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mcr2582 · 05-15-2005, 12:35 AM

Back in the early iMac days, Steve Jobs commented on how little power they drew while asleep. I did a quick search and found this, which leads me to believe that there should be no problem powering the mini while asleep. I believe all Macs operate on 12 and 5 volts.. so I would think a powerbook adapter could be modified to operate a Mini directly from 12 volt DC.

Quote:

I plugged the power brick of my Mac Mini into a simple integrating power meter. Here is what I measured:

Off 0-2 Watts
Booting 30-40 Watts
Idle 25 Watts
Sleep 3-5 Watts, almost always 3 Watts

The power brick is rated at 85 Watts output. I have yet to measure power consumption during a compute-intensive task such as DVD playback.

I think the 40 Watt max was during hard disk and DVD spin-up at boot time. Idle means that the disk is spinning, booted, logged in, at the Finder with no user input.

I have a rather complex array of stuff plugged into the Mini via USB; there are two switches and at least one USB cable with in-line LED indicators, a wireless receiver for keyboard and mouse (Gyration, recommended, works fine with Mac or PC).

Of course this power reading does not include the monitor or the external FireWire disk.

I note that this power consumption level compares favorably with my 15-inch aluminum PowerBook, which has approximately the same specifications as the Mac Mini (but cost 3 times as much). The 15 PowerBook draws about 25 Watts nominally, about twice that under heavy compute load or charging the battery while running (as opposed to charging the battery during sleep).
(http://www.macintouch.com/macmini05.html)

05-15-2005, 12:35 AM	#20
mcr2582 Newbie Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 4 My Photos: ()	Power Consumption Back in the early iMac days, Steve Jobs commented on how little power they drew while asleep. I did a quick search and found this, which leads me to believe that there should be no problem powering the mini while asleep. I believe all Macs operate on 12 and 5 volts.. so I would think a powerbook adapter could be modified to operate a Mini directly from 12 volt DC. Quote: I plugged the power brick of my Mac Mini into a simple integrating power meter. Here is what I measured: Off 0-2 Watts Booting 30-40 Watts Idle 25 Watts Sleep 3-5 Watts, almost always 3 Watts The power brick is rated at 85 Watts output. I have yet to measure power consumption during a compute-intensive task such as DVD playback. I think the 40 Watt max was during hard disk and DVD spin-up at boot time. Idle means that the disk is spinning, booted, logged in, at the Finder with no user input. I have a rather complex array of stuff plugged into the Mini via USB; there are two switches and at least one USB cable with in-line LED indicators, a wireless receiver for keyboard and mouse (Gyration, recommended, works fine with Mac or PC). Of course this power reading does not include the monitor or the external FireWire disk. I note that this power consumption level compares favorably with my 15-inch aluminum PowerBook, which has approximately the same specifications as the Mac Mini (but cost 3 times as much). The 15 PowerBook draws about 25 Watts nominally, about twice that under heavy compute load or charging the battery while running (as opposed to charging the battery during sleep). (http://www.macintouch.com/macmini05.html)

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