Athlon MP 1900 power usage ?'s

**atow** · 06-08-2005, 02:49 PM

I'm outlining the parts I want to use on my carputer, and am trying as much as possible to use parts that I have access to at home/work already. I recently pulled two AthlonMP 1900+ ("1.6mHz"<-AMD) processors out of a fried mobo and have found, after extensive research, that I can use the MP's by themselves in a single slot motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how i can possible make an ATX mobo, athlon MP1900+, HD, RAM, Videocard, gps locator, LCD all run under the 150watt limit of hte OPUS. How much power is saved by using onboard video instead of a card? i would like to stay away from micro-itx mobos and athlon mobile processors for cost reasons. i'm going for cost effective solution, not hyper efficient system. Gonna probably try to find the mobo/RAM on ebay. already have case, HD, processor, fans, dvd.

Idealy, I'd like to get a decent dual-proc board with a midgrade nVidia video card onboard. Again, i'm concerned about power usage, and running past the capabilities of the OPUS. inverters aren't an option, as i want to keep alternator/battery strain to a minimum for the sub/speakers/amps

The "theoretical maximum thermal power" of the AMD AthlonMP 1900 is 60-66w. How does that factor into usage of mobo, other peripherals?

thank ya much! complicated circumstances, i know.

**evandude** · 06-08-2005, 03:13 PM

the lowest power usage you'll see for AMD processors is around 35 watts (athlon mobiles), with typical power usage for non-mobile chips often being double that... I would say there is no way you'll get dual athlon MP's on a 150 watt supply. just the mobo and two processors alone would probably exceed the power supply's limit... you MIGHT be able to underclock the processors significantly enough to get it to run on the opus, but you'd still be using a lot of power and would probably hit your power limits with very few peripherals.

two processors in a carputer is overkill. And, personally, i have not been very impressed with dual processors systems for normal purposes (maybe for a server or something...) my roommate had one and my slightly faster athlon XP and good video card totally blew his computer away in gaming, etc.

If anything, only use one of them... or even better, scrap them both and get an athlon mobile which runs on half the power and is faster, and then you'll have way more power overhead for peripherals.

**RS3RS** · 06-08-2005, 03:28 PM

I see no reason why what you listed wouldn't work under a 150 watt OPUS. I have the following on my OPUS 150:

2.4 ghZ Celeron
Two sticks of RAM
One optical drive, one hard drive (7200 RPM)
Digital Camera card reader
TV Tuner card
AGP Video card
PCI audio card
7 inch lilliput
Two case fans
USB "self-powered" hub mouse/keyboard

And I have had no problems at all.

**evandude** · 06-08-2005, 03:45 PM

celerons are supposed to be lower-power versions of P3's... whereas athlon MP's are for high-power servers.

http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm

average power use of an athlon MP 1900+ is 58.9W. two of those, and you're already at almost 120 watts, without even including the mobo, ram, vid card, or any other peripherals.

celeron average power rating is about the same for a 2.4GHz (even though it's a much higher speed processor)... but you're also not running DUAL celerons...

**fuctup** · 06-08-2005, 04:12 PM

id only use 1 procssor id say maybe under-clock it and dont use some high-end video card, or just use on-board cause yourprobly not gona be playing doom3 in your car right? opus should handle it

**Scouse Monkey** · 06-08-2005, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by atow

tdual-proc board

Originally Posted by atow

i want to keep alternator/battery strain to a minimum

those two ideas don't go together. a SINGLE athlon 1900 will be pretty quick for a carPC but if i were you i would look at selling the two processors as i am sure a pair of Athlon MPs would fetch a decent price and go with a mobile athlon 2400 or 2500.

**meddler** · 06-09-2005, 04:16 AM

i had to underclock my athlon XP1600+. It would reset the opus at random intervals. It was doing my head in just quitely. I have underclocked it to 1050mhz and it seems to be fine. Note that I am also using a 3.5" HDD. I am going to try it with a 2.5" HDD so see if I can set the chip back to standard settings.

**atow** · 06-09-2005, 10:48 AM

hey meddler... i see you removed your setup-wanna sell some of those parts to me? i'm doing a super-valu setup... using a lot of already owned and ebay'ed parts. also, i've been reading threads, but some of the topics are running over my head. front side bus... i know "what it is" in that i know it matters when building machines, but dont understand how the speed effects the processor and such. Can you down jump your fsb from 233 to 166 or wahtever frequency and cause the processor to underclock? people talking about the processor as having a multiplier factor and such. FSB multiplies processor to get final clockspeed? I have some IT experience and am familiar w/ components and stuff, just not wich chipset technologies, FSB =P, stuff like that. why does a 2.5"HD allow you to go back to standard settings... the 3.5 takes too much power?

dankyou.

**meddler** · 06-10-2005, 01:59 AM

Originally Posted by atow

hey meddler... i see you removed your setup-wanna sell some of those parts to me? i'm doing a super-valu setup... using a lot of already owned and ebay'ed parts. also, i've been reading threads, but some of the topics are running over my head. front side bus... i know "what it is" in that i know it matters when building machines, but dont understand how the speed effects the processor and such. Can you down jump your fsb from 233 to 166 or wahtever frequency and cause the processor to underclock? people talking about the processor as having a multiplier factor and such. FSB multiplies processor to get final clockspeed? I have some IT experience and am familiar w/ components and stuff, just not wich chipset technologies, FSB =P, stuff like that. why does a 2.5"HD allow you to go back to standard settings... the 3.5 takes too much power?

dankyou.

Just because my computer is removed, it doesn't mean that it's not going back in. Sorry.

I pulled it out to try to sort out the power and a few other problems that I had. Also the way the machine was set up was very ghetto, just ask some of the guys for the Sydney meet! So I am just trying to find the time to put it all in properly.
You are pretty much right with reducing the clock speed. The machine runs slower / cooler and uses less power. My Athlon plus having a 3.5" HDD is right on the limit of the 12V current draw. It was causing the PSU to reboot the machine. I reduced my cpu frequency from 133MHz to 100MHz by changing some jumpers on the mobo.
The 2.5" HDD is a soulution because these drives only use 5V from the PSU whereas the 3.5" HDD uses both 12V and 5V (mainly 12V). Infact, some 3.5" drives can draw up to 2 amps on spinup. Consider how much current the CPU uses and you can see how it could easily trip the over current protection in the opus.