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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:40 am Post subject: Bittorrent and Power Savings |
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I hate leaving my computer on all night just to download torrents because 80% of the power is being wasted.
I wish there was a way I could put my computer into a "torrent" mode, where everything is asleep except the HD that is being downloaded to, enough CPU to handle the downloading, and some RAM. Then as soon everything is finished, shut down.
If someone wrote an application that let you do that, I think it would be really popular. As it stands, when I am leaving my computer on at night to download, the only thing I can turn off is the monitor. Everything else in the PC is running and generating heat, wasting electricity. |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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Yup. Agreed.
That's why we made my wife's new computer a green PC. It uses half of the power the old one did, and is far faster. We had it built after I chose the parts. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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| bassexpander wrote: |
Yup. Agreed.
That's why we made my wife's new computer a green PC. It uses half of the power the old one did, and is far faster. We had it built after I chose the parts. |
Wow. Half the power and faster, eh?
Hmmm.....
An 80 Plus PSU will go a long way to specifically helping the OPs' problem. Micro ATX mainboard will use less power as well (generally speaking)...but any claims to a faster machine by going green is.....problematic for me. Never has "green" been associated with bigger, strong, faster and the world of computing is no different. That is, unless your previous machine was just. that. bad. |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Demophobe wrote: |
| bassexpander wrote: |
Yup. Agreed.
That's why we made my wife's new computer a green PC. It uses half of the power the old one did, and is far faster. We had it built after I chose the parts. |
Wow. Half the power and faster, eh?
Hmmm.....
An 80 Plus PSU will go a long way to specifically helping the OPs' problem. Micro ATX mainboard will use less power as well (generally speaking)...but any claims to a faster machine by going green is.....problematic for me. Never has "green" been associated with bigger, strong, faster and the world of computing is no different. That is, unless your previous machine was just. that. bad. |
Faster than my old computer.
Nice try at a troll, though. Better learn how to read. |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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I think building a new "green" machine would be moot. I wouldn't ever recoup the costs in energy savings.
I'm just saying with all the power management features out now, why can't someone code a simple App that shuts down power to non essential PC parts when downloading? |
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IlIlNine
Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Location: Gunpo, Gyonggi, SoKo
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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| pkang0202 wrote: |
I think building a new "green" machine would be moot. I wouldn't ever recoup the costs in energy savings.
I'm just saying with all the power management features out now, why can't someone code a simple App that shuts down power to non essential PC parts when downloading? |
That's problematic because shutting power to specific components isn't actually possible.
Then again, if you turn off your monitor, and enable power saving features, it should do almost what you want (if you have extra HDDs it should spin them down) .. if you had a notebook, you could use Intel's Speedstep to dynamiaclly slow down your processor..
Now that I think about it, you could try to underclock your CPU and maybe get a more efficient PSU.
I think the best solution would be a smart network-capable external HDD enclosure that's bit-torrent capable.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/30/review-d-link-dir-685-xtreme-n-storage-router/ |
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crescent
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: yes.
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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The power savings wouldn't be THAT great between downloading with your current settings and downloading with certain components off, would it? The hard drive and fans take up the most power.
As for automatically shutting everything down when the torrent is done, how is that not possible?
Can't you set the downloading client to stop when the file is complete, and then time your computer to shut down one minute after that? That's what I do. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| crescent wrote: |
The power savings wouldn't be THAT great between downloading with your current settings and downloading with certain components off, would it? The hard drive and fans take up the most power.
As for automatically shutting everything down when the torrent is done, how is that not possible?
Can't you set the downloading client to stop when the file is complete, and then time your computer to shut down one minute after that? That's what I do. |
I think you'll find the hard drives and fans are the least power hungry components.
Also, many of us are in member torrent sites. We have ratios to think about. If we shut down right after our torrent is finished then we'll end up getting kicked off the site.
CPU and graphics cards are the real power hogs. Intel has speedstep to cut back on CPU ghz. I've heard ATI and Nvidia plan to do a similar thing for GPU's.
The problem is that it's a real conflict to design a computer which can be powerful when required and yet energy efficient. Those two don't go together. The manufacturers are getting better at it though. The CPU and GPU die-shrinking trend has made quite a difference. It used to be that a CPU would run at 130w. Now the 40nm processors can run at around 60w.
But the best thing you can do is get a very efficient power supply. It's possible now to run an average PC (which doesn't have a high-end graphics card) on a super efficient (84%-86%) 380w PSU. That will bring the biggest savings. |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:09 am Post subject: |
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I hate to say it, but I have a feeling that all of your torrenting is going to catch up with you guys sooner or later.
Hopefully not.
So many articles about companies going after Koreans for downloading and sharing. I'd have to think it'd look pretty tasty to some Korean organizations to hang a couple of waygooks and blame all they can on yet another "foreigner problem." |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:24 am Post subject: |
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| bassexpander wrote: |
I hate to say it, but I have a feeling that all of your torrenting is going to catch up with you guys sooner or later.
Hopefully not.
So many articles about companies going after Koreans for downloading and sharing. I'd have to think it'd look pretty tasty to some Korean organizations to hang a couple of waygooks and blame all they can on yet another "foreigner problem." |
From what I've noticed, in Korea, they seem to send warnings to people downloading new music, new movies or new software. Avoid those things, and you're probably gonna be okay.
Of course, no guarantees. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:08 am Post subject: |
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| bassexpander wrote: |
Faster than my old computer.
Nice try at a troll, though. Better learn how to read. |
Yeah...I can't read. |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:09 am Post subject: |
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| Demophobe wrote: |
| bassexpander wrote: |
Faster than my old computer.
Nice try at a troll, though. Better learn how to read. |
Yeah...I can't read. |
What prompted the new avatar? |
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samd
Joined: 03 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Does it really make much of a difference? My computer is rarely, if ever, off, and my bills don't seem to be too high. |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| samd wrote: |
| Does it really make much of a difference? My computer is rarely, if ever, off, and my bills don't seem to be too high. |
I'm more concerned with the heat than the power. My computer is furnace. |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:51 am Post subject: |
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| pkang0202 wrote: |
| samd wrote: |
| Does it really make much of a difference? My computer is rarely, if ever, off, and my bills don't seem to be too high. |
I'm more concerned with the heat than the power. My computer is furnace. |
My wife's energy efficient AMD chip runs so cool it barely needs a fan. |
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