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Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 4:47 pm
by IntensePC_User
Hello,

I'm trying to reduce power consumption of a fitlet-iA10. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit and with the computer at idle it is consuming 5.5 Watts (after the power supply).

This is a clean install of Windows. Nothing is connected to the fitlet; no display, no keyboard, no mouse, no USB devices, etc. The fitlet is connected to the internet using WiFi. I'm using a 64GB mSATA drive.

I've tried disabling HDMI Audio and Remote Display in the BIOS, but there was no change in power consumption.

Is there a way to completely disable the integrated video card? Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Re: Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:49 am
by hassellbear
The system idle power levels you are seeing are consistent with the idle power levels I measured some time ago when running Linux Mint. See http://www.fit-pc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=153&t=5843

One thing you may try is to enter the BIOS settings and lower the TDP below the default 4500 mW level. Of course, this will lower the system's performance - possibly to a level which is below your requirements.

If you search a bit in this forum, I think you will find where others have successfully disabled non-CPU features in order to reduce power consumption. Disabling unneeded features would certainly be preferable to lowering TDP - from a performance perspective.

Here are some relevant postings.

http://www.fit-pc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=142&t=5809

http://www.fit-pc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=5670

http://www.fit-pc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=143&t=5654



Good luck.

Re: Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:33 pm
by Arwen
Depending on performance needs, you could experiment with disabling a CPU
core or 2 in the BIOS. The AMD A10 Micro-6700T has 4 cores, but many tasks
only need that many for short periods of time. Thus, those tasks would take
longer. Yet overall power usage may go down.

Re: Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:46 pm
by IntensePC_User
Hassellbear, thanks for the comment. Found an older post of yours and posted some results and questions there.
http://www.fit-pc.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 991#p19991

Arwen, thanks. I'll investigate disabling a core or two to see how that affects power consumption.

Re: Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 5:26 pm
by IntensePC_User
So I did some quick testing.

With 100% CPU usage I get the following power consumption:
4 cores = 10.7 Watts
3 cores = 9.5 Watts
2 cores = 8.4 Watts

With a sustained load of about 20% CPU usage:
4 cores = 8.7 Watts
3 cores = 8.7 Watts
2 cores = 8.7 Watts

So for a typical use case, unloading cores doesn't seem to save any power.

Unfortunately the application I need to run is single threaded, so decreasing the TDP below 4500 sounds like a deal-breaker. But, I'll try to test that anyway.

Re: Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 2:39 pm
by ploubaz22
hello

I installed a fitlet pc IA10 in a sailboat and I look for the way to reduce electrical consumption.
The fitlet is windows 7
I use the navigation program that does not use much system resource
I reduced the bios power to 3,500 mW and also configure the processor core 2 and disables the sound
Still I as a 12 volt 1A consumption is 12W is too
On any other parameter I can play to reduce consumption.

Thank you

Re: Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:16 am
by mbirger
You can disable any peripheral that is not required in BIOS or device manager. You can try use Windows power manager tool.

Re: Reducing Power Consumption

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:45 am
by joeroot
One thing you may try is to enter the BIOS settings and lower the TDP below the default 4500 mW level. Of course, this will lower the system's performance - possibly to a level which is below your requirements.