Insane Power Usage on Idle 70W with HDDs off, 150W with HDDs on

[Hexenhammer]

Hello,

I just got Tuya smart sockets and they pair troughs wifi with phone app, most people use them to remotely on/off and schedule function but they have power monitor and thats what i need them for.

 

Im getting 150W on boot, 130W on idle with all HDD's on and 70W when I turn off ALL hdds and ssds except single U.2 4Tb enterprise drive that just doesn't turn off   [maybe it has internal devsleep function or something]

My spec is in my signature, CPU set to 50W in bios

in unraid power settings i think unlocked with some plugin i set the  power preset to power save so it downloads the CPU

 

When i had a PSU with USB that would show how much watt is used, my main PC on idle with 4090 and 13900K used 50-70W with dual pumps and rgb,12 fans and all that

I installed power top on unraid and manually enabled it on all devices except hard drives and non intel SATA cards otherwise they hang when they go off they wont turn on

 

Any ideas?

 

[Frank1940]

Try installing the 'Tips and Tweaks' plugin.  On the settings page for that plugin, you will find a section called "Power Saving Settings".  Play around with those...   

[Hexenhammer]

Just now, Frank1940 said:

Try installing the 'Tips and Tweaks' plugin.  On the settings page for that plugin, you will find a section called "Power Saving Settings".  Play around with those...   

 

I have it and its set to power saver

[Decto]

22 hours ago, Hexenhammer said:

I just got Tuya smart sockets and they pair troughs wifi with phone app, most people use them to remotely on/off and schedule function but they have power monitor and thats what i need them for.

 

 

70W seems about right for your setup if measured at the socket.

 

My XEON E5 idles ~50W with drives spun down, but with an APC BX700 UPS inline it's more like 70W due to losses of 15-20W through the UPS.

If you have similar losses, then 50-55W idle power is likley in the ball park.

Can you test idle power with the UPS bypassed?

 

Z690 is a fully featured PCI-E 5.0 board so has a higher consumption than a basic board.

You have an LSI HBA (7-12W) + 2 ASMEDIA cards, so thats 10 - 15 watts

12HDD + ~6 SSD will be another 10-15 watts in sleep

Assume 20W for the CPU, motherboard, memory, network etc.

 

40-50W base, with PSU likely at <80% efficiency as it's such a low % of output and you'll be right in the 50-60W range before UPS losses.

 

HDD use 7-10W each when spinning or in read/write so spin up 12 of those and you easily add 80-100W.

 

Edited February 21, 2023 by Decto
Added HDD power

[Hexenhammer]

3 minutes ago, Decto said:

 

70W seems about right for your setup if measured at the socket.

 

My XEON E5 idles ~50W with drives spun down, but with an APC BX700 UPS inline it's more like 70W due to losses of 15-20W through the UPS.

If you have similar losses, then 50-55W idle power is likley in the ball park.

Can you test idle power with the UPS bypassed?

 

Z690 is a fully featured PCI-E 5.0 board so has a higher consumption than a basic board.

You have an LSI HBA (7-12W) + 2 ASMEDIA cards, so thats 10 - 15 watts

12HDD + ~6 SSD will be another 10-15 watts in sleep

Assume 20W for the CPU, motherboard, memory, network etc.

 

40-50W base, with PSU likely at <80% efficiency as it's such a low % of output and you'll be right in the 50-60W range before UPS losses.

 

HDD use 7-10W each when spinning or in read/write so spin up 12 of those and you easily add 80-100W.

 

 

 

The power meter is connected to  UPS socket, so if i connect it to the wall i bet the number will be higher, it measures how much power the PC takes from UPS

 

The LSI has one port broken off, so im using just 1 port and 4 drives

Would it be more economical to get a new one and take out one JMB585, or get another JMB585 and not use LSI

Im going to change the RAM to JEDEC defaults now [disable XMP its unnecessary], the issue is that i have good 64Gb gskill RGB kit and use half of it, i covered the RGB with electrical type, but its turned on 24/7

Also im going to disable all but 6 P-Cores and see how it goes, eventually i plan to get 12400 CPU for the unraid its 6 cores and use the 12700 for my backup PC

 

I have all power features enabled in the BIOS, like the C states and PCIe management

 

Should I get like a platinum 400W PSU? I mean  it shows just 150W usage when boots, i need to run Parity check to make all HDDS work at their peak to see real maximum usage, right?

