Linux machine power consumption

kbarani · 11-04-2009, 11:57 PM

Hi all,

How to get the Linux machine total electrical power consumption through program, my operating system fedora core 9 , desktop version.

Thanks,
Barani

salasi · 11-05-2009, 03:43 AM

I don't know of a way of doing exactly what you ask for.

The motherboard has no idea of how efficient (or otherwise) the power supply is and that makes a big difference to the power drawn from the wall (ie, the total power consumption).

The bios knows the voltages on various supplies, but doesn't know the currents drawn, so can't be used for power measurement, unless there is a separate way of measuring current (and you could do this, but you would need to interface the current measuring tool to your computer).

The easiest thing to do is to plug in a meter that measures the total power consumption. These are (relatively) inexpensive and easy to get, but don't usually have an interface that you could use from your computer.

Jim Bengtson · 11-05-2009, 08:37 AM

Maybe this will help:

Quote:

Reduce Linux power consumption, Part 1: The CPUfreq subsystem
Meet all the power-efficiency tuning components for Linux on System x
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/li...q-1/index.html

Summary: This three-part series is your starting point for tuning your system for power efficiency. In Part 1, get up to speed on the components and concepts you need to fine-tune a Linux-based System x server for power efficiency. Learn how to enable the Linux CPUfreq subsystem, get instruction on C and P states, and determine which of the five in-kernel governors you need to boost power efficiency on your system.