HanSolo wrote on 2023-07-13, 17:02:

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2023-07-12, 18:10:

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-07-12, 17:58:

What is the reasoning behind wanting a super low wattage Windows 98 machine?

Countries like Germany have very high energy prices because of the Ukraine war, so I can understand that.

It's around 40 Cent/kWh. So if the system including monitor (which is a significant part of the calculation) draws 100 Watts that's 4 ct per hour. Nothing I worry too much about 😀

And during winter all the heat from the system will be heat that you won't have to generate by your central heating system (or whatever it is you use to warm your house).

Tetrium wrote on 2023-07-17, 00:24:

HanSolo wrote on 2023-07-13, 17:02:

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2023-07-12, 18:10:

Countries like Germany have very high energy prices because of the Ukraine war, so I can understand that.

It's around 40 Cent/kWh. So if the system including monitor (which is a significant part of the calculation) draws 100 Watts that's 4 ct per hour. Nothing I worry too much about 😀

And during winter all the heat from the system will be heat that you won't have to generate by your central heating system (or whatever it is you use to warm your house).

Resistive heat basically. It’s handy in winter, detrimental in summer. Best to make the heat using a heat pump though. More btus per watt that way than using a computer. (3-4 times the btus per watt) but if the watts are doing useful computing work that at least counts for something

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2023-07-12, 18:10:

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-07-12, 17:58:

What is the reasoning behind wanting a super low wattage Windows 98 machine?

Countries like Germany have very high energy prices because of the Ukraine war, so I can understand that.

🤡
not because of the war, it because of the politics who forced the phase-out of nuclear energy. germany is going to deindustrialize fast 😀

but BTT:
what about an notebook instead of a desktop?

Why don't you use some Atom platform if it will be only for retro games?

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-15, 17:12:

You could make a solar powered setup

This is not economically justified as it will never make up for its investment in solar panels, charger, inverter and batteries, unless the unelected cowardly so called leaders of the eu and the countries in eu sponsor him personally. He'd better start sending his electricity bills to schultz or von der lier (or whatever are their names).

GokuSS4 wrote on 2023-11-02, 01:13:

🤡
not because of the war, it because of the politics who forced the phase-out of nuclear energy. germany is going to deindustrialize fast 😀

Indeed. Plus the "green" racket inposed only in eu. Glad to see an adequate German here 😀

Laser wrote on 2023-07-13, 03:56:

please note that if you want energy efficienciy you must go for modern hardware yes or yes those old pentium 3 waste lot of ene […]
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Confused UngaBunga wrote on 2023-07-12, 16:21:

What parts would you choose to build the most efficient, yet compatible, windows 98 pc?

My first thoughts were a 18W TDP 700 coppermine and a 15W Voodoo3, but maybe you can point me in a better direction?

please note that if you want energy efficienciy you must go for modern hardware yes or yes
those old pentium 3 waste lot of energy in idle , also those old motherboards alone waste lot of energy in idle and in use

in desktops PCs : the best intel generation for energy efficiency is the kaby lake and sky lake generation
from there they began to waste energy again pressured by the market to increase single core speed

ie you can purchase just by a few bucks a kaby lake/skylake mobo and a core i3 or core i5 low power , this is very efficient in idle and in use
then you can add for example a geforce 6600 pci expreess or any other member of the geforce 6 series because are the last which have drivers for win 98

if you want more energy efficiency add just a geforce 6200 instead

Yes, but on them under Windows 98, such software tools for slowing down / increasing speed as Intel SpeedStep, for example, will not work, which are limited in terms of Win9x support, if I remember correctly, to the most mobile Yonah (however, ASUS also released a desktop model for these processors). Probably some of that. What will give the maximum performance per watt and at the same time be able to slow down / accelerate depending on the load conditions.

analog_programmer wrote on 2023-11-02, 08:12:

Why don't you use some Atom platform if it will be only for retro games?

Those Atom CPUs themselves were really efficient, but they were paired with power-hog chipsets, at least on early boards (D945GCLF etc). 4W for the CPU is great until you see that 945GC eating >20W. I upgraded from D945GCLF to a Core i3 and actually reduced power consumption as idle draw of the i3 together with H61 chipset was half that of the old board.

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-15, 17:12:

You could make a solar powered setup

This is not economically justified as it will never make up for its investment in solar panels, charger, inverter and batteries, unless the unelected cowardly so called leaders of the eu and the countries in eu sponsor him personally. He'd better start sending his electricity bills to schultz or von der lier (or whatever are their names).

The leaders of the EU are elected by the leaders of the member states. Go blame your local govt if you don't like them or you feel processes are not democratic enough.

