[luau] Underclocking

[W. Wayne Liauh]

1. Since the power consumption is proportional to the "square" of 
voltage.  Thus, if I cut the core voltage from the default 1.75 volt to, 
say, 1.5 volt, I will be able to reduct the wattage by about 25% (or 
from 65 W to 50 W).  I don't know whether the Athlon XP will be stable 
at 1.5 V.  Does anyone know the answer?

2.  Furthermore, since a desktop case (unless you have an aluminum case) 
 does not have the same overall heat dissipation efficiency as a modern 
day laptop, a desktop CPU may require a lower wattage (again, unless you 
use an aluminum case) to operate in a fanless manner.

3.  I am thinking about re-arranging my desktop box so that the hard 
drive(s) and both CDROM drives will be located ourside of the case 
(i.e., the IDE cables will be extended outside of the case).  Any 
potential problems? Perhaps someone is crafty enough to build a 
transparent lucite case to house those IDE drives.

4.  My 1800+ Athlon XP package (CPU plus fan) is much quieter than my 1 
GHz T-Bird.  I also strongly recommend the ASUS A7V333 MB, whose Q-Fan 
feature makes it a great machine for office desktops.

5.  PII and PIII are very poor choices for Linux GUI desktops because 
they have only one "pipeline" (especially when you run a graphically 
intensive program).  Furthermore, while both machines were substantially 
quieter than my 1 GHz T-Bird, they are actually not as quiet as my new 
1800+ Athlon XP.

6.  Water-cooled system seems interesting.  But what's the chance that 
the system may leak thus really messing up your PC?