[ale] Linux Router/Gateway Usage

[Pat Regan]

On Sat, 7 Aug 2010 12:42:25 -0400
David Ritchie <deritchie at gmail.com> wrote:

> The biggest problem is that power is expensive, especially if you have
> the gateway up 24x365. Let's say that a PC used as a gateway uses 250
> W (which is probably low). That would translate to 8760  x .250 = 2190
> KwH per year. Ed Nisley of Circuit Cellar  uses a estimate of
> $2/watt/year

I agree that a PC uses way more power than is necessary but I would
expect 250 watts to be quite high for most any PC that you're going to
use as a router.  A computer with a 250 watt power supply doesn't
continuously use 250 watts, that is just the limit of the power supply.

I'm running two WRT54GL routers now (mostly because I have them), both
running openwrt. One is sitting in my office next to the cable modem
and isn't running any wifi.  The other is sitting in a more central
location and just acting as an AP (we get pretty bad interference in
this apartment).

I keep thinking I'm going to need to upgrade that poor old WRT54G, but
he's able to pull 22 by 1.5 out of speedtest.net.  A random guy on the
internet says he measured the power consumption of a few different
revisions of the WRT54G.  He claims they use between 5 and 8 watts
depending on the version.

Pat