Media PC 3.0

[Mussels]

Power test: antec PSU

Power on: Highest reading was 92W, and that was while the vista logon screen appeared. Lowest was 50W. Average was around 65-70W.

Idling at hte desktop with cool and quiet enabled, the system is using 46W of power.

Watching the aforementioned HD trailer played steadily at 62-64W, depending on the complexity of the scene.

Maxing out the system with a combination of ATI tool and Orthos, the system peaked at 106 Watts of power used. At this maximum load, the PSU gave off a power factor efficiency reading of 91%.

 

[Thrackan]

funnily enough, her helping with the PC actually was her homework - she's doing certificate two in I.T at TAFE (no idea where that fits in with US/UK education systems, but its a level above high school)


anyway, i'm writing these things as they come up here in forums posts (such as the HD one above) and then pasting them back into post #2 - dont forget to check back there and see the udpates as i add them in.

A girl in the I.T., isn't that any TPU'ers dream?
Anyway, I'll stop before you really think I'm just eyeballin her

 

[Mussels]

A girl in the I.T., isn't that any TPU'ers dream?
Anyway, I'll stop before you really think I'm just eyeballin her

well shes technically not mine, so its all good. i'd just prefer it if we talked more about hte guide - i just added the power section in, go have a gander and give me some feedback.

 

[Thrackan]

El Cheapo PSU's tend to have horrid efficiency when low power is consumed (ie 50 watts or sum).
As you have measured, this is not a myth, and it could save you quite some bang on the energy bill on a yearly base.

Also, are you going to try and underclock/volt the system to the point where it can still run 1080p? I'd love to see how low-consumption this can get.

 

[Mussels]

El Cheapo PSU's tend to have horrid efficiency when low power is consumed (ie 50 watts or sum).
As you have measured, this is not a myth, and it could save you quite some bang on the energy bill on a yearly base.

Also, are you going to try and underclock/volt the system to the point where it can still run 1080p? I'd love to see how low-consumption this can get.

actually, yes. bonus section to the guide is setting up RMclock to automatically underclock the system (thats the program in the tray that shows the MHz earlier)

Basically, you can tune in cool and quiet yourself with more steps, and custom voltages on each multiplier - and while watching media, it raises up only as needed.

 

[Mussels]

Modifying cool and quiet to save even more power with RMclock.
This *only* works on AMD CPU's and in most cases, ONLY if motherboard settings are left on auto - if you change your voltages in the BIOS, they aint gunna change in RMclock.

While this process is fairly simple, the program has a somewhat confusing layout. I'll be providing pictures, and a step by step process to show how its done.

1. Default settings

This is RMclocks default settings - notice how the voltages are all rather high.

Here, we disable everything except the multiplier we wish to test (5x) at the voltage we wish to test (1.250v, in this example - which is too high, as AMD CPU's are guaranteed to run at 1.10V at 1GHz)

Now we use the maximum performance profile (this one doesnt auto-adjust) and test it out. Locking it to this setting will allow us to test this specific multiplier on this specific voltage - it ensures its completely stable.

Next we turn the profile on - at this point, if your system freezes or locks up, it means your voltage was too low and the system crashed.

Next, we fire up a few programs.

• CPU-Z to make sure the Multiplier and voltage are correct, and actually changed.
• Coretemp to check temperatures. On my system, they're very innacurate - it claims 12 degrees, when its over 25C in my room.

Now, you let it test - if it lasts a few hours, consider dropping it another notch. The goal here is to find the lowest voltage that multiplier will run at - that makes it uses less power, and therefore saving you more money (and making the PC cooler/quieter too)

Once you've done this for the 5x multi, work your way up, one by one, testing each individual voltage out.
Once you've done that, repeat this process for each individual multiplier. it *will* take you a few hours/days, so be prepared to spend some time on this.

Once you've got them all narrowed in, it will look something like this

Next, go to "performance on demand" and tick all the boxes to enable those multipliers in this profile

Finally, set the program to start that profile whenever the program is started. I prefer to set this up, and then leave a shortcut to RMclock in my windows startup folder, so that if it ever goes bad, i can simply boot into safe mode and delete the shortcut.

