[BLUG] NOV meeting topic

[ben lipkowitz]

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I'm not sure why exactly, but all the processors I've used draw much=20
less power when they arent actually doing anything, even with power saving=
=20
features such as frequency scaling turned off. Furthermore, processors=20
dont actually use that much power. The highest I could find on this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_power_dissipation
was 130W. Computer power supplies are generally sized so that they dont=20
explode when you are burning two DVD's with the CPU maxed out. That means=
=20
the power supply never actually sees power being drawn at its maximum=20
rating of 350W. So no, we wouldn't need to add 350GW of power production.

A typical desktop will draw about 60W when idle, and a typical laptop will=
=20
draw 25W at idle. Let's face it, most computers are idle most of the time.=
=20
Both types of computers draw near zero when in sleep or standby mode. Many=
=20
computers are not configured by default to use sleep mode, and people are=
=20
not going to figure out how to enable it. Then there is the short delay in=
=20
starting up which leads many people to turn off this feature. A computer=20
could "learn" its user's habits so that it will already be started up by=20
the time they wanted to use it. So, this is a software problem really.



On Wed, 10 Oct 2007, Sim=F3n Ruiz wrote:

> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:52:01 -0400
> From: "[ISO-8859-1] Sim=F3n Ruiz" <simon.a.ruiz_at_gmail.com>
> Reply-To: blug_at_cs.indiana.edu
> To: blug_at_cs.indiana.edu
> Subject: Re: [BLUG] NOV meeting topic
>=20
> At the OLF, maddog gave a presentation about computing and power
> consumption. Interesting numbers game: At 350 watts per computer, in
> order to double the number of personal computers on the planet
> (1,000,000,000), we would need to build 25 power plants with output
> equal to the single largest power plant we have today.
>
> As a geek with hippy tendencies, this has made me start thinking about
> how to make computing more earth-friendly. There are quite a few
> projects/business ventures going on right now that are working on
> that. The OLPC for one, and the nifty little Koolu boxes for another.
>
> I think the ideal would probably be ultra-power-efficient massive
> back-end servers and solid-state, fanless, maybe even PoE-fed
> thin-client front ends.
>
> The other thing I see as a big possibility would be to have beefier
> thin-client front-ends that contribute to the processor requirements
> of the whole system through an OpenMosix-style back-end pool of
> processor time.
>
> So in a building of 300 connected workstations, the whole building
> would have 300 workstations worth of processor power. If you're only
> using a word processor or a browser or an e-mail client or something,
> your idle processor time would be up for someone else's use. But say
> you're trying to render 3-d graphics or fold proteins or something
> that can use as much processor time as it can get, you could then
> start enlisting the idle processor time of all your neighbors for your
> task.
>
> What do you think? Silly or workable?
>
> Sim=F3n
>
> On 10/10/07, jtwelty_at_indiana.edu <jtwelty_at_indiana.edu> wrote:
>> According to the specs, the typical processor power consumption is 95
>> watts; up to 123 watts... pretty efficient.
>>
>> Quoting Sim=F3n Ruiz <simon.a.ruiz_at_gmail.com>:
>>
>>> Out of curiosity, how expensive is this set up, and how much power
>>> does it draw?
>>>
>>> On 10/9/07, jtwelty_at_indiana.edu <jtwelty_at_indiana.edu> wrote:
>>>> Sun Blade T6320 with 8 cores - 64 threads, 64 GB memory, 176 Gbps I/O
>>>> throughput, 10 GbE networking.
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>>
>>
>>
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