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[Technology] OT to distract from a shite day - IT folks



maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
This is a bit random but one for IT people and there are a coupla questions, hardware isnt really my bag, and answers appreciated for a project I want to work on

Can you get a keyboard with 2 USB ports build into it
Do you know the cheapest to run Energy saving monitor, the cheaper the better and size doesnt matter, and what does it cost to run vs a standard PC with 17" monitor vs the cheapest/most cost effective energy saving one with a raspberry PI (as a rough % I need to be able to say with a PI and energy efficient monitor vs PC and your current monitor we can save you x% on electricity bills/licencing + reduce your delivery bill and save you desk space whilst reducing your companys carbon foot print and saving you money)

I know these questions should be directed at an IT forum but NSC never fails except in the whats this pub post so I thought I would give it a shot with [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION] [MENTION=785]clippedgull[/MENTION] @beorehelm [MENTION=1225]Wardy[/MENTION]stwin and other clever ****ers on there

So long story short I want to create the cheapest station and energy wise that can do the following reduction in electricity bill is the USP

Run Linux (Centos) on a PI (Mounted behind the screen)
Run a browser (Chome)
Linux Open Office
A SIP phone (Xlite or Voiper)

1 USB port from the PI mounted at the back of the monitor, connecting to the keyboard with two USB ports connect to a USB head set and mouse

Your thoughts geeks? Cost efficiency is the key on both hardware and running costs. If I had 300 screens and PCs vs 300 PIs and Energy saving monitors how can I work out how much that would save?


Today, 16:17 [MENTION=22389]bashlsdir[/MENTION]
 
Last edited:

happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
7,928
Eastbourne
A Pi will draw about 300mA. @ 5v thats about 1.5 Watts.

Electric costs about 13p per kw/h.

So you get 666 hours for 13p

So it costs about a quid a year to run
 

maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
A Pi will draw about 300mA. @ 5v thats about 1.5 Watts.

Electric costs about 13p per kw/h.

So you get 666 hours for 13p

So it costs about a quid a year to run

Thanks thats useful. Any idea how much a desktop would cost per year (this really isnt my bag)
 

beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
35,237
there are online calculators that will work this out if you know the power (Watts) or current (Amp).

a basic desktop would be about 60-80 Watts under idle-light load. start loading (processing) and that rises, to a basic PC with GPU running full bore at 250W+. A Pi is pretty flat as its built around phone processors, but limited in raw processing power so it depends on the likely load if its going to be suitable.

LCD monitor is abtou 20-30W? you'd need to look up the specific model, though smaller will be lower. i've seen keyboards with USB but not common and probably relativly expensive compard to cheapest keyboard. Pi now have 4 ports so why need the ports, conveninent access?
 

happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
7,928
Eastbourne
I would use a powered USB hub to drive the Pi and peripherals.
Power the hub, Plug Pi in to one of the ports. Feed the input to the hub from the Pi. You then have 3 (or 7) ports to run keyboard & mouse plus a spare one.
 


maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
there are online calculators that will work this out if you know the power (Watts) or current (Amp).

a basic desktop would be about 60-80 Watts under idle-light load. start loading (processing) and that rises, to a basic PC with GPU running full bore at 250W+. A Pi is pretty flat as its built around phone processors, but limited in raw processing power so it depends on the likely load if its going to be suitable.

LCD monitor is abtou 20-30W? you'd need to look up the specific model, though smaller will be lower. i've seen keyboards with USB but not common and probably relativly expensive compard to cheapest keyboard. Pi now have 4 ports so why need the ports, conveninent access?

I didnt know you could get 4 ports on a PI which sound cheaper therefore I think preferable than the cheapest keyboard I found 28GBP with 2 ports. Yes the thinking is easier support and convenience with USB headsets/mice
 


maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
there are online calculators that will work this out if you know the power (Watts) or current (Amp).

a basic desktop would be about 60-80 Watts under idle-light load. start loading (processing) and that rises, to a basic PC with GPU running full bore at 250W+. A Pi is pretty flat as its built around phone processors, but limited in raw processing power so it depends on the likely load if its going to be suitable.