 

[Frank1940]

As you push to get power usage lower, remember to consider the power used by such mundane things like fans and LEDs...

[Decto]

You'll likely save a few watts replacing the LSI card but in the UK (33p, 0.4$ KWH) 10W is ~ £30 a year so ROI could be 12 months or more depending on saving and cost.

The chips on these LSI cards are old so use relatively high power even on idle, though they are great for bandwidth.

 

PSU again is likely to be marginal gains, really hard to find a 400W platinum and even then assuming you save 10W (very optomistic) then you'd still be looking at 3+ years for payback.  Same with the CPU, likely very little difference in idle power consumption between 12400 and 12700 as the cores will all be in sleep mode when idle. One of the issue is the high end boards have a lot of individual VRM stages which are great for high power loads but it kills the efficiency at low power and idle.

 

Removing RGB if possible, case fan management, each fan can be 2-5W so it all adds up. 

 

 

 

 

[Frank1940]

38 minutes ago, Hexenhammer said:

Should I get like a platinum 400W PSU?

Be sure to find out what the inrush current when the drives spin up and Unraid will spin up all drives simultaneously on startup and for any full parity operations that are required.  Most PS will almost instantaneously shutdown if the peak current exceeds the spec limit.  Plus, on the +12V buss the power rating is often equal to the total power rating of the PS.  You have to read the specs very carefully.  You have ten drives (if I have counted correctly) on the array.  Using the very old number of 3amps inrush per drive, you would need a min of 30A.  (Modern drives are probably closer to 2A inrush but you should check the specs since you are using a single manufacturer's model type.)  And I have not even considered those drives that you are using your caches.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Frank1940

[Hexenhammer]

1 minute ago, Decto said:

You'll likely save a few watts replacing the LSI card but in the UK (33p, 0.4$ KWH) 10W is ~ £30 a year so ROI could be 12 months or more depending on saving and cost.

The chips on these LSI cards are old so use relatively high power even on idle, though they are great for bandwidth.

 

PSU again is likely to be marginal gains, really hard to find a 400W platinum and even then assuming you save 10W (very optomistic) then you'd still be looking at 3+ years for payback.  Same with the CPU, likely very little difference in idle power consumption between 12400 and 12700 as the cores will all be in sleep mode when idle. One of the issue is the high end boards have a lot of individual VRM stages which are great for high power loads but it kills the efficiency at low power and idle.

 

Removing RGB if possible, case fan management, each fan can be 2-5W so it all adds up. 

 

 

 

im using phanteks  719 case now, it has cages at the front, 12 cages so i have x4 120mm fans blowing at them i think i set to 700rpm its enough and i have x2 140W blowing up, out of the case, cpu has one 120mm

and i have small 20 or 40mm fans, one on 10G network card heatsink and one on LSI HBA heatsink

In theory i can in stall x3 140mm fans in the front, instead of the four 120mm

Need to check which ones i have, i do have a bunch but they like with RGB, i have some noctuas [like on the top] but not 3 extra for the front, maybe 2 more for sure

 

We pay 0.14GBP per kilowatt, but we [3 people] use a lot, at lest i think its a lot

winter [no room heating but we do heat water] we have between 700-950Kw for 30 days.

Summer time with 2 ACs at peak we had 1600Kw for 30 days and summer is long here till the end of October

 

 

[Hexenhammer]

1 minute ago, Frank1940 said:

Be sure to find out what the inrush current when the drives spin up and Unraid will spin up all drives simultaneously on startup and for any full parity operations that are required.  Most PS will almost instantaneously shutdown if the peak current exceeds the spec limit.  Plus, on the +12V buss the power rating is often equal to the total power rating of the PS.  You have to read the specs very carefully.  You have ten drives (if I have counted correctly) on the array.  Using the very old number of 3amps inrush per drive, you would need a min of 30A.  (Modern drives are probably closer to 2A inrush but you should check the specs since you are using a single manufacturer's model type.)  And I have not even considered that drives, you are using your caches.

