Low Power Home Computing

Does each new computer you buy need to consume more power than the last? Isn't it inevitable that computers and operating systems and software get more and more bloated and computers get so hot you can toast bread on them in the morning? Are power supplies going to be measured in the kW? What, for a home computer?

An 8 watt processor will do it all.

Let's face it, if you're like me, for home computing you just need something that doesn't get viruses, gets your email, maybe serves a printer for the house, runs a scanner, reads cards from the camera, also talks to your portable media devices. You also need an rss reader, a web station and a place to listen to music and watch youtube. This machine does all that beautifully and elegantly, and with little power. I don't have a power meter but I think this server represents a cut of about 50 watts from our 24/7 load.

A few years ago I started to become attracted to linux. One day my OS crashed and I couldn't find the windows XP cd. (I finally found the windows XP cd but now it's gathering dust on a shelf.) I first tried mandrake (now mandriva) and my friend HTP told me about ubuntu. I quickly found out that without antivirus running all the time, linux is like having a whole additional processor core! I soon discovered old computers that couldn't handle antivirus software breathed new life, they lived on when a light OS like xubuntu was installed on it.

My new low power computer is running xubuntu 8.10 with compiz which makes a very light and elegant desktop. I have compiz running four desktops on a cube that i flip laterally. In this way I can have tasks running on each cube face, kind of like Jefferson's revolving bookstand!

The benchmark for me is how quickly it loads firefox. Xubuntu is generally fast at that. Since this computer will be on all the time I'm already finding it runs lots and lots of processes for me and for the house. There is RAM to spare with a 2GB DDR2 and plenty of desktop space.

There are so many linux distributions to choose from you can choose just what you need and what is right for you and nothing more. In fact I've used some distributions for a single purpose and disposed of them.

Just recently my xeon workstation started to become demented. When its sound chip died, I decided it was time to pull the plug and start anew with something I've always wanted to do, replace the electric space heater with something low power. Heat was what did this thing in anyway. So I chose an intel D945GCLF2 motherboard running the intel atom 330 low power processor. The atom 330 is an 8 watt dual-core hyperthreading processor and it's doing exactly the job I wanted it to do. It's the fastest of the atom processors that are out there now, I wanted to make sure it could handle all the tasks i throw at it.

At the minimum I spent $100 on the motherboard and fixin's but I also bought a few bells and whistles for the case gentrification, another $60 spent on a floppy drive size card reader, a pci card with two usb 2.0 plugs on it, and another floppy drive size usb and audio port up front. I have usb devices coming out of this thing everywhere and it looks like medusa. You can't have too many usb plugs is what I think.

Inside there is a giant heatsink I cemented onto the northbridge that looks like a blue metal sowbug. The dirty secret of this motherboard is the northbridge. If you can wait to buy a low power motherboard, good idea. Wait until this northbridge is designed out of the motherboard. It consumes more power than the processor and it also comes from the factory strapped with a 39 cent fan that is persistent and gnatlike. It's not dentist drill loud but it's sure a whiner. Get some arctic alumina cement and a zalman northbridge heatsink and glue the heatsink on the northbridge. Then get rid of that fan. It still will consume more power than the CPU but at least it's quiet.

By the way, this thing is fanless except for the power supply. I'm going to replace that soon with a fanless one and then in a year or two replace the hard disks with an SSD. Imagine silent computing.

For the case I used an old compaq case that I painted with old paint I found lying around, and the power supply is plundered from a computer in the garage. I thoroughly enjoyed building a computer just how I like it myself "from scratch" and reusing materials whenever possible. This was more difficult than it needed to be because old parts always need adapters and deelybobs to fit new stuff. I ended up cementing the floppy drives in with epoxy because these compaq floppy rails are impossible to find. I found out salespeople crack up at fry's when you say you are looking for floppy parts.

The best feeling is knowing that I can do this again! There was some learning that had to happen on the way there but it's good for you.

There are some intriguing ready-made low power computers out there, among them the acer mini desktop. Making your own computer is great but not for everyone! It sure is rewarding to blog from a computer you built yourself though...

Just some pictures of the garden from July 19, 2008

Corn. This is popcorn "dakota black". This is part of an experiment to see how people used to grow corn, beans, and squash together in one patch. The beans didn't come up in this end but this is how we learn..




Around the margin here we have some sunflowers and scarlet runner beans. The scarlet runner beans are the only ones to come up and it will be interesting to see what these taste like as frijoles






Cucumbers climbing a trellis









And of course, Tomatoes! I'm getting ready to can these guys right now. We have an assortment of cultivars stupice, early girl, celebrity, roma, shady lady, and a few types of cherry tomato. I think there's a cherokee purple in there or two. Planting some shady lady as an insurance policy payed off because they seem to survive the 108 degree (42c) heatwave we had last week. I wasn't here I was shivering on the equator in Nairobi!

Punica granatum

On the south side of the house where there is a lot of sun we planted some deciduous pomegranate trees. Well, first we tried one and it did such a great job there that we planted two more.

This one is now three years old. I think it's cultivar "sweet". They are yellow skinned and inside the arils are a clear non-staining pink. The most common cultivar you find in the store is "wonderful".

A giant corporation called Paramount has almost a monopoly on Pomegranate production in the USA so it's good to buy them locally or make them yourself. You really are at an advantage growing them yourself because you have many kinds to choose from instead of just "wonderful". We put one in called "Kashmir Blend" but it's not doing too hot. It could be in the wrong spot. It didn't look too healthy to begin with, so I'm having buyer's remorse.

