The Power Usage Of A 50+ Linux System Benchmarking Farm

[Michael]

At least power is cheap for you. :-)

We use 3000kWh per year (i.e. ~250kWh per month), and the bill is like 70€ each month. 100% renewable energy (at least on paper) though. It's 10€ fixed cost per month and then 0.24€ for each kWh.

Are your benchmark machines running 24/7? If not, maybe a combination of scripted shutdown after the daily benchmark routine is done and wake-on-LAN could reduce that power usage by a lot.

Not all systems have benchmarks run 24/7. See my earlier post, but yeah unfortunately many motherboards even when enabled for all the relevant power-on options, still fail with WoL.

[chrisb]

Not all systems have benchmarks run 24/7. See my earlier post, but yeah unfortunately many motherboards even when enabled for all the relevant power-on options, still fail with WoL.

Do you mean WOL for the onboard adaptor? If so there are USB network adaptors that do WOL. I've seen StarTech ethernet recommended for this but I'm sure there are others, I think the cheap AX88179 gigabit adaptors do too. USB wakeup should be more reliable than regular WOL.

[Michael]

Do you mean WOL for the onboard adaptor? If so there are USB network adaptors that do WOL. I've seen StarTech ethernet recommended for this but I'm sure there are others, I think the cheap AX88179 gigabit adaptors do too. USB wakeup should be more reliable than regular WOL.

I've tried some low-cost Plugable USB ethernet adapters on the problematic WoL systems for the integrated ethernet and generally they've still failed to boot, even when the relevant power management options are enabled, etc.

[DrYak]

generally they've still failed to boot, even when the relevant power management options are enabled, etc.

At this point, it might be worth considering a network-controlled power strip/outlet.
They are very popular in server rooms to be able to remotely power cycle, but in your case, it can be handy to automatically power cycle motherboard that can't be WoL.

Also, at some point of time, you'll probably need to start investigating into solar power ;-)

[Michael]

At this point, it might be worth considering a network-controlled power strip/outlet.
They are very popular in server rooms to be able to remotely power cycle, but in your case, it can be handy to automatically power cycle motherboard that can't be WoL.

Also, at some point of time, you'll probably need to start investigating into solar power ;-)

For every network-controlled power strip I've seen, they've been in the range of $20~30 per socket, in general terms. Albeit that may pay itself off in time but then in many of these cases I'd just be better off buying new motherboards since the newer motherboards generally serve better for having reliable WoL. I've already replaced some of the SNB/IVB motherboards due to failures and such that in the long run might be more reliable just replacing the motherboards.

Solar power has too much up-front cost for what it'd be worth.