Less power

[mdlbear]

Some progress has been made on saving power.

Nova, the fileserver, is now using 13% of 260W = 33W, down from 54. That's about $70/year; I was hoping for more.

Trantor, the desktop, is using 9% of 708W = 63W, down from 93. That's more like it: 30W=$105/year savings. Total saving on the swap: 50W=$175/year; total spent so far, $90. Getting the new desktop configured is a non-trivial undertaking, but that part needed to be done anyway because Dorsai's disk was dying. Turning the desktop off when I'm not using it will probably save an additional 50% or so.

I measured the power usage of the living room TV: 2.2W idling, and 37W when running. It's not on full-time, either, so switching to an LCD wouldn't be worthwhile unless I can get a really good deal on one.

The LED therapy light I got used for $25 is only on for an hour or so in the morning; what it really does is free up a full-spectrum floor lamp for someplace else in the house.

Probably the biggest further savings I could make with computers would be using the wireless router as my main firewall. Actually I could probably get a lot of that by going to a solid-state disk. Hmm.