Contributed by mk/reverse on from the power saving dept.
Chas writes:
What systems can run OpenBSD that have very slight (under 30W) power requirements?
I have a couple of 486-era Compaq Contura laptops that I am using as gateways and the power supplies indicate that their maximum draw is 27W. Most pentium-class laptops have double the power requirements.
I want a fully assembled system with a hard drive. Should I consider Soekris, or is there a VIA Centaur or Transmeta Crusoe that would give me more CPU performance for equivalent power (and reasonable cost)?
Since most OpenBSD machines run for long periods of time it might be a good idea to lower the power consumption where possible. Which machines give the most bang for the buck without making the Sun redundant?
(Comments are closed)
By Anonymous Coward (142.166.108.150) on
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By RC (4.16.255.200) on
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By Anonymous Coward (203.202.110.39) on
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By Brad (67.71.96.144) brad at comstyle dot com on
By RC (4.16.255.61) on
DDR RAM: isn't going to have much effect on performance.
PCI card: Are you actually saying that a PII won't have PCI card slots? HAH!
USB: Hell, that's been around forever. I've got a 100MHz Pentium with USB ports.
Firewire: It would be trivial to go out and buy a PCI firewire card if you actually need it.
The question is, are these trivial features worth the several hundred dollar premium of getting a new C3, rather than grabing a free PII
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By Anonymous Coward (61.95.66.134) on
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By ViPER (213.84.93.41) viper@dmrt.net on http://www.dmrt.net
(Meaning the basic cards costing around $175)
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By djm@ (61.95.66.134) on
By mike (217.162.138.166) on
the problem with reusing old pc's is noise, size, time spent debugging and erm... age. meaning it can run for three years more or crash the next day. granted the same is potentially true of any hardware, but still...
I much prefer to build things which have a possiblity of lasting, the C3 is very nice for that, I've had no problems running one as a file-server 24/7 for about three months now.
The pcengines WRAP boards are also very recommendable, no problems either .
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By RC (4.16.254.91) on
<i>noise</i>
If you spend maybe $10 and replace the fans, you'll get a system quieter than anything on the market.
<i>time spent debugging</i>
What is there to debug? Motherboard, Power Supply, CPU, RAM. Check.
<i>it can run for three years more or crash the next day. granted the same is potentially true of any hardware, but still...</i>
So you just canceled out your point here, entirely...
In any case, I disagree. I have never yet had an old motherboard just up and die one day. I HAVE had that happen with brand-new ones, I'm afraid. Anyhow, age doesn't seem to have anything to do with failures.
<i>I've had no problems running one as a file-server 24/7 for about three months now.</i>
And I've had no problems running my old Pentium Pro system as a router/firewall/comserver 24/7 for about 2 years now.
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By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on
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By RC (4.16.254.91) on
Most VIA processors can't run fanless. Besides, the hard drive you will be using would be louder than a couple good thermo-control (Enermax) fans.
> Gee, it seems to randomly reboot itself, now I get to play "guess which hardware's bad" to try to fix this.
That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a long time. As if Intel systems are complete junk, and VIA has the highest quality standards :-)
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By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on
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By RC (4.16.255.122) on
> as stable as a brand new machine.
Sure it will. We aren't talking about car engines. We are talking about solid-state electronics here. CPU/Mobo/RAM can run 24/7 for several decades on-end before they begin to deteriorate, and we aren't talking about stuff that is 20+ years old.
Of course, you occasionally find motherboard/cpu/ram that is marginal, but they are rare, and it's always because of an original defect gradually getting worse.
In other words, a brand-new system is FAR more likely to develop a problem after, say, 6-months of constant use, than is a 4-year old system, which has already been under heavy use. Take it from me, I've built several hundred systems myself, and I'm used many, many older systems. Without fail, the hundred 200MHz systems I've... inherited... continue to work without fail for years to come, while out of a batch of 100 brand-new Asus motherboards, an average of about 4 will have a problem in the first month of operation.
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By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on
"what's that burning smell?"
"Oh, that's just your firewall."
"Is it supposed to do that?"
"Nope, I'll go get you a new one."
Power supplies blow, motherboards die, sometimes with horrible "capacitor blew up" smells. And just the thermal wear on traces from getting hot and then cold a bazillion times over the years eventually leads to them dieing.
And RAM that goes bad after 6 months is usually caused by static discharge, as it seems damn near nobody can be bothered to handle sensitive parts like RAM properly anymore.
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By RC (4.16.255.122) on
> and everyone else's is wrong then.
I didn't say that. However, I do have experience with hundreds upon hundreds of systems, so I'd say my experience is much more accurate than people who have owned/operated less than a dozen systems their entire life, and are drawing conclusions based on that.
> Power supplies blow,
Yes, I've already said, PSes are the one thing that might die and need to be replaced. But at $20 a shot, it's not a big issue to swap it out.
> motherboards die, sometimes with horrible "capacitor blew up" smells.
