Hacker News Reader

Comment by mritun | Hacker News Reader

All that the rules say (yes, I read them) is that a workstation with 32G RAM (formula is 10 + 0.03 * RAM_GiB) must not exceed ~ 11W in sleep mode and a desktop with 32G RAM must not exceed 6W in sleep mode (5 + 0.03 * RAM_GiB).

Basically, these desktops probably have very ancient/buggy motherboards with broken ACPI. Good riddance.

Fun fact: Desktops/workstations shipped without an operating system at purchasers request are exempt from the rule. So technically, if they don’t insist on shipping with OEM Windows, then the PC can be shipped just fine.

In any case, hopefully this rule will nudge them to use half-decent motherboards that maybe better supported under non-Windows operating systems.

View on HN

>All that the rules say (yes, I read them) is that a workstation with 32G RAM (formula is 10 + 0.03 * RAM_GiB) must not exceed ~ 11W in sleep mode and a desktop with 32G RAM must not exceed 6W in sleep mode (5 + 0.03 * RAM_GiB).

That's it? The rules only mandate maximum power consumption for sleep mode? Some comments linked to the actual regulations[1], and they seem to contain tables with per-year maximums per device[2]. Can you comment on this?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27955212

[2] https://govt.westlaw.com/calregs/Link/Document/Blob/Icabb0f7...

What's the definition of "measured annual energy consumption"?

It is based on the Energy Star energy consumption criteria. The formula is: 365*24/(1000)*weighted_average_power_consumption (the division appears to be due to using unitless formulas, and wanting a result value in kWH).

The weighted average power consumption is based on measured power draw in the following states: "off", "sleep", "Long_idle", and "short_idle". Most desktops under the California rules will use the "conventional" weighting factors of (45%, 5%, 15%, 35%) for the respective power modes in that average.

Short idle is basically what you expect. Screen is still on, drives are still spun up.

Long Idle allows basic power saving features to have kicked in (like spinning down hard drives), and assumes the screen has gone blank, but that the computer is still in ACPI G0/S0, not in some form of sleep mode.

Huh? That's not even remotely true, go read it again (and not just one of the table images this time).

All it requires of sleep mode is that it be configured to go to ACPI S3 within 30 minutes of inactivity. If it does not go to S3, then your quoted formulas are almost accurate, except all of the formulas subtract a base amount of memory; a workstation with 32G of RAM must not exceed 10W because the formula is (10 + 0.03 * (RAM - 32 > 0 ? RAM - 32 : 0)). Also, there's another formula for notebooks, and that one takes into account whether there's a dGPU.

But all of that is irrelevant because there's also a separate requirement, namely, all computers manufactured >=2019 shall "Comply with Table V-7" which has a yearly maximum power consumption (with base values and very complex "adders").

What distinguishes a workstation from a desktop?

Do I have to call my desktop a funstation now?

They're often called Battle-Station. Somehow I feel a fun station to be slightly more naughty, but I guess that's just my mind ;)

That was where they got "PlayStation."

I once bought a workstation for a great price, wanted to make a good gaming PC. I discovered that the case didn't fit dedicated GPUs, except the short form factor ones. I ended up cutting some metal bays out with a metal saw to fit my GPU in.

Workstations are also often sold with ECC RAM.

Usually workstations have a chipset that supports server CPUs and ECC RAM and ordinary desktops don't.

Manufacturer’s classification. 10W or 11W - it’s not a high bar really. If a computer can’t manage to stay below that, it’s ancient.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com