Topic: Save Money! Underclock and disable stuff! (Read 1577 times)

OK.my motherboard is an Asus P6T-SE.There are no serial or paralell ports,there only one onboard NIC which I need for mining and film making work plus internet,I can't use a single DDR3 bank as that memory only works in triple channel on my mobo.Upgrading PSU is simply out of the question for me,
It'd be cheaper for me to store all data on 1 2TB eco HDD (and remove 3 old HDDs in the process) in addition to getting a kingston V+ 100 SSD (at 64GB or 96GB since it's only £10 difference for me from amazon.co.uk) plus I'd have lightning fast productivity as well than it would be for me to buy a more efficient PSU (Quality PSU for my needs would cost at least £170 due to the higher efficiency for 800W+,where as replacing my 3 HDDs with 1 2TB HDD plus add an SSD would only cost me ~£140)

onboard sound is necessary due to my work as a filmmaker when it's not mining,the gd GPU (radeon HD 6950 would still be a great asset for my work)

If you have any suggestions or know of something I may have overlooked on my mobo,then please share some tips that can help me:
1.meet environmental targets (mainly by reducing power consumption)
2.boost my mining performance on my GPU (by unlocking my shaders and OC'ing.Help is needed on this:http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26187.new;topicseen#new as well please)
3.Boost general productivity of my PC.

Thank you

EDIT:How does underclocking mem clock on GPU boost performance?because I see the best mining setups having high core clocks and low mem clocks

• disable everything u don't need (serial ports, parallel ports, onboard audio, secondary onboard LAN
  
• use a single DDR bank
• switch to 2,5 hdds (ssds are too expensive imho)
• get a hi-efficiency PSU

Are we talking about CPU,RAM,onboard I/O stuff,e.t.c?

I've done the following to save power on my PC:
1.underlock my core i7 CPU to 1.35ghz (from 2.67ghz stock).Saved me Approz 25 Watts
2.Enabled 'Green ethernet' on my NIC as that saved me 10 watts (CAT5 cable length is 20 meters so big saving is made by not running current through it all the time)
3.Disabled firewire 400 as I never use it.saved 5 watts
4.removed one of my 3 HDDs.saved 8 Watts
5.changed fans from 80mm to 120mm as this improved the cooling and reduce power use at the same time. saved 8 watts doing this.

This is so far tho

I plan on making more low cost changes

Like switch to SSD and have a 2TB green HDD (which'll let me remove the final 2 HDDS saving me another 20 Watts)

The RAM was suto underclocked when my CPU was underclocked as well.

so far in total I managed to save 56 watts from just the PC (base unit)

I wonder what else can be disabled on a mobo to save energy?

I haven't read across anyone doing this, nor did I do a specific search. I had this posted in the newbie forums until I could post here.

If you are using a dedicated rig or want to restart before you do gaming, you should consider underclocking your rigs.
I have 3 dedicated miners. As example one is using an evga 780i sli, core 2 quad 6600, and 3x 6850's (got a killer deal on them, but they kinda suck).
With that board I could disable the last 3 cores. I then underclocked it to 1.6ghz (I might be able to go lower, but that was easy) and undervolted it. My hashing did not change. It's a little laggier to VNC into it but I'll put up with that.

Next I'm debating about lowering the bus speeds and ram. I'm only running a single one gig module of ram as it is.

While I might only be saving a buck or two a month, the guys who are running some serious hardware and 10 machines will get much more benefit out of this.

Update:
Here's a link to determine your old vs new wattage!
http://extreme.outervision.com/tools.jsp

I went from 95w to 41w with 2400/1.25v to 1600/1v!