Re: What do I need to conserve power on my old Linux box?

In comp.os.linux.hardware Gregory Shearman <ZekeGregory@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
ANTant@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Ah, darn. I thought my box would be hogging a lot since it uses a 350
watts PSU. Not sure how many watts my box goes up to when in idled and
heavy usage (e.g., compilation, Google Earth, etc.).

Hmmm... I use a 700VA UPS. It runs three computers, a pentium4, pentium3 and
a linksys NSLU2, an ethernet switch, a DSL ethernet modem... external USB
disk drive and only one monitor.

It very rarely gets above 50% load. When the monitor drops into standby it
runs at about 22% load. When all computers are compiling at once (they are
all running Gentoo) and the monitor is running the load is occasionally 55%
but usually 50%. When only the Pentium3 (router/firewall) is running power
use is down to 5%.

Computers aren't big power users. Refrigerators, toasters, ovens, AC are big
users.

I use Network UPS Tools (NUT) and knutclient as a graphical monitor of my
power use and status. Beaut display with cool dials! It also slips into the
kde system tray.

You should get yourself some decent UPS tools if you are interested in power
use.

What's a good one? I am using this one:

$ /sbin/apcaccess status
APC : 001,035,0858
DATE : Wed Nov 01 06:52:32 PST 2006
HOSTNAME : MyBox
RELEASE : 3.12.4
VERSION : 3.12.4 (19 August 2006) debian
UPSNAME : ANTian
CABLE : USB Cable
MODEL : Back-UPS RS 1500
UPSMODE : Stand Alone
STARTTIME: Mon Oct 02 15:53:33 PDT 2006
STATUS : ONLINE
LINEV : 114.0 Volts
LOADPCT : 39.0 Percent Load Capacity
BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 20.4 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME : 0 Seconds
LOTRANS : 097.0 Volts
HITRANS : 138.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : Always
BATTV : 26.9 Volts
LASTXFER : Low line voltage
NUMXFERS : 0
TONBATT : 0 seconds
CUMONBATT: 0 seconds
XOFFBATT : N/A
SELFTEST : NO
STATFLAG : 0x07000008 Status Flag
MANDATE : 2005-03-16
SERIALNO : QB0512132444
BATTDATE : 2001-09-25
NOMBATTV : 24.0
FIRMWARE : .g8 .D USB FW:g8
APCMODEL : Back-UPS RS 1500
END APC : Wed Nov 01 06:53:12 PST 2006

That was from moderate computer usage.
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