Reducing idle and standby power consumption on H12SSL-NT: disable NIC(s)?

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kleptophobiac

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Nov 12, 2021
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I have a computer built around the H12SSL-NT that draws 12 watts in standby, seemingly mostly the dual 10g NICs. I don't need those interfaces to be on when the computer is on, and in fact, I only ever need one of them. But I haven't found a way to disable one or the standby-on behavior. Is there a way to disable these?

Also, when on but idle, the machine draws about 80 watts. That's not entirely unreasonable given how it's kitted out, and aside from disabling the 10g NIC I don't need, I don't think there's likely to be a lot to do to cut this down. May as well ask though: any tips on cutting down idle power consumption on the H12 series boards?

Thanks!
 

RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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there is a jumper: JPL1 LAN Enable/Disable
you can disable LAN and check how much draws the 10G NIC.
 

Skud

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Jan 3, 2012
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I’ve found that having a keyboard and monitor plugged in will sometimes draw 10-12 watts.
 

BlueFox

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Oct 26, 2015
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IPMI is likely most of that 12W figure, not your NIC.
 

kleptophobiac

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Nov 12, 2021
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Whoa a physical jumper to disable (sadly both of) the 10g NIC(s)! It never occurred to me to check the manual for that; I was scouring the setup menus - thank you!

Shame that it isn't possible to only disable one, but that's still a worthwhile experiment. I'll aim to do it tonight and will report back. I'll also use a thermal camera to see if there's something that's unexpectedly toasty while the machine is off. The IPMI is a good call, as it's true that I don't know what's under the heatsink that's running hot.

I don't typically need IPMI and would be willing to jump through a physical hoop to disable it (and re-enable if/when it's needed), but don't see a way to do that in the motherboard manual or in the menus. So that's probably not possible.

Between the time I built the machine and today my cost of electricity has tripled, so I'm looking all over the place for ways to trim back. The IT equipment represents about a third of household base load.
 

Markess

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May 19, 2018
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I don't have one of these boards, but...

IPMI is likely most of that 12W figure, not your NIC.
This seems to be the case for me. My systems with IPMI draw about ~9-12w even when "Off". My systems without IPMI never go above ~3w when off. Standby is similar. Even on roughly comparable systems (i.e. X99 & C612 for example), the board with IPMI drew 8-10w more when off/standby than the similar board with identical processor and RAM, but no IPMI. Again though, not your board, so may be different for you.

Whoa a physical jumper to disable (sadly both of) the 10g NIC(s)! It never occurred to me to check the manual for that