The web on peanuts & 13" of LED

[bentcrafter]

A year ago, I needed to upgrade my '03 Toshiba laptop. It still functioned fine, but I felt it used more power than I was comfortable with. So the hunt began.  After scouring many sites and devouring umpteen reviews, I ordered an Asus UL30A. I then turned right around and ordered a DC/DC 24v to 19v converter to connect to my 24v 220Ah bank. I removed the spendy li-ion battery from the Asus, plugged in my Watt meter and tested it. Bare-in-mind, that i'm also feeding a 1 watt wireless USB client.





But that's not all...

Two weeks after the Asus purchase, I sprang for a MAG GML1920 19" LED monitor for CAD work, and occasional web. This is one of the remaining 16:10 (not the touted 16x9 'wide screen' aspect ratio that leaves wasted gaps on the sides when web browsing). But the primary reason I bought it, was the external power supply feature. Feeding it straight 12vdc, it sips an amazing 9 watts. 
   

[LowGear]

Am I the only one wondering why my desktop tower needs a 250 Watt power supply?

Casey

[BruceM]

That's a great result on the Asus UL30A with the LCD display lit up, driving a 1 watt wireless USB client.  Without the USB client, it's the same as my FitPC2 with no display!  That's really exceptional.

Likewise your display selection is far better than average even for a LED backlight display.  12-15 watts is more common.

Thanks for the great info, Bentcraft. 

[Ronmar]

Am I the only one wondering why my desktop tower needs a 250 Watt power supply?

Casey

No reason to wonder,  It is also a fraction of the price of a laptop...  That is where the cost goes, smaller, more dense, yet cooler running components.  All that tech costs money...    Those less expensive parts make a LOT more heat and need that bigger supply to power it all, as well as the one or more larger fans to keep it cool:)

[LowGear]

Is this mother board and processor available in a form that would "pop" into a standardized box?

I have boxes, power supply, drives, and displays.  What else is stopping me?

Casey

[deeiche]

Is this mother board and processor available in a form that would "pop" into a standardized box?

I have boxes, power supply, drives, and displays.  What else is stopping me?

Casey

there are Atom based Mini-ITX motherboards available.  Here is a google search for intel atom mini-itx.

[bentcrafter]

Is this mother board and processor available in a form that would "pop" into a standardized box?

I have boxes, power supply, drives, and displays.  What else is stopping me?

Casey

Are you referring to my Asus?

Most of the UL30 series (there's also a UL20 12"screen , and UL50 15" screen) uses a Core2 (64 bit capable) processor - discontinued in 2009. Although this ultra low voltage processor is rated at only 1.3gHz, it's NO slouch - even with Win7 Pro (which it came with OEM). It is no quad core, to be sure, but my initial XP boot times (from power-on to task ready desktop) is just shy of 12 seconds. And it has little problems digesting 720 videos - which I never expected it to. Two months ago I installed a SSD and stuffed 8gb of memory into it - primarily for Linux CAD.

One other thing, this one has an HDMI port (which unfortunately, I can't use with the MAG monitor). It's been an impressive machine with zero problems. Asus preloads this machine with either Win7, XP and some earlier models had Vista.   

I'm running dual-boot - Linux & WinXP.   

[BruceM]

Most "low power" computers are 12-25 watts, with no display.  This includes most of the mini itx and nano itx machines.  Many video chips draw more than Bentcraft's all up Asus machine.  I don't know how he got such low wattage while also driving an LCD display backlight.  I didn't think it was possible.

I've been using a Fit-PC2 for a few years, it uses an Intel Atom processor running W7.  It's a fanless unit with a wimpy low power video chipset.  It's about 6 watts, runs off any 12V supply. This used to be the hands down winner for low power computing. My remote workstation uses a shielded rear projection system and that draws an additional 50 watts for the now discontinued Samsung LED - DLP projector.

[deeiche]

Take a look @ "Penryn-3M" (ultra-low-voltage, 45 nm, Small Form Factor) for additional info on this cpu core. 