As for what is economically justified, it totally depends on power sources and pricing and that varies wildly between countries and locations, particularly once you factor in fiscal policy. Solar is presently the cheapest power source per kWh generated in most cases, the challenge is that most power is generated at times you don't need it (middle of the day in summer) and storage, particularly seasonal, is anything but cheap and easy, meaning the end-to-end price can be much higher once you factor that - or cost of backup sources on a cold dark winter evening - in to the equation. The trick to making it efficient is *not* to use an inverter but to do everything DC-DC. That increases efficiency by at least 25%, sometimes twice that. You can easily run a low power ATX system with PicoPSU using 12V or (better) 24V DC, drawn off truck batteries and topped up by the panels.

Someone living in southwestern US, southern Spain or even better - for this calculation - in the Sahel region of Africa (very dry, very sunny and day/night differences between seasons not too huge) might well find solar to be the best choice by a very wide margin. Someone on Iceland with almost constant cloud, weak sun at best and very dark for a few months probably less so (although they can just tap the magma up there of course 😉 ). Storage is more an urban-rural thing. Up in an apartment block, there are essentially no individual options beyond a battery good for 24h cycles at best, and collective ones are usualy thermal (pump excess heat into ground in summer, withdraw it in winter), not electric. In the boondocks, water and terrain are your friend. Pump water uphill when you have too much energy, let it run down over a generator when you have too little. In extreme cases you can even manage seasonal storage this way - plus any rainfall you might get also helps. Of course, in a flat desert this is also limited, but there you probably have enough sun in winter so don't need seasonal storage - once again what is possible and what is best really needs examining on a case-by-case basis.

dionb wrote on 2023-11-02, 11:57:

Those Atom CPUs themselves were really efficient, but they were paired with power-hog chipsets, at least on early boards (D945GCLF etc). 4W for the CPU is great until you see that 945GC eating >20W. I upgraded from D945GCLF to a Core i3 and actually reduced power consumption as idle draw of the i3 together with H61 chipset was half that of the old board.

Interesting. Didn't know this about the Atom's chipsets as I never own one of these.

dionb wrote on 2023-11-02, 11:57:

The leaders of the EU are elected by the leaders of the member states. Go blame your local govt if you don't like them or you feel processes are not democratic enough.

/off - I hate politics and I don't need masters

Who's elected von der lier? Which puppets are eu-countries "leaders"?

dionb wrote on 2023-11-02, 11:57:

As for what is economically justified, it totally depends on power sources and pricing and that varies wildly between countries and locations, particularly once you factor in fiscal policy... blah-blah-blah...

My first engineering degree was into electrical science (plus I've 25+ years work experience in TPP), so, excuse me, but don't try to sell me some "green" energetic agenda nonsences as you personally have no idea of what really is a sustainable electricity system. Thank you!

DoZator wrote on 2023-11-02, 09:18:

Yes, but on them under Windows 98, such software tools for slowing down / increasing speed as Intel SpeedStep, for example, will not work, which are limited in terms of Win9x support, if I remember correctly, to the most mobile Yonah (however, ASUS also released a desktop model for these processors). Probably some of that. What will give the maximum performance per watt and at the same time be able to slow down / accelerate depending on the load conditions.

Generally it's not too hard to make this kind of program. (At least on WinNT or DOS. I never tried doing low level hardware access on Win9x.)

First PIII 533MHz is 16W or so.

Cheers,

GokuSS4 wrote on 2023-11-02, 01:13:

🤡 not because of the war, it because of the politics who forced the phase-out of nuclear energy. germany is going to deindustria […]
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NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2023-07-12, 18:10:

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-07-12, 17:58:

What is the reasoning behind wanting a super low wattage Windows 98 machine?

Countries like Germany have very high energy prices because of the Ukraine war, so I can understand that.

🤡
not because of the war, it because of the politics who forced the phase-out of nuclear energy. germany is going to deindustrialize fast 😀

but BTT:
what about an notebook instead of a desktop?

I second the laptop idea. It can be powered by a single DC voltage, also.
If requires between 15v and 18v, it might be possible to use a lead-gel battery and a solar panel to operate it fully independently from the mains.
Radio amateurs usually use 12v to 13,8v to power various equipment in their shack.
Ideal for emergency radio purposes.

