What methods exist for determining energy usage?
What methods exist for determining energy usage?
Looking for alternatives to measuring system or CPU power use besides checking the wall? I can suggest some options. Would you like me to share a few product recommendations?
HWinfo64?
🤔
Some include, but are not limited to: a power consumption meter at the wall (between wall socket and PC power plug). <- Use the MacLean Energy MCE06 230V/16A wattmeter. Purchased it before buying the UPS to gauge the required power capacity.
Another choice is a UPS with an LCD display. This allows you to see precisely how much power the UPS delivers to the PC. Also useful is a UPS that connects via USB cable, enabling monitoring through software—either dedicated or via HWinfo64. <- Have one as well (CyberPower CP1300EPFCLCD).
In summary, there isn't a single "best" option...
HWinfo64?
🤔
Some include, but are not limited to: a power consumption meter at the wall (between wall socket and PC power plug). <- I own the MacLean Energy MCE06 230V/16A wattmeter. Purchased it before buying the UPS, to gauge the required power capacity of an UPS.
Another choice is a UPS with an LCD display. This allows you to see precisely how much power the UPS delivers to the PC. Also useful is a UPS that connects via USB cable, enabling monitoring through software—either dedicated or via HWinfo64. <- I also have one (CyberPower CP1300EPFCLCD).
In summary, there’s no single best option. Choose what you feel most confident about.
I'm using Linux on the machine you mentioned. I attempted a tool that provided a power breakdown for packages, GPU, CPU, etc., but the results seem inconsistent. This raises doubts about its reliability.
My current top choice is a Kill-A-Watt device. However, it has limited availability and I'm wondering if there are more advanced options to purchase instead.
I already have one, but its readings are quite rough and would be impractical to use without disconnecting everything, as it measures across all outlets.
I was hoping for a solution that doesn't require estimating the efficiency of my power supply. Ideally, I'd like to be able to isolate the motherboard or something similar.
VM/emulate Windows to execute HWinfo64?
🤔
Maybe not enough? Possibly too much? Also, this suggests you understand the power usage would be significant. This raises another question: why is this important first?
If there are doubts about the accuracy of Linux' power measurements, then even if the VM hypervisor mimics the hardware devices used by HWinfo64 to gather power data, the outcomes could still be incorrect. Thanks for the ideas, but I’m looking for a physical approach instead. What I was thinking is that inconsistency suggests something is amiss or the results don’t match expectations. You’d normally assume the total power use should equal the sum of individual component powers, but it doesn’t. I’m trying to assess how well my cooling system performs. It’s supposed to have a TDP of 10 W, yet it’s hitting 92°C. That means either the cooling is severely ineffective, or it’s consuming more than 10 W, or both.
Regarding TDP;
Source:
https://noctua.at/en/noctua-standardised...nce-rating
TDP isn't a reliable way to gauge a CPU's heat generation, as it's more of a general guideline.
I don't know. The heatsink is preinstalled on this ASRock board I have. It's not designed to be removed, but I'm planning on upgrading it.
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https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J5040-ITX/index.us.asp
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The board is fanless, but they never said you could use it in a fanless case. Since that's my goal, I need to improve the heatsink as much as possible, as well as find the most breathable case I can. Even then, I might still have to tune the OS not to run it as hot.
The temps I quoted were measured on an open bench (no case) and ambient was about 25 C or so.
Well, it's a
Pentium Silver J5040
(Gemini Lake-R) and
ark.intel.com
tells me T_junction is 105 C. Is there another number I should be looking at?
The good news is there's a bare die under that heatsink. So, I hope to be able to achieve pretty good cooling with the right heatsink.
Thanks. I've followed most of those developments over the years. As this CPU was launched in 2019, I'm unsure how much of the change in TDP applies to it.
BTW, I have checked the motherboard BIOS, but it's fairly basic. There are no settings for adjusting any power levels or biasing the CPU towards performance/efficiency/etc. Any power/efficiency tuning I do would have to be at the OS level. So far, this is just the "out of the box" behavior, with no easy/obvious way to change it.