Energy saving, have my graphic card turn off when not in use

[arjfca]

Well not so for the energy than to reduce the temperature in my office.

I need to maintain my PC on 24/24 because I'm capturing some data. Recently, i opted for a new graphic card. Since, the temperature as increase a lot in my room office.

Is there a way to turn off or reduce the energy consumption by my system while maintaining it a live on the net when I'm not actively using it.

To help, I turn of my 3 screens, but still quite hot in here.

Any help appreciated

Martin

 

[seavixen32]

To be fair, I think with the amount of heat you're talking about, you might want to consider some air conditioning.

Portable units are reasonably cheap.

 

[arjfca]

To be fair, I think with the amount of heat you're talking about, you might want to consider some air conditioning.

Portable units are reasonably cheap.

Not the solution that I'm looking for, but thanks

Sure it is not expensive now, but another source of noise in my small office, + need to block a window to install the air intake / outtake.

Have a good day

Martin

 

[Corazon]

To be honest, it's a bit hard to believe that a single videocard could make such a big difference to an entire office. That said, I can think of two ways to reduce its power consumption (and therefore heat emission and fan speed).

One would be to look into power management, possibly you can have Windows put the videocard into a sleep state which would also put your monitor(s) into standby.

The other way which might be less desirable would be to underclock the card's core and memory speeds.

 

[arjfca]

To be honest, it's a bit hard to believe that a single videocard could make such a big difference to an entire office. That said, I can think of two ways to reduce its power consumption (and therefore heat emission and fan speed).

One would be to look into power management, possibly you can have Windows put the videocard into a sleep state which would also put your monitor(s) into standby.

The other way which might be less desirable would be to underclock the card's core and memory speeds.

OK, I will look in Windows power saving mode. Strange that it not obvious to do that. A video card does not need to be running when not in use. A single hit on the keyboard or the mouse could be use to power it on.

As mentionned, I need my PC to be on to collect data. While CPU and disk need to be running, my walls does not need to see my screen for me .... If not in front of my PC then it could be turn off.

It was already hot in my little office (90 sqf) before the installation the graphic card. Now it is just too much.

Martin

 

[stormy13]

What video card? Depending on what it is it should have a low power mode and a 3D or full power mode, where it runs in low power mode when not in use.

 

[arjfca]

What video card? Depending on what it is it should have a low power mode and a 3D or full power mode, where it runs in low power mode when not in use.

The card is an Asus EAH4870

Martin

 

[stormy13]

It will be a bit different from one system to the next depending on the rest of the components, but this should give you an idea of the difference between idle/low power and under load,

ASUS Radeon HD 4870 TOP 512MB Graphics Card - Power Consumption Tests :: TweakTown USA Edition

Also do you have the proper AMD driver installed,

ATI Radeon

for it or is it using the default Windows driver? If the default Windows driver, as far as I know advanced features like the low power mode doesn't work.

And to answer your original question, no you cannot "turn off" the video card when not in use. If you don't need the power of the HD 4870 might be worth looking at something like the low end HD 6450; much lower power use (only adds around 20-25W to the system total), much quieter (can even get them fanless).

 

[arjfca]

Thank you for the info