PS: About the price in Germany.. It's complicated. Or rather, a comprehensive matter.
It has political reasons (Fukushima, protesting of citizens, conflicts etc), but also technical ones.
Our nuc. power plants are among the best (well, they used to be in the 1960s), but there's a catch.

a) There's currently no depot available to store the nuc. waste. The primary storage, the salt mine Gorleben is breaking down, water sneaks in. Existing waste must be "rescued" already.

b) The reprocessing/refreshing of elements is done by our French neighbors, which is a political balancing act.
It also involves castor trains moving back and forth, which is dangerous in those times.

c) There's no money and/or political support to build new power plants.
The existing ones used to be great, but that was decades ago.
They now fall apart, also due to wear out. The materials have a limited lifetime.

Meanwhile, our modern, but scrapped power plant designs are being evaluated in places like China. Using small, individual nuc. "pellets" as a failsafe mechanism is an interesting concept, too.

d) We have educated/capable nuc. experts, but they're leaving to other places.
Understandable. It's a common practice to study in Germany, then leave. I can't blame them.
Who ever has worked in education or social institutions knows how little people are actually being valued.
It's a social problem, we can't blame politics here. Not completely, at least.

My home town is nice for work/shopping, but not exactly to raise kids/to live. Too much bureaucracy, I think.

Too few people who raise their heads, stop walking and consciously realize their surroundings once in a while.
Watching the birds or squirrels, hearing the sounds of leaves rattling in the wind.. These kind of things.

By comparison, things were much brighter in the 90s, or so it seemed.

I kinda miss those old silly people who play with their grandchildren or do other silly and irrational things.
Ironically, these oldtimers were less squarely than my generation or that of my father or my sister.

When I see the current generation raising their kids, I'm in horror.
They talk to their children as if they were pets, maybe even lesser than that. I see this so often when riding the tram.
That's when I feel ashamed of my generation. We got so much love, why can't we pass it on? *sigh* 😔

(Edit: I'm not trying to say that people are generally cold-hearted or something. That's not how the country is.
No, there are many kind souls around, of course.
But the parenting style has somewhat changed, it seems. Please let me elaborate:

Ok, you see a child and it's mother on the tram station. The 5 year old child is crying, maybe because it's tired or thirsty.

Child: Cries at high volume, while stamping with the feets (hyper active? Parents deny attention?).
Mother (not facing the child):"No, I don't give you something now, Florian. Stop crying! Do you listen? You're embarrassing me. Florian! Stop crying, or.."

Back in the 90s, it was more like this.:
Mother/Grandma (facing the child): "Florian, why are you crying?"
Child (uttering at low volume): "Th-irsty. I want drinking."
Mother/Grandma: "Nah, I don't have something to drink now, my dear. But we're home soon. Just wait a bit longer."
Them hugging and entering the tram.)

Anyway, maybe it's just me. Complaining is very German, after all. Let's be proud to not to be proud. 😉

Edit: About the power/electricity thing..
Europe has a common power grid, which is electrically connected.

Member countries do support this common grid according to their current capacity.
So it's unlikely that one country "goes down" so suddenly.
However, prices may sky rocket for the weakest country in desperate need for electricity.

That's also why the nuc. "exit" of Germany is a bit of a problem here.
France continues to use nuc. power plants. So "we" indirectly still continue to make use of nuc. power, which might be ethically questionable.

Edited.

Edit: A "sun oven" would be a fine replacement for a conventional nuc. power plant.
Engineers are already working on it, but a real world use is still in the future. Not so far anymore, though.
Maybe within the next 20 years.. If we're still around by then.

Many laptops will actually run off 12V or 13.4 car voltage, but will fail to charge their batteries. However, "12V" solar panels will climb to 16-18V in full sun also. So just plugging into a simple 12V panel direct may charge batteries during the day, without a "house" battery. It will be a bit hit and miss though if you want several hours of operation every evening.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-02, 20:18:

Many laptops will actually run off 12V or 13.4 car voltage, but will fail to charge their batteries. However, "12V" solar panels will climb to 16-18V in full sun also. So just plugging into a simple 12V panel direct may charge batteries during the day, without a "house" battery. It will be a bit hit and miss though if you want several hours of operation every evening.

+1

It's better to use a solar regulator, there are good and better ones.
Some can charge 12v rechargeable batteries without harming them on the long run.

_
I also forgot that some laptops need the battery for buffering,
the power brick alone might not have enough power/amps to handle the laptop on its own.

If that's the case, a stronger power brick might solve the problem (if the laptops internal PSU is fine with that use case).

PS: Some Thin Clients are Windows 9x friendly and use a DC input.
Next are older internet set-top boxes (some run of the mains). 486/Pentium class. They need some extra modding, though. BIOS, IDE ports etc..

analog_programmer wrote on 2023-11-02, 12:12:

Interesting. Didn't know this about the Atom's chipsets as I never own one of these.

