finding cheap hardware for Linux?

Mitch Petenaude mrp at sonic.net
Sun Jan 7 01:08:19 PST 2001


On Sat, Jan 06, 2001 at 06:47:55PM +0000, E Frank Ball wrote:
> Wattage is what matter for power dissapation in the microprocessor (how
> big a heatsink you need), but if it runs off a 5Volt power supply
> current is what matters if you are worried how fast that little wheel in
> your power meter will be spinning.  The processor plus the voltage
> regulator on the motherboard draw 5V from the power supply.
> 
> 1A at 5V=5watts.  720hours/month*5watts=3600watthours or 3.6kW hours.
> PG&E is charging 13.3 cents/1kW hour above baseline usage.
> Add in a 10% rate hike, and figure 70% power supply efficiency
> and you get less than a buck a month for the 486, $2/month for the P60.

Well, I think most chips dissapate more than 5W.  I think that the average
PIII disappates about 30W, and that some of the athalons will dissapate
50-75W.  That raises the price a little.   The other big power sinks in
PCs are the Monitor (100-300W), and the hard drives (don't know the
dissapation, but I suspect it's in the 10-20W per drive range while
it's spun up.

I just picked up a compact-flash<->IDE adaptor (I got mine from 
http://www.tapr.org/tapr/html/Fcfa.html), and am hoping to make
a 24/7 router from an old 486.  I hope that with no drives, I can
pull the MB out of the case, do away with all the fans and have a
quiet, convection cooled machine.  

   -- Mitch




More information about the talk mailing list