LCD monitor is abtou 20-30W? you'd need to look up the specific model, though smaller will be lower. i've seen keyboards with USB but not common and probably relativly expensive compard to cheapest keyboard. Pi now have 4 ports so why need the ports, conveninent access?

The load is all pretty much server side on a MySql/MariaDB (or indeed SQLServer/Postres/Oracle but mostly open source) so minimum local CPU required, the lower the power consumed the better
 

maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
I would use a powered USB hub to drive the Pi and peripherals.
Power the hub, Plug Pi in to one of the ports. Feed the input to the hub from the Pi. You then have 3 (or 7) ports to run keyboard & mouse plus a spare one.

That sounds alright but as Beorhelm mentioned I thing having the ports in the PI would be preferred I just want 3, keyboard, mouse, and headset. More ports is a pain in the arse as would have to implement some kind of group policies to stop staff sticking their phones on charge etc
 


happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
7,928
Eastbourne
That sounds alright but as Beorhelm mentioned I thing having the ports in the PI would be preferred I just want 3, keyboard, mouse, and headset. More ports is a pain in the arse as would have to implement some kind of group policies to stop staff sticking their phones on charge etc

Fair enough, it's just that a Pi with 4 USB ports draws more current that an older one with two.
 

maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
Fair enough, it's just that a Pi with 4 USB ports draws more current that an older one with two.

Yeah I need to do some math

PI 3b ordered this morning. Unfortunately yeah it does seem to consume more power, though better when idle (whih wont happen too much) . However the USB ports and wireless might mean dont need to invest in cat 5 cabling and switches. Ees complicated
 

happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
7,928
Eastbourne
Yeah I need to do some math

PI 3b ordered this morning. Unfortunately yeah it does seem to consume more power, though better when idle (whih wont happen too much) . However the USB ports and wireless might mean dont need to invest in cat 5 cabling and switches. Ees complicated

Running business critical over WiFi ? I wouldn't. Radio should be the absolute last resort in a fixed network; I work with point-to-point radio regularly and it's a pain in the arse.
 


maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
Running business critical over WiFi ? I wouldn't. Radio should be the absolute last resort in a fixed network; I work with point-to-point radio regularly and it's a pain in the arse.

Yeah I have to (or my clients) need to deal with microwave links so an internal Wifi is not a concern, its more of a bother getting line of sight and chopping branches off some trees/getting up a ladder
 

beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
35,237
Fair enough, it's just that a Pi with 4 USB ports draws more current that an older one with two.

may be difficult to get hold of the older ones, they may be more expensive.

not sure what the usage is here for such attention to power. once you drop >90% from standard desktop to Pi, worrying about the 100mW between models isnt going to be much different. lighting will be more that the cost of Pi+LCD screen.
 

boik

Well-known member
I run loads of stuff on various Raspberry Pis, but have found that the weak link is using the SD card for the O/S. They can get corrupted very easily if people just pull the power mid-write. I love them and they might be OK for just running a lightweight desktop if you keep a load of ready configured SD cards handy.

Good luck.
 

maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
I run loads of stuff on various Raspberry Pis, but have found that the weak link is using the SD card for the O/S. They can get corrupted very easily if people just pull the power mid-write. I love them and they might be OK for just running a lightweight desktop if you keep a load of ready configured SD cards handy.

Good luck.

Yeah the SD cards I can have a job lot made, will just need to change the IP address if I need to hot swap em
 


boik

Well-known member
Yeah the SD cards I can have a job lot made, will just need to change the IP address if I need to hot swap em

You could use dhcp and then assign fixed IP addresses from your server. Cards could be identical then. I run my home automation server on an rpi3 but because it is critical I mount the card r/o and use tempfs for any writes. Took a while to identify them all but it’s been reliable since.
 

maffew

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
8,858
Worcester England
A Pi will draw about 300mA. @ 5v thats about 1.5 Watts.

Electric costs about 13p per kw/h.

So you get 666 hours for 13p

So it costs about a quid a year to run

OK and @beorhelm

I think we have got the cost to run pretty much 24/7/365 on about 8 quid a year as opposed to 180 per staff member

The next challenge to reduce cost is which codec to use for voice vs data g711 or g729 I have no idea how to fricking work this out with compression vs CPU on a PI and voice quality. On a side note I couldnt get Windows 10 working on a PI on 2 gig
 

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