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

Peter A. Daly petedaly at gmail.com
Fri Apr 20 13:16:30 UTC 2007


On 4/19/07, David Rees <drees76 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.


Actually, it idles at 35, but the average comes out at 37.  Commercial
detecting sends it to 41 or so.

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!


I can probably measure with/without my PVR-350 some time this weekend.  I
can also unplug the DVD drive and see if it makes a difference.

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.
>
>
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