I took a look around to find out what's current in the energy saving market, just in order to decide whether repairing would be worth it, but in the end i opted for a completely new solution based on an Intel Atom CPU.
Since I always intend to keep investments as small as possible, I chose the Intel D945GCLF all in one solution, containing Mainboard, CPU and Video Card - the smallest solution offered by Intel. I would have preferred the D945GSEJT which is using a better CPU, the far more energy efficient notebook chipset and allows using external 12V adapters (which are all passive and more energy efficient), but it's about twice as expensive. I also try one further energy optimization : I exchanged the system HD with a Notebook drive. All storage comes as PNP USB devices. I could tell myself this will reduce the system energy consumption, but that would be fooling myself, I guess.
The new system brings along two major aspects of optimisation for me :
-I can now use cheaper RAM modules (DDR2 instead of DDR)
-I have a bootable S-ATA Controller, which makes HD replacement rather easy. IDE / P-ATA Disks are supported as well, I currently use an 2.5" IDE disk. I intended to buy a PCI-pluggable controller for the old machine, but that would have been as expensive as the whole new system (~ 55 Euros).
I can't seem to find my ammeter, so I don't realy see the difference in energy consumption. There's a review on the internet that displays some measured values : A system with a 2.5" Disk and DVD-drive supposedly consumes somewhere around 25-30 Watts idle and about 45 Watts in a burn-in-test-scenario.
Of course this system is not perfect, and here's the drawbacks (those that I have come to notice so far, at least):
- audible chipset cooler. I resent that, but I'll have to live with it. That's the skinflint's price for saving at the wrong end. If your main goal is absolute silence, use a D945GSEJT instead. This will mean ZERO noise, but it costs a penny more.
- Low peak performance of the CPU. Firefox with five tabs (running on debian) is about as much as I would give to this hardware. For working, this is useless. For numb tasks like Server-, Router- or Download-Solutions this will do just fine.
UPDATE: Windows 7 (RC1) runs a lot better than Debian 5. No performance problems, even with ~10 Tabs in FF :D
All in all, I really enjoy this kind of hardware :)