Refurbed Dell Latitude E4200 Laptop Computer (Intel Core 2 Duo SU9600 64GB/2GB) for $299.

bentcrafter, thanks for the reminder about Penryn-3M CPUs.  I just picked up one of the dell refurbs I referenced above.

[bentcrafter]

Most "low power" computers are 12-25 watts, with no display.  This includes most of the mini itx and nano itx machines.  Many video chips draw more than Bentcraft's all up Asus machine.  I don't know how he got such low wattage while also driving an LCD display backlight.  I didn't think it was possible.

Bruce,

As with most my machine purchases I wipe the OEM, bloatware-infested installs and start from scratch. Out-of-the-box with Win7 it was noticeably sluggish. I shut it down, then proceeded with the factory XP install using the supplied OEM CD, When it ask for the factory Asus driver/bloatware CD (during the F6 prompt), I simply ignored it and rebooted. After reboot, it continued with the generic XP install, completely bypassing F6 option.  I then manually installed the chipset and video drivers, rebooted, then installed the wifi only drivers just to access the Asus site for all the crucial (and updated) OS drivers. After the install, I immediately did a backup. Except for the usual anti-virus & firewall software, I haven't touched it,.. except for the Linux Mint addition.

EDIT; Forgot to mention, I removed the original, internal Intel wifi card because I use Alfa clients. I didn't want resources consumed by devices I didn't intend to use.  

[bentcrafter]

Take a look @ "Penryn-3M" (ultra-low-voltage, 45 nm, Small Form Factor) for additional info on this cpu core.  

Refurbed Dell Latitude E4200 Laptop Computer (Intel Core 2 Duo SU9600 64GB/2GB) for $299.

bentcrafter, thanks for the reminder about Penryn-3M CPUs.  I just picked up one of the dell refurbs I referenced above.

Interesting, deeiche,

It apparently uses the same chipset too - the Dell also has a CD which mine does not - I use a USB CD. Funny too... Asus supplies all the OEM reinstall CDs, but no way to read them. Not a problem anymore since I use nothing but USB flash drives anyway - I despise CDs

[BruceM]

I've been happy with the stock Fit-PC install of original release of W7. Stable and fast enough for me on my puny Atom 1.3 GHz machine.  I haven't done any of the upgrades from Microsoft since one of the first "upgrades" was eliminating support for SVGA displays.  Grrrr.  My projector is SVGA, at the time it was the best resolution available in LED-DLP pocket projectors.  The same workstation display is my "big screen" living room video display. 

[bentcrafter]

And then there's my Wifi....

I have two separate Alfa USB units - a 1w, 2.4gHz B,G, and N Draft, and a second for 5gHz 'A'. These are decent for, say, a block or more coverage (figure half that on 5gHz) with their supplied dipole rubber duckies. But my situation demanded a bit more horsepower . Soooo...

I stuff these little gems into a EZ 14dBi (19dBi/5gHz) gain Verticaly polarized waterproof, directional antennas. You'll need an SMA elbo & a SMA gender changer. These measure about 12" tall x 7"wide. Mine have been cosmetically enhanced via Wally's rattle can 'camo'.  I will NOT reveal just how far away I can grab decent signals

http://www.alfa.com.tw/in/front/bin/ptdetail.phtml?Part=AWUS036NHR
(odd, I can't find the link for the 5gHz unit??)
http://www.e-zy.net/products/Antenna-2-4GHz/panel/EZGO-0214-PNL/
http://www.e-zy.net/products/Antenna-5-xGHz/

[quinnf]

Geek-friend of mine and I used to go "Wardriving" around town using a laptop running Netstumbler and a directional antenna made from a section of 4" copper pipe (they used to throw away offcuts).  It was amazing how many open WAPs we found.  Something fun to do on a Saturday night with nothing else to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving

Quinn

[Tom Reed]

Ubiquity makes some real nice hardware. You can go up to 35 mi with some of their antenna's. They are reasonably priced and have real low power consumption. When I changed from satellite to radio service my idle power consumption on the whole house dropped from 2.8a to 2.4.