Later Atom CPUs (Goldmont architecture onwards) had integrated DRAM controllers and performed much better, 4-6W for complete SoC and no additional chipset needed. You don't see those on ITX boards as much as the older ones, unfortunately.

dionb wrote on 2023-11-02, 11:57:

As for what is economically justified, it totally depends on power sources and pricing and that varies wildly between countries and locations, particularly once you factor in fiscal policy... blah-blah-blah...

My first engineering degree was into electrical science (plus I've 25+ years work experience in TPP), so, excuse me, but don't try to sell me some "green" energetic agenda nonsences as you personally have no idea of what really is a sustainable electricity system. Thank you!

This old dog is teaching himself new tricks with an electrical engineering degree right now, specializing in energy delivery systems. Maybe time for a refresher... This stuff is the future - politics aside, it's vastly more efficient to get energy directly from primary sources rather than taking a detour via a bunch of plants and micro-organisms that died aeons ago - less conversions is always better. There are huge challenges in generation and distribution in models that rely on something other than 'burn stuff in a combined cycle gas turbine', but that sort of thing is what makes engineering fun. Fully agree that decommissioning existing nuclear was insane though.

^It's also a historical "problem" here, I think.
Germany used to be the "land of the philosophers and thinkers", but after war it was different.

Just look at the cities. Before war, the cities were playful and diverse, with ornaments and pretty facades on the houses.

After war, things had to be rebuild. Quickly. That was when purely functional design took over. Mass production of homes, so to say.
On both sides, East and West of Germany.

That also had influence to the industry.
Coal power plants and nuc. power plants got the primary drivers.

Especially in East Germany, the cheaper quality brown coal was used to generate electricity.

They also had nuc. power plants, highly modern for their time (with control room like being a set from Space:1999).
The Soviets were very interested in GDR's progress in that field, too.

Other businesses were steel industry and automobile industry.
With the latter being very dominant in politics.

That's why Germany never evolved, despite having good engineers and engineering samples.
Too much old dirty hands holding on onto coal industry and car/oil industry.

We had proper electric cars in the 1970s already, even with digital dashboards.
Prototypes and small series were being made by all the major car companies at some point.

The technology wasn't the problem. It was the refuse to change.
The industry didn't want clean energy, not profitable to them.

The only reason we have hybrid cars and electric cars now is because conventional cars are being "uncool".
The industry knows it has to change, but tries to delay things as much as possible.

The climate change isn't new, either. We kids had been teached about this issue in the 1980s/1990s already ("green house effect").

About the ozone hole of its time, too. After FCKW was banned, it got smaller and things recovered.
So much for humans not having an effect on the environment.

Movies like Silent Running addressed environmental issues in the 1970s already, as well.
Books talked about this, too.
The principle of the hydrogen fuel cell was known for ages, too.

Seriously, technology isn't the problem.
There are enough people who have various ideas to handle things in a environmental friendly way.

However, the society always laughs about them or even hates them.
I often feel like we want to believe that we can't change this, anymore, so we don't have to take action and responsibilities.

Age is also a factor. If you're young you have ideals and the urge to improve things.
But at some point in life, you're stop being flexible and are stuck in a fixed thinking-pattern.

You don't want the world to change anymore, you want do continue "business as usual".
At this point, your getting very arrogant and feel superior to the young. You know it better, even if you don't.
That's an subconscious self-protection mechanism of the mind, maybe, not sure.

Corona/Covid was an excellent example here. Too many people refused to accept the facts, even if the police stood in front of them, telling them to wear their masks in public.

Anyway, maybe I should stop here now.
Some people reading this may don't want to hear this, no matter if it's the truth or not.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-11-02, 19:56:

Edit: About the power/electricity thing.. Europe has a common power grid, which is electrically connected. […]
Show full quote

Edit: About the power/electricity thing..
Europe has a common power grid, which is electrically connected.

Member countries do support this common grid according to their current capacity.
So it's unlikely that one country "goes down" so suddenly.
However, prices may sky rocket for the weakest country in desperate need for electricity.

That's also why the nuc. "exit" of Germany is a bit of a problem here.
France continues to use nuc. power plants. So "we" indirectly still continue to make use of nuc. power, which might be ethically questionable.

Edited.

Edit: A "sun oven" would be a fine replacement for a conventional nuc. power plant.
Engineers are already working on it, but a real world use is still in the future. Not so far anymore, though.
Maybe within the next 20 years. If we're still around by then.

Hey, Jo22, please, better off comment something like how to measure power consumption of my old undervolted and underclocked Celeron 600 with Watt (power) meter, because...