Luremaker
Veteran Member
With our electricity rates constantly going up over the past few years I've been on a mission to cut down on my family's electricity use. I replaced all my light bulbs with the new low wattage CFL bulbs and I put a timer on my electric hot water tank. I've become more diligent of shutting things off now than ever before. Even after doing all this my hydro bills still seem to be rising. I'm thinking one of our big power hogs much be our computers.
In our home we have 5 computers running most of the time. Each of my two boys have a computer along with my wife and myself plus we have a fifth computer running 24 x 7 as my file server and gateway. So I decided to search out a low power motherboard. A board which would consume very little power yet have enough power to run my desktop (email, internet, word processing, photo editing etc.) and file server and gateway.
So after a little research I picked up two micro ITX Intel D201GLY2 motherboards for $75 ea plus a mini computer case (13 x 14 x 3.8? for $55 ea and 2 sticks of DDR2 for another $19 ea for a total of $149 per computer. All in all a nice cheap computer. This Intel motherboard comes with the processor already installed and measures only 6.75 x 6.75? Reading reviews, this board with a hard disk should only consume 15 to 28 watts of power, that's less than 10% of my current server and gateway computer or between 4 and 5 cents of electricity per day. I am hoping it will pay for itself in less than a year in power savings alone. Wow a free computer.
It took me less than 5 minutes to assemble (connect power cable, install second network card and one sata hard disk cable) and power up the motherboard in my high tech centre which also happens to double as my basement and another 10 minutes to install the free server and gateway software. Plugged it into the internet and it all works. Now I'll let it run for a few days and see how this low power green sever and gateway compares to my old server.
Now to my new desktop computer. Took a couple more minutes to assemble it and about 10 minutes to install the desktop OS. I am impressed with this little computer. Having used it for a single evening I'm happy with the performance. Now I am no gamer and this computer would never work for any serious gaming but for the average guy looking for a low low power consuming computer one of these just might work for you.
In our home we have 5 computers running most of the time. Each of my two boys have a computer along with my wife and myself plus we have a fifth computer running 24 x 7 as my file server and gateway. So I decided to search out a low power motherboard. A board which would consume very little power yet have enough power to run my desktop (email, internet, word processing, photo editing etc.) and file server and gateway.
So after a little research I picked up two micro ITX Intel D201GLY2 motherboards for $75 ea plus a mini computer case (13 x 14 x 3.8? for $55 ea and 2 sticks of DDR2 for another $19 ea for a total of $149 per computer. All in all a nice cheap computer. This Intel motherboard comes with the processor already installed and measures only 6.75 x 6.75? Reading reviews, this board with a hard disk should only consume 15 to 28 watts of power, that's less than 10% of my current server and gateway computer or between 4 and 5 cents of electricity per day. I am hoping it will pay for itself in less than a year in power savings alone. Wow a free computer.
It took me less than 5 minutes to assemble (connect power cable, install second network card and one sata hard disk cable) and power up the motherboard in my high tech centre which also happens to double as my basement and another 10 minutes to install the free server and gateway software. Plugged it into the internet and it all works. Now I'll let it run for a few days and see how this low power green sever and gateway compares to my old server.
Now to my new desktop computer. Took a couple more minutes to assemble it and about 10 minutes to install the desktop OS. I am impressed with this little computer. Having used it for a single evening I'm happy with the performance. Now I am no gamer and this computer would never work for any serious gaming but for the average guy looking for a low low power consuming computer one of these just might work for you.