[mythtv-users] Low Power MythTV Server on Via EPIA M6000 - 37 watts

David Rees drees76 at gmail.com
Thu Apr 19 22:39:06 UTC 2007


On 4/19/07, Kevin Dalley <kevin at kelphead.org> wrote:
> My 4-5 year old Tivo uses about 35 Watts average, measured with my
> power meter over about 1000 hours.  I was hoping to cut the power
> under that, and replace the box with something more flexible than
> TiVo.  I'm undecided on whether this is encouraging or not.  I could
> replace my TiVo, but I would use more energy, though not much more.

It will be tough to build a MythTV system that uses less power than
that. Pete's backend-only system (you still need a frontend) uses 37w
at idle. To get it lower than that you'd need lower power components.
The PVR-350 he uses should draw about 10w (would be nice if he could
confirm it) and PVR-150s should draw less, but I don't think anyone
has actually measured it. If you have a PVR-150 and a Kill-A-Watt I'd
be very interested to see how much system power usage goes up by
adding a card when idle and when in use!

A notebook drive instead of a standard 7200rpm IDE/ATA drive would
further reduce power utilization, but at a cost.

> Is it possible to suspend the computer when it is not busy, yet still
> wake it up in time to record shows?  This URL mentions attempts to
> suspend computers, but this discusses end-user computers more than a
> server.

Yes, it's possible to put MythTV machines into standby when not
recording, but support is hit or miss depending on whether or not your
motherboard is supported by the nvram-wakup application. Spinning down
the disk could be done with some careful system tweaking as well to
prevent unnecessary disk activity.

-Dave


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