PC Power Savings

[Stefletch]

Hello,

 

A few months ago I came across a small Windpws app called Granola (Granola - Intelligent Power Management for Windows and Linux). It aims to reduce power consumption of the PC processor when it does not need it. I've done a few tests and have a few questions if anyone else has used this with an aim or reducing power costs...

 

1. I've tested on various laptops, but these have built in power saving features so it doesn't really seem to make that much difference in battery life time. I've tested with BatteryMon and actually testing battery life on two laptops.

 

2. I can see it being much more useful for PCs. If run on a PC (Windows XP), is there anything I can use to test the power usage of the CPU to see if this is worthwhile installing.

 

3. Is anyone else using it either the free version or the enterprise version, I would be interested in your thoughts.

 

Thanks,

 

Stephen Fletcher

[vikpaw]

Not sure about the CPU directly, perhaps some software out there.

 

For monitoring the overall power draw for the PC, after last year's BETT show, i picked up a power meter from Maplins for about a fiver, which plugs in between the plug and socket and could be used to measure the overall draw. I guess you could use that for a day without software running, then reset and go again with software doing it's thing, and see if it makes a difference.

 

To make it fair, during the test phase the usage of the system needs to be the same, so that the downtime is also approx. similar. I guess you could run some speed benchmarking software to tax the system for a fixed time.