If a capacitor blows, it's probably because you had a short in your PS and the capacitor is just the first thing to go when the mobo is overloaded.
As I've said, I've had motherboards die, but when they're new. When they've been up and running for years, the odds they'll go are much more slim.
> And just the thermal wear on traces from getting hot and then
> cold a bazillion times over the years eventually leads to them dieing.
How does a trace "die" exactly?
> And RAM that goes bad after 6 months is usually caused by static discharge
Well then, RAM manufacturers must handle their RAM like crap before they ship it out... I'd put my money on chip (manufacturing) defects as the causes.
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By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on
And like I said, your arrogance in assuming your the only person who has ever used computers is astounding. Out of 600 brand new mobos, I had 3 die. Of all the old pentium and pentium 2 machines already in place, a good quarter of them ended up dying and needing replaced.
And as to traces dying, look up thermal stress. Metal expands and contracts when heated and cooled. Do it enough time and fragile little traces will crack, and then if running, they will make a cracking sound, and you will smell a horrible burning smell, and there will be a nice black splotch on the board where the trace went. Then you replace the motherboard. You've seriously had hundreds of old machines and never once seen this?
By Anonymous Coward (209.99.76.164) on
By Anonymous Coward (64.110.219.8) on
By ViPER (213.84.93.41) viper@dmrt.net on http://www.dmrt.net
It is 8way smp ready, and it uses RISC-like microinstructions.
Please do not mention the PPro with any other intel CPU in one breath.
(My mobo holding a Ppro 200 1mb jumped me)
(from the closet and forced me to type this)
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By Anonymous Coward (195.217.242.33) on
a contradiction in terms
By Nick Holland (68.43.115.33) nick@holland-consulting.net on http://www.openbsd.org/faq/
"Slow" is relative. For GENERAL use, a modern VIA vs. a Modern P4 or AMD, yeah, the VIA isn't going to win, but it is still faster than a four year old PII chip. The primary issue with the VIA chips where they come out as real slugs is in floating point math -- which isn't a big deal for a firewall. Mostly, a firewall is a data pump -- moving data from interface to interface, something the VIAs do just fine ('course, so do most processors). If you DO actually do something that needs processing, it is usually crypto, in which case, the crypto-enabled VIA chips just kick but. And not just PII butt. :)
Now...is the COST of a new machine worth the energy savings compared to the "freeness" of a old machine? depends...
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By RC (4.16.254.91) on
You've been listening to VIA's propoganda too much if you believe that.
Let's try some examples, shall we?
C3-800A 13W
PIII-500E 13.2W
Cel-533A 11.2W
Either of the Intel processors would not only use less power, but would VASTLY outperform the C3-800. In fact, a PII-333 would outperform a C3-800. I am the not-so-proud owner of a C3-800.
Also, I was talking about underclocking an older Pentium, not just running it at normal-speed. With the poor performance of C3s, an old, underclocked pentium will still well outperform it.
it is still faster than a four year old PII chip.
No it isn't. Not by a long shot. C3s perform like Intel/AMD equivalents at less than half the MHz.
The primary issue with the VIA chips where they come out as real slugs is in floating point math
Not true. They are very slow on absolutely everything.
If you DO actually do something that needs processing, it is usually crypto,
No. Print queues, compression, proxy, PPPoE. And that's just a very quick list from memory. Your SSH sessions aren't guaranteed to be fast, because you still need to load up the CPU if you want compression. And encryption will be slow when you need a cipher not built-in, like Blowfish.
Now...is the COST of a new machine worth the energy savings compared to the "freeness" of a old machine?
As I've shown, you don't get any energy savings... Just performance losses, and the high extra cost.
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By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on
Let's try some examples, shall we?
C3-800A 13W
PIII-500E 13.2W
Cel-533A 11.2W"
Are you on drugs? Sure the comparison looks good for old pentium chips if you make up power consumption numbers for them. Go look up the real values. A p2 300 is 41W. A 750MHz Atlon is 43W. Do you seriously expect us to believe that for a brief period in between those 2 times they had cut power consumption so dramatically?
"Either of the Intel processors would not only use less power, but would VASTLY outperform the C3-800. In fact, a PII-333 would outperform a C3-800. I am the not-so-proud owner of a C3-800."
Do some benchmarks instead of making shit up. Or just go lookup existing ones, google works pretty good. The Via chips are slower than modern chips, but they outperform all p2 era chips, dramatically in integer, barely in floating point.
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By RC (4.16.254.91) on
> power consumption numbers for them. Go look up the real values
Instead of looking up a completely different processor, why didn't you look up the ones I specified? Not like I was vague about it, I listed exact numbers.
Source for Intel Power Specs: http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm
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By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on
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By RC (4.16.255.122) on
Saying that some older chips happened to use more power is not evidence of anything.
If you actually find a source of info that is in conflict with what I listed, start pointing out exact URLs, so nobody has to just take your word for it. Otherwise, I'm done with this thread.
