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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 19.04.2011 - 16:20 ]

My Eee 900A consumes about 25W when connected to 230V (measured at the power outlet, i.e. including loss of the PSU). when on battery my calculation is at abot 10W, since the battery holds about 35Wh and teh device runs 3.5 hrs on battery.
Btw. my Efika with Radeon 9250, harddisk and 10" screen draws about 30W (measured at the power outlet, i.e. including loss of the PSU).

I always wanted to mesure this myself, I have a multimeter but sice I am not educated in these things I am not 100% what to put it on and how to calculate it. Any hints ?

Quote:

I would like to point out that the cited 10W for the Eee 900A also include the power consumption of a 9 inch *display*, wi-fi chipset and a much higher amount of system memory than is included with the Cherrypal C114 (1GB vs. 256MB).

Keeping these details in mind, I will leave it upto to the interested readers here on MorphZone to decide for themselves how unique the power consumption of a 5121e-based Cherrypal C114 really is.

There are several ways to measure.
The easiest: Grab a meter to plug into the outlet like this http://www.dealbattle.de/images/img_158.jpg
That's how I measured my Eee and Efika.
More advanced (if you want to get rid of the PSU loss): Either use a normal multimeter and plg it between your device and psu and just measure the current. Or If you don't want to mess around with the real current you may measure the inductio by usig a device like this: http://www.famberg.de/php_images/tumb.pimg?id=3116&b=350&h=300
But if you want to measure in-circuit currents it gets more complicated...


@ Velcro_SP

Don't mix numbers of different Ato processors. Netbooks usually use the N270 which is really low power (when downstepped). The currently used northbridges are bad, but Intel announced new ones for late this year. competition gets closer, but ppc and ARM still are very competetive.

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 27.04.2011 - 07:04 ]

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 19.04.2011 - 16:29 ]

"Seems" is the keyword here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

"The 901 features an Intel Atom Diamondville CPU clocked at 1.6GHz, an "expanded" battery (listed as 6-cell), and "Super Hybrid Engine" software for power management which will provide a battery life of 4.2 to 7.8 hours."

"The Eee PC 900A features almost the same specs as the Eee PC 901 (except the primary SSD, Bluetooth, 1.3M pixel webcam and the 6-cell battery, that has been replaced by a 4-cell battery) but in a case nearly the same as used at the Eee PC 900 model."

Official ASUS product web page

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 27.04.2011 - 07:02 ]

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 19.04.2011 - 16:27 ]

Well, wikipedia...
The very 900A I am typing this actual post on features an N270. Most of the time I have the WLAN enabled.
When on battery it downclocks a lot. The ugly powerhog in there is the northbrige (IIRC 945 GSE which peaks at 22W TDP under full load).

The only bad thing I discovered on the Eee is that it is x86 and thus never will feature MorphOS. Additional bad features are that Linux IMO is a PITA and the Xandros deliverd with the Eee is a *major* PITA (oh, and they really should get their act together and improve the touchpad driver or whatever causes these freaking mouse pointer behaviour).
Apart from that the Eee is very, very, very close to that device I once outlined in some communication with BBRV which I would have based on the MPC5200 back then (8-10" 800x600 screen, SSD, SD card slot, cheap, low power, not relying on windows, and so on). A bit later the Efika was announced and I had big hopes for such a device. Well, iit came other and in the end it was Asus who built it - but not with a ppc, but this freaking x86 called Atom (which in German has the same meaning as nuclear in terms of nuclear bombs and such...) and a crappy norhbridge. But the entire device is very convincing and sometimes late at night I am sitting there, silently crying when thinking how MorphOS would have taken off *if* this "Eclipsis reloaded" had come in time (1-2 yeras before the original Eee). But that's life, Asus is a big company - they can do such things...

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 19.04.2011 - 16:36 ]

I guess Max Seybold is switching to the N270 for a reason: It has much, much more raw computing power than a 5121, which is more or less en par with the 5200 used in the Efika (the 5121 has a bigger chache). And while I really like my Efika (whith MorphOS of course) I must confess a 5121 netbook *today* is just too little, too late. Two years ago before Intel rolled out the Atom and b4 Asus presented the original celeron b based Eee such a device coud have sold like hot cakes. But now...
Of course the Atom + chipset is more expensive than a 5121, but not that much. Especially when you consider the additional cost of case, battery, display, ssd, ram. The total cost of an Atom based device and a 5121 based one is very similar (btw.: because of the same calculation I am not too optimistic for potential ARM netbooks).
A 8610 based device would be quite another story (it woud be fast enough to compete with the Atom, retail price could be more or less the same), but I don't see anybody producing it. And I cannot - I neither have the required funds for such a big endeveavour nor the knowledge (I am a biologist).

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 19.04.2011 - 16:31 ]

What do you think the consumer cares most about? That the batteries last one more hour, or that it runs Windows?

Velcro_SP, google for N270 and northbridge. The nettop boxes don't use the N270 Atom. Plus the Northbridge 945GSE *when* running under full load is a powerhog. It sucks up to 22W. But Intel put powermangement to their chips. When on battery the clock is lowered and the powerconsumption is drastically reduced. Look, my Eee uses 10W when on battery, but about 25W when on 230V (battery not connected to avoid battery loading currents).
The 5121 does 760MIPS for its ppc core and is L2 less. It is a low end chip. Anyway, those 400MHz are sufficient for a lot of things and my Efika handles youtube better than the Eee. but this is, most likely, due to some weird JS/Flash container crap on the youtube site which Firefox is not able to do very good. But Tubexx just replays youtube vids fine. So it really is about what to achieve with teh maschine...
But the Eee handles *all* video partals, while the Efika only handles youtube. So, which system is superior now..?

