogen bulbs
instead.
> There ain’t no free lunch - and I’ve been working on solar equipment and
> design for 40 years. I’m also convinced that the only way to make wind
> power pay is to place the windmills directly in front of the politicians
> making the current enrgy policiy decisions.
Here (Spain) the government subsidised solar farms. I think they pay extra
per Kw·h produced. But now they removed the subsidy ahead of time, changed
their minds. The government has almost bankrupted the investors. Many of
these investors are farmers (medium/small): instead of farming crops, they
installed solar panels to produce electricity and sell it, considering the
subsidy, which now has been removed (partly or totally I do not know). So
the profit was removed.
Wind mills are also subsidized. Some villages have no taxes because the
entire village is full of windmills. With the money they make they don’t
need taxes.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Wind mills are also subsidized. Some villages have no taxes because the
> entire village is full of windmills. With the money they make they don’t
> need taxes.
Much of my family still lives in West Texas where the deer and the antelope
roam and the wind blows all the time - except when you need it. Like many
locations, wind availability is a diurnal commodity. A large component of
the wind is thermal generated and it basically goes to sleep when the sun
goes down. Windmills abound, but there is no useful way to store the excess
energy for times when the wind power is least. That, BTW, was and is the
major deficiency of all solar power. You would find the tales of methods
attempted to store energy/heat most intersting (and amusing in some cases).
As you say, many of the ranchers and communities jumped into wind and solar
power only to lose their shirts when the subsidies went away and the reality
of maintenence costs emerged. The other problem I see all the time is
emergance of scammers who promise the world with no realistic chance to
match performance to the real world.
Meanwhile, I have a substantial inventory of 100 watt incandescant lamps on
hand. At my age, that should last the rest of my useful life…
–
Will Honea
pandarsson wrote:
>
> I recently upgraded almost my entire machine myself. Since my previous
> video card was AGP, that was one of the things I needed to upgrade and
> the choice I made had a very good price, but I made the decision based
> on it’s advertised “silent” running, i.e., it doesn’t need a fan. The
> chip is an nVidia 210 and almost the entire card is covered in a heat
> sink. This is partly what allowed me to build with a 600w power supply
> and have very decent performance overall. I figured that going “green”
> would be ideal for me since I would experience a much more satisfying
> performance than what I’d been used to no matter what I went with. I’m
> very glad I did it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for decreasing the power consumption. The
constant droning of fans has led me to spend considerable time trying to
muffle/eliminate that particular annoyance. One way is to use case
circulation much more efficiently than is common in current desktops. I
have resorted to external squirrel cage fans and a much higher airflow rate
to replace those noisy bladed fans for the desktops in my office.
–
Will Honea