 

I think ATX 3.0 single rail platinum should be good

 

[ConnerVT]

55 minutes ago, Hexenhammer said:

The power meter is connected to  UPS socket, so if i connect it to the wall i bet the number will be higher, it measures how much power the PC takes from UPS

 

Just as a test, try plugging the computer directly into the wall outlet vs into the UPS.  It may be the output signal from the UPS isn't a true sine waver (regardless of what the manufacturer says) and your power meter isn't interpreting it properly.

[Decto]

11 minutes ago, Hexenhammer said:

 

im using phanteks  719 case now, it has cages at the front, 12 cages so i have x4 120mm fans blowing at them i think i set to 700rpm its enough and i have x2 140W blowing up, out of the case, cpu has one 120mm

and i have small 20 or 40mm fans, one on 10G network card heatsink and one on LSI HBA heatsink

In theory i can in stall x3 140mm fans in the front, instead of the four 120mm

Need to check which ones i have, i do have a bunch but they like with RGB, i have some noctuas [like on the top] but not 3 extra for the front, maybe 2 more for sure

 

We pay 0.14GBP per kilowatt, but we [3 people] use a lot, at lest i think its a lot

winter [no room heating but we do heat water] we have between 700-950Kw for 30 days.

Summer time with 2 ACs at peak we had 1600Kw for 30 days and summer is long here till the end of October

 

 

 

I'm fairly consistent at 600KWh / month as we use gas for heat and summer we only get a few hot days.

 

Based on your electricity cost, I'd say spending on new parts is not likely to save for years unless you can resell the old parts at a good price so it's really a question of payback time vs investment. At least the waste heat is useful in winter!

 

I'm in the same situation somewhat, I could slim down my system and save power but the payback is ~5 years based on the cost of new hardward and potential saving.... so I stick with what I have and review in a few years when I've had more use from my hardware and their may be even more efficient options on the market.

 

I am considering changing my UPS to either a Cyberpower or better spec APC as the power wastage is supposed to be 3-5W rather than 15-20W however reviews don't seem to cover pass through loss. For £100- £150 my greatest power saving would be a new UPS, but even then payback likely to be 3+ years and the I just put a new battery in mine.

 

[Hexenhammer]

1 minute ago, Decto said:

 

I'm fairly consistent at 600KWh / month as we use gas for heat and summer we only get a few hot days.

 

Based on your electricity cost, I'd say spending on new parts is not likely to save for years unless you can resell the old parts at a good price so it's really a question of payback time vs investment. At least the waste heat is useful in winter!

 

I'm in the same situation somewhat, I could slim down my system and save power but the payback is ~5 years based on the cost of new hardward and potential saving.... so I stick with what I have and review in a few years when I've had more use from my hardware and their may be even more efficient options on the market.

 

I am considering changing my UPS to either a Cyberpower or better spec APC as the power wastage is supposed to be 3-5W rather than 15-20W however reviews don't seem to cover pass through loss. For £100- £150 my greatest power saving would be a new UPS, but even then payback likely to be 3+ years and the I just put a new battery in mine.

 

 

 

I need a new UPS too, I have simple ups [EasyUPS from APC] right now for the unraid it has no USB and no special UPS sockets like you plug cables into, but 4 international sockets, the model is APC BV1000i-MCX, these look likle they meant to be used for TV's and otehr equipment that just plugged in.

 

And for my Gaming PC i have some Chinese [Armor Line] model that uses 2 batteries that i replaced to good ones already, i think its 1200W, but the USB is non standard and only works with their idiotic software, i tested with unraid and it doesn't work.

 

Yesterday we had a power outage for like 3 minutes, and i noticed that i can't turn off my unraid, the router and switch is down so i have no access to the web menu.

 

So i think i need to use the unRaid's EasyUPS for my network equipment, than take my old gaming pc 1200W ups and use it for unraid

and get something good 2000W with good USB for my gaming PC [13900K, 4090, custom loop, dual pumps, 12 fans and so on] so it needs a good UPS, especially if power goes out when im gaming, so it wont end the battery in like 2 minutes while im turning the game off, i want something that uses at least 3-4 batteries, maybe one of the UPS models that feed the PC directly 24/7, but i heard these models eat batteries faster then standard UPS models, so they end up expensive?

we can have a full year without any outages, on bad year we can have 1-2, but what we have like at least once every 2 months and sometimes on bad days like 3-5 times a day, Micro outage that like if someone turned OFF and On, you know like 1 second outage, so for my PCs the current UPS were doing fine dealing with something like this.