Nobody yet has confirmed that the AXE core is speeding up things in real life applications. I guess it does, but still there are some cahche coherence issues reported which don't help to benefit from the AXE. Also note that the Atom comes with some MMX and SSE.

As for calculation: a netbook based on Atom and on a 5121 requires more or less the same parts. But where the Atom platform requires a chipset, the 5121 has everything on board. The 5121 is about 40 US $ IIRC (could bequite some less if ordered in real quantities), a N270+chipset is sold by Intel for 65 US$ (IIRC that is, I am too lazy to google around thera are other certain ppl who will provide links if I am wrong ).
The battery, screen, Ram, case are more or less the same compounds. If you assume you get a 5121 based device for 15- 20 % less in production and give those 15% to the customer, well. The Eee 900A is sold for about 300, maybe a 9" 5121 with decent battery will go for 250. The difference is not that huge.Also cost is not only cost of electronic parts, but also software support., If you build you netbook around some Intel reference design, you don't have to spend a single buck to get software support - it is already there. But if you chose some "obscure PPC", well....
Plus, the Atom *can* run Windows. It is very hard to strech the advantages of a 5121 based netbook. Still, I see some:
The power consumption is less and more constant (teh N270+chipset peaks at quite high values, the 5121 doesn't hav esuch a peak). A design can be cheaper, maybe the 5121 in conjunction with other really cheap, cheap compaounds could yield to a significantly lower price, which might attract ppl in not so developed countries (I guess that's teh approach THTF is trying to follow).
But still, competition by Intel is hard.

Hi Velcro, did you ever see this?

Read All About It!

Unscrupulous business practices are what any company working with these folks can expect. We wasted time and money supporting them. They never had any intention of fulfilling their written agreement which followed the referenced letter. You probably did not know that the LimePC was originally defined with MorphOS.

From February until June 2008, we did develop a considerable amount of 5121e specific software directly for Freescale. We developed graphic drivers, AXE code and validated a number of load balancing techniques. We supported openSUSE on the 5121eADS. The lack of cache-coherency made the 5121e less than an optimal solution, but it was the number of chip and board revisions that made this situation a development nightmare.

From June until August, we supported Cherrypal. They proved as reliable as THTF. Our invoices remain unpaid.

Finally, the Freescale manager responsible for IMTD (Infotainment Multimedia and Telematics Division) was fired in November. The Division was dissolved. The 5121e has solid managers now that are focused on the business that the chip was designed to match (Automotive and Industrial). It is not a LimePC.

Freescale's consumer focus is with ARM. The focus for PowerPC as far as Freescale is concerned is industrial and networking. The 8610 is the end-of-the-line for the e600 core. We have not been able to get them to change their thinking on this. Perhaps some success with the i.MX51 and we might try again. We wrote a blog about this today if you are interested: Genetic Recombination.

We also discuss some of Atom's longer term implications for Intel.

R&B

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 19.04.2011 - 16:24 ]

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 19.04.2011 - 16:17 ]

...and the last word we had from Freescale was that THTF still had not paid for the parts that had been delivered.

Here are a few more images. This is the cover of a 48 page document:



And, here is a LimePC at the office next to a EFIKA Open Client last summer. We still have 15-20 of them:



Velco, if the current LimePC management is replaced and THTF honors our agreement, we will work on this platform. Until then, we won't waste another second.

R&B

> Is that guy Jack Campbell still there?

http://www.aboutjack.com/limepc.shtml

At least doesn't sound as if he's involved full time anymore.


Edit:

Original find of Campbell's website URL:
http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2008/07/smaller-pcs-cause-worry-for-industry.html (comment 1)

And more evidence he isn't at THTF anymore:

"Did you work for a China company?
Yes... I was Vice President/Strategic Development for Tsinghua Tongfang for one-year, a US$20 billion market cap China tier-one consumer electronics manufacturer. During my time there I designed and brought to market five category defining new hit product lines, including the LimePC brand of PowerPC based miniaturized consumer personal computers at CES 2008."
http://www.aboutjack.com/faq.shtml

"In mid-2007 I accepted a job as Vice President of Strategic Business Development for Tsinghua Tongfang Co., Ltd., a $20 billion market cap public company in China. Working from their Shenzhen R&D facilty I steered a group of exciting new products through the design, development, and go-to-market process, including an all-new line of miniature PowerPC-based personal computer products under the company's new LimePC brand name, shown at CES 2008 in Las Vegas to a terrific response from both media and the market. I left THTF to return to full-time consulting in Spring 2008."
http://www.aboutjack.com/bio.html

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf on 2009/1/19 19:03 ]

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 27.04.2011 - 07:00 ]

> The 8610 is the end-of-the-line for the e600 core.

So can we look forward to the e700 eventually? ;-)

@ Andreas Wolf

http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbmessage.pl/amiga/160792.shtml

> http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbmessage.pl/amiga/160792.shtml

Yes, I know the e700 route isn't pursued by Freescale anymore for a long time. My question wasn't really meant seriously :-) Also power.org's Power Architecture Silicon Roadmap doesn't mention it anymore.

From your moobunny posting:

> the e600 as current top edge Freescale ppc core just handles its
> tasks well

Then why are Freescale going to put the e600 EOL (according to BBRV)?

> to me the most [...] promising way freescale will continue with ppc
> is the QorIQ network processor route - IIRC there the e500 core s used.

Right, it's e500. And that's as well the reason the QorIQ is not the least promising for me as a desktop Power Architecture (i.e. MorphOS) user. The e500's (and e200's) FPU implementation is incompatible with the one of the e300 and e600 (and the PPC4xx, the PPC7xx and the PPC970 for that matter).