Thats it!

(This is an example atm - its gunna take me a few more hours to tune mine in, before i can do power consumption comparisons)

 

[Thrackan]

I'm going to have to see if this will work on my VIA C7 board as well, getting a very low idle consuption there should be perfectly doable this way.

Edit:

Features

* Real-time CPU clock and CPU/OS load level determination and monitoring (with optional logging).
* Detection of virtually any form of CPU clock throttling.
* Dynamic on-demand CPU performance state (P-state) transitions via real-time adjustment of CPU multiplier (FID) and/or requested voltage level (VID).
* Dynamic on-demand CPU clock modulation via real-time transitions between CPU clock throttling levels.
* Fine-tuning of advanced CPU-specific power management settings for AMD K7, AMD K8, Intel Pentium M/Centrino platform, Intel Pentium 4 and Xeon, Intel Core Solo/Core Duo/Centrino Duo platform, Intel Core 2, VIA C7 and Transmeta Crusoe/Efficeon CPU families.
* Complete support for multi-processor (SMP/HT/multicore) systems.
* Windows power management settings and LCD display brightness control (where supported).
* Battery information display (general and per-battery) including real-time status display of the battery life time, charge level, charge/discharge rate etc.
* CPU core temperature display (available on AMD K8, Intel Core and Intel Core 2 CPU families).

 

[Mussels]

I'm going to have to see if this will work on my VIA C7 board as well, getting a very low idle consuption there should be perfectly doable this way.

i've never tried on a C7. I know it doesnt work on intel core 2's, because the lowest multi they support is 6x - and with the lack of high multiplier chips, you're hardly dropping the clocks. (EG, my Q6600 is 6x to 9x, while this AMD 4000+ is 5x to 11x)

 

[Thrackan]

According to the program specs it should at least *work* (see edit above)
I don't know how efficient it will be though, but I should be able to clock my 1,5Ghz C7 down to around 1Ghz and still have workable performance when running as a file/media/webserver.

 

[Mussels]

According to the program specs it should at least *work* (see edit above)
I don't know how efficient it will be though, but I should be able to clock my 1,5Ghz C7 down to around 1Ghz and still have workable performance when running as a file/media/webserver.

RMclock has a few profiles you can adjust.

1. power saving (lock it to the lowest MHz setting)
2. Maximal performance (lock it to highest)
3. performance on demand: adjust through all available settings, as performance is needed

even on your via, you can manually change it if you want.

 

[DrunkenMafia]

30% !!! Thats great. I guess I won't be needing my phenom then when I convert it over. I still want to be able to flick on the tvtuner and a few multitasking apps though, I will see.

That is good news though. I did read a review somewhere that a X2 4800 was all you needed for this board in a HTPC setup.

 

[Mussels]

30% !!! Thats great. I guess I won't be needing my phenom then when I convert it over. I still want to be able to flick on the tvtuner and a few multitasking apps though, I will see.

That is good news though. I did read a review somewhere that a X2 4800 was all you needed for this board in a HTPC setup.

yeah. those people who claimed a 4800+ was all you needed, were very, very wrong.
People make an assumption that video card acceleration is working, when in fact it rarely does - using those codecs without GPU acceleration tends to take a beefy CPU and run like poop.

You change codecs to a software based one - ones thats DESIGNED to run on a CPU - and even 1GHz dual cores are enough, as i just proved.

almost finished tuning in the voltages to this machine... will be posting power savings shortly. (really awesome chip, so it saved me a lot of fine tuning)

 

[Mussels]

as requested. average FPS shown in the player as well, to prove it wasnt stuttering or performing badly.

at this setting, plaback consumed an all-devouring 46W of power mission accomplished.

 

[DrunkenMafia]

is that core temp really 9.3c!!!! lol


sorry, just read your other post and you said they were incorrect.

 

[Thrackan]

as requested. average FPS shown in the player as well, to prove it wasnt stuttering or performing badly.

at this setting, plaback consumed an all-devouring 46W of power mission accomplished.

Congrats! <50W on HD playback is pretty nice!

 

[Mussels]

Congrats! <50W on HD playback is pretty nice!

yup. now i have nothing left to do except OC the machine a bit.

 

[Thrackan]

yup. now i have nothing left to do except OC the machine a bit.

How about modding the case

 

[Mussels]

How about modding the case

nah. i intend to sell it and go mATX sooner or later, and it'll sell easier in its original state.

 

[DrunkenMafia]

what sort of case are you looking for mussels? Are you going for a matx cube type case or a proper amp style htpc case??

Do you have any models in mind?

 

[Mussels]

what sort of case are you looking for mussels? Are you going for a matx cube type case or a proper amp style htpc case??

Do you have any models in mind?

really unsure. as stated in post 1, my long term goal is a stealth mATX half height case that blends in well with my TV + other AV equipment (which means black, with no lights), and an SSD hard drive.

so i'll probably hold onto this case, til i can get at least a 64GB SSD drive, so that it can finally meet the goal of being utterly silent

 

[DrunkenMafia]

I just bought one of those silverstone matx cases for a customer:

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_546&products_id=7692

I paid $79 from pccg about 5 weeks ago, the prices have gone up.

But the case was actually pretty good. It does have a LOT of ventillation ie. every panel has holes in it but I ended up covering some of them with black cardboard.

The case looks faily neat and is quite small too. The LED on the front in FRIGGIN bright so I coloured the lens in with a bit of nikko pen

not a bad little case though.

 

[Mussels]

I just bought one of those silverstone matx cases for a customer:

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_546&products_id=7692

I paid $79 from pccg about 5 weeks ago, the prices have gone up.

But the case was actually pretty good. It does have a LOT of ventillation ie. every panel has holes in it but I ended up covering some of them with black cardboard.

The case looks faily neat and is quite small too. The LED on the front in FRIGGIN bright so I coloured the lens in with a bit of nikko pen

not a bad little case though.

I'll look into that case.

Anyway: OCing!

go into BIOS.
hit ctrl-F1 (its a gigabyte thing, unlocks hidden options)
turn FSB to 250
memory down to 667 (it will have increased due to the raised FSB)
+1 to NB and DDR voltages
CPU voltage to 1.425v (its 0.100 higher than my stock, figured its safe, but will get me some OC)

save and reboot.

time taken: 35 seconds (that includes boot time, after hitting save and reboot)
CPU clock: 2625MHz
Mem clock: 750MHz

so far its 10 minutes orthos stable. CPU heatsink is cool to the touch.
Ya know... it was kinda easy. what did you need help with OCing on this board again?

 

[Mussels]

ahah! more OCing! this time, the onboard video.

The motherboard BIOS lets you change from 150MHz GPU core to 1100MHz, with stock being 500. The box even states you can OC Upto 950MHz and achieve 2000 3dmarks with a phenom, so i'll damn well try and beat that

I ran a 3dmark on all stock, and got a measly 1200 points. Poor DrunkenMafia.

next of all, i cranked it straight to 850Mhz because i liked the number: its stable!
overall 3dmark score: 1344

terrible! i want more! i want.... 1GHz!

*reboots*
NB voltage to 1.40V, GPU to 1Ghz
System boots.
System load windows.
success! i have gotten faster than teh cardboard box states i can!

*runs 3dmark*
1377
bah! low gains!

time to add the CPU OC into the mix.
CPU: 2.62GHz
Ram: 866MHz
GPU 1000MHz

and the final score is... *drumroll*

Sigh. Gigabyte wins, with their testbench that must have had a phenom to reach 2,000 3dmarks.
*goes to bed*

 

[Thrackan]

Did you test OC power consumption?

 

[Mussels]

Did you test OC power consumption?

158W at full (ATI tool + orthos) load.

standard CnQ + OC

Load
2.625GHz
866 ram
158W at load

idle
1.25GHz
500MHz ram
66W at idle.

I've never seen it before, but ram clocks *are* changing on this board, as the CPU clocks up and down.