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By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on
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By Cowonymous Ankward (213.173.183.18) on
By Anonymous Coward (129.65.46.212) on
By Anonymous Coward (4.42.65.82) on
By phessler (208.201.244.164) on
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By sthen (81.168.66.229) on
By Michael Knudsen (217.157.199.114) on http://e.molioner.dk/
By Jedi/Sector One (212.129.63.1) j@pureftpd.org on http://00f.net
My Soekris Net4801 works like a charm. It has low power requirements, it's totally silent and the three network interfaces are really handy.
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By Christopher Hylarides (206.235.255.7) on
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By bob (80.138.146.163) on
see http://www.soekris.com/products.htm
best bob
By Anonymous Coward (66.239.167.98) on
By Daniel Tams (83.73.138.99) on http://dantams.sdf-eu.org/
It can be used for many more common server purposes by attaching a Microdrive to the CF interface.
By RC (4.16.255.200) on
By Anthony (68.145.111.152) on
Even current (lower power) laptops don't do 27W just sitting there running.
By unixbigot (61.8.101.245) on
(These are a low-power pentium variant. OpenBSD runs fine.)
Google for 'annso fgm-700'. Ignore the 19" description, the actual
circuit board is about the dimensions of a hardback novel. You can
buy these and similar boards in cases about the size of your average
DSL modem.
These boards generally come with 2-4 ethernet ports plus serial, and maybe vga. Some have onboard audio so you can play muzak while you firewall. ;-)
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By unixbigot (61.8.101.225) on
The board I mentioned draws about 750mA from a 12v wallwart.
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By knomevol (64.48.234.232) on
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By unixbigot (210.49.148.141) on
to be down. $ORK[-2] purchased a handful of units from the
manufacturer around 18 months ago, which is when I installed openbsd
on one of them.
Maybe they went bust. I recall there were plenty of sources for
Geode boards, however. I've moved on from that position so don't have
access to the details any more.
By Anonymous Coward (80.138.110.154) on
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By djm@ (61.95.66.134) on
By isolde (83.64.199.199) on http:/
The site´s a bit flashheavy but they make great products. i just tested some "light" systems of theirs. cf, ide(2,5") optional wireless, adsl, 3 nics... and all for a reasonable price. based on via c3 without fans...
By Anonymous Coward (195.217.242.33) on
I run a couple of SS20s at the moment among others, but they are big, bulky and noisy ( though the latter I am working on, ) I could do with using them as a small firewall/router
Any ideas ?
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By Anonymous Coward (64.40.45.158) on
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By Anonymous Coward (195.217.242.33) on
Shame really
By Brad (67.71.96.144) brad at comstyle dot com on
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By Anonymous Coward (195.217.242.33) on
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By Pete (192.25.22.11) on
It taked mine about a week to do a make build though.
By Nonesuch (24.148.72.216) on
Original list price was $10,052. I used to find them on ebay for a few hundred bucks, but you don't see many people trading in old HyperSparc gear much these days.
Lastly, if you want to move to Sparc64, there are a number of companies selling Ultra AXi motherboards, these are ATX form and can be deployed in any of the new "silent" ATX cases.
By Anonymous Coward (66.92.34.80) on http://www.ebiinc.com
Dual proc ultrasparc laptop
Is someone there kidding around? Do they really make those things?
I saw in the specs sheet they're ummmm over 20lbs. Not exactly a "notebook", but it's the first dual proc laptop I've ever heard of.
By Graham (209.152.2.3) on
I'm running OpenBSD 3.5 on a VIA EPIA M motherboard at my house. I had looked into Soekris previously but I could get more horsepower for cheaper with the VIA board. I have the C3 model that runs at 1GHz. I've tested it and under heavy load (compiling software + locate.updatedb) it only uses 32 watts @ 12VDC even with my WD 7200rpm drive. At idle it's just ~25 watts. It's actually one of the most stable servers I've had, I haven't had a single problem with it.
I use it as a file/web server (PHP/MySQL/etc) but if it was just firewalling I'd definitely go for a Soekris with a CompactFlash card -- 100% solid state router.
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By Anonymous Coward (24.46.36.183) on
By Anonymous Coward (195.70.45.115) on
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By Anonymous Coward (213.118.165.151) on
Most of these devices can also count how much energy (kWh) the device used up, so you can measure the power consumption averaged over time (An idle machine uses less power than the same machine under heavy load).
Some can even calculate the electricity bill you're going to get, including different tarifs for day and night ;-)
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By Anonymous Coward (193.6.17.12) on
By Daowee (217.215.100.191) on
soekris -- 100Mbps throughput questionable? 5 volts operation! Tiny.
the price is in the same ballpark, buy one of each and tell us about it.
By Michael Dexter (213.175.79.146) on
By Anonymous Coward (213.118.165.151) on
By Anonymous Coward (68.100.161.200) on
net5801 and net7501 mainboards?