I really am beginning to appreciate these pomegranate trees. They are very well suited for where they are planted and have the following good qualities:

The tree is deciduous, shading the house in summer and allowing the sun to warm the house in the winter. The trees aren't tall enough yet to provide much shade benefit. But in a few years they should start making a real difference.

The fruit really is delicious, it's as good as you can get in the farmer's market.

The pomegranate tree is drought tolerant. This makes me very happy. The trees happen to be in the hardest part of the yard to pull a hose, and it's nice to know they can tolerate some neglect in the three digit summer temperatures.

Fourth, the tree produces such beautiful flowers. I never thought this tree would have so many good qualities. I hope we make choices this good in the future.

The solar oven in fall, processing squash

Here is another amazing discovery about the solar oven, it makes cooking a squash a whole lot easier in the fall. You can just cut it in half and put one half each, covered, out in the solar oven all day and then you don't even have to monitor it or think about it again. The squash is ready that afternoon or at dinnertime when it's time to eat.

Right now there is a pumpkin processing out there, we got a sugar pumpkin from the farmer's market, spooned out the guts and seeds, then put each half upside down in the solar oven pots. Put a lid on those and put them outside just as they are, all day, no water necessary, and you have just made your own pumpkin pie filling. Easy!

The seeds are soaking in very salty water, and tomorrow they will roast in one of the solar ovens to become a snack.

By the way, other squashes make great pumpkin pie as well. I just ate a bunch of pieces of butternut squash pie, it was delicious.

The whole house fan

Sacramento has a perfect climate for a special home appliance called the whole-house fan. I called sacramentowholehousefans.com and they set me up with a wonderful whole-house fan that is quiet and of high quality.

Sacramentowholehousefans.com webpage is simple and in a way underestimates the service that I got from them. What they could advertise is that a thoughtful and licensed contractor and energy specialist would come by the house and discuss it with us, and then have a guy put it in and do a professional job. He also gave me lots of invaluable energy saving advice for my energy independence project.

The fan is called the airscape 1.7 and it operates at only 70W at low speed. Operated for 24 hours, it uses less electricity than our largest room air conditioner uses in one hour. In our climate, cool marine air comes in through the Carquinez Strait on many evenings in the summer. On evenings when the "Delta Breeze" arrives just before sunset it is especially nice. In Palm Springs sometimes it is 100F at midnight, but here most nights you don't need air conditioning at all. And if you use the whole house fan, you can cool the whole house down really well before bed. We've needed a blanket most nights in summer because it drops down to 68F or below in here.

Your local farmers market

Those of you who know us know we don't ever miss the Sunday farmers market at 8th and W streets. Here is a good reason why, breakfast. The little fish company had a half-off special at the end of the day, and we picked up some of their smoked salmon. It tastes like it was glazed with a ham glaze. Better still, the guy catches his own fish off Bodega Bay so it's not caught in Fiji and hauled all this way to your table. It's expensive but still cheaper than heart medicine.

There's a new cheesemaker and we tried her cheese again. This is an aged cheese, it's creamy like jack but tastes like emmentaler. I think the cheese still needs some work but it's coming along.

This sesame bread came from octoberfeast bakery which makes fine german and european style breads. Their rye breads have a really wonderful energy profile which sustains you through the day better than plain wheat breads do. They are also higher in fiber and low in calories. This sesame bread is one I've never seen before from this bakery. But with the fish, it's The Bomb. It's sort of an unbleached white mixed with wheat french type of bread generously coated with sesame seeds. With fish and cheese, a few nectarines and plums for dessert, we're set.

Apricots

A picture of a lug of apricots! They were 20 bucks. From Stanislaus County. They're called "ruby red" but i haven't found any information on this type of apricot at all. Maybe the farmers made the name up hoping to trademark it or something.

I also like the way they vary in color when they are laid out on the table like this.

Apricot is the champagne of jams, or is that an appropriate analogy? The queen of stone fruits?

On the windowsill are garden tomatoes... they are all we have from 5 plants all week but they are ripening rapidly as we pass summer solstice.

Solar Powerhouse

I am really impressed by this global solar oven that i just got. I took her for her maiden voyage today, just by boiling some water as a test. In a word, this thing is powerful.

It is the day after summer solstice at 38 degrees latitude, so this thing is really cranked up to the max.

It has metal reflective wings that collapse, focusing a greater area of solar radiation than its size into the box. It has a carry handle and looks like it will last 20 years. It's made of quality wood and metal with a "made in america" quality. And it features a swinging bench to hold your cookware level no matter how you have the thing tilted to catch solar radiation. In winter you set up an adjustable leg in the back of the oven to aim more toward the horizon. I found it on ebay from a reseller, about $225.

I started a 500ml erlenmeyer flask of 10-15c cold water at 1pm, with no preheat. At 2pm, the beaker was already boiling steadily as shown, the temperature inside the box was 150c. By 4pm it had boiled away 40ml and it was 145c inside the oven. Intense. My math may be wrong but that means between 2-4pm i got around 90,000 joules or 25 Watts?

This is more energy than the SOS sport solar cooker which works more like a crock pot. Since it's gentler I will use this one for cooking food slowly like while i'm at work. It has a different design which makes it a different style of cooker. Testing it now as a fruit dehydrator... A clothespin holds the lid of the SOS slightly ajar so it stays about 80c in there.

The SOS also is wonderful because every one you buy actually buys two, one for you and one for someone in a refugee camp somewhere in the world. So you probably are saving trees while you help win the war on natural gas. Truly a win/win situation.