[luau] Underclocking

[MonMotha]

Comments inline.

W. Wayne Liauh wrote:
> 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?
> 

I forgot to mention that one, P=V^2/R, R is constant.  So if you can 
step down the core voltage, you'll get a square relationship going with 
heat output (processors do away with their energy in the form of heat 
obviously).  This is much better than the linear relationship you 
generally get by chaning the clock speed.

> 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.

Aluminium cases not only look cool, but are functional as well.  You 
might also look to see if anyone offers copper cases as copper is a 
really efficient medium for heat transfer.

> 
> 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.

IDE doesn't like doing this, but as long as you don't exceed the max 
distance, it shouldn't be much of a problem (after all, geeks have been 
running their systems with the side off for years).

> 
> 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?

These days, with commerical water cooling kits, slim to none.  Toms 
harwdare has an article (referenced on slashdot today) complete with a 
video.  Total cost was $200-300 for the water cooling gear, but you can 
run the fan so slow as to almost be silent and since you can water cool 
just about everything at once, you can probably even do away with case fans.

--MonMotha