I'm running a Core 2 Duo overclocked to 3.25 ghz, a largish 24" LCD and a really mammoth 21" CRT, plus a large metal receiver which powers a hulking pair of floorstanding speakers.
This lot probably uses more power then an underclocked Duron, I figure. I know the LCD alone is rated at 100+ watts, I can guess the CRT is probably over that, and while I don't know how much the receiver uses, it's gotta be something. To excite things even more, I've got all this stuff running all day and often all night, sometimes encoding h264 @ 100% CPU to boot!
Now, I do support destroying the environment and all that in a rapacious display of power and glory, it's difficult to be strip-mining the land and cutting down rainforests when you're broke from running a computer system that probably uses 350+ watts before you even count anything inside the case.
This in mind, I took a look at the world of power saving.
The first thing I tried was the Gigabyte fan-control app I use. Setting the CPU speed control to "auto", I helplessly watched it bring those defenceless cores from a comfortable pace to a miserable ghz, and Firefox take six seconds to open rather then just about none.
I'd heard great things about the speed regulation tech that comes with Intel/AMD's more recent processors, but if this was it, their latest and greatest just didn't fulfill my expectations. This took me to the next step: Standby. Reading up on this, I discovered that Windows XP has two main modes: S1 and S3. The first prettymuch just kills hard drives and monitors, but S3 lays waste to everything except the RAM. The guides explained that, if your fan is still running in standby, you're wasting time in S1. On most computers, you have to turn on S3 manually through BIOS and Windows registry entry.
This all sounded really sweet. Silent computer + power savings = well funded and rested Illidan for a good day's work of destroying ecosystems! Environmentalism for the modern man, indeed!
I changed the appropriate settings. I pressed the standby button.
The fans remained on. Standby seemed no different then before. I moved the mouse. Nothing happened. I hit the keyboard, repeatedly. I pressed the power button. I turned the computer off, then on. I unplugged it. Nothing would bring it back to me. I ended up resuscitating it only by pulling out the CMOS battery.
Well, that's my story, up to where I am now. Any suggestions?
This lot probably uses more power then an underclocked Duron, I figure. I know the LCD alone is rated at 100+ watts, I can guess the CRT is probably over that, and while I don't know how much the receiver uses, it's gotta be something. To excite things even more, I've got all this stuff running all day and often all night, sometimes encoding h264 @ 100% CPU to boot!
Now, I do support destroying the environment and all that in a rapacious display of power and glory, it's difficult to be strip-mining the land and cutting down rainforests when you're broke from running a computer system that probably uses 350+ watts before you even count anything inside the case.
This in mind, I took a look at the world of power saving.
The first thing I tried was the Gigabyte fan-control app I use. Setting the CPU speed control to "auto", I helplessly watched it bring those defenceless cores from a comfortable pace to a miserable ghz, and Firefox take six seconds to open rather then just about none.
I'd heard great things about the speed regulation tech that comes with Intel/AMD's more recent processors, but if this was it, their latest and greatest just didn't fulfill my expectations. This took me to the next step: Standby. Reading up on this, I discovered that Windows XP has two main modes: S1 and S3. The first prettymuch just kills hard drives and monitors, but S3 lays waste to everything except the RAM. The guides explained that, if your fan is still running in standby, you're wasting time in S1. On most computers, you have to turn on S3 manually through BIOS and Windows registry entry.
This all sounded really sweet. Silent computer + power savings = well funded and rested Illidan for a good day's work of destroying ecosystems! Environmentalism for the modern man, indeed!
I changed the appropriate settings. I pressed the standby button.
The fans remained on. Standby seemed no different then before. I moved the mouse. Nothing happened. I hit the keyboard, repeatedly. I pressed the power button. I turned the computer off, then on. I unplugged it. Nothing would bring it back to me. I ended up resuscitating it only by pulling out the CMOS battery.
Well, that's my story, up to where I am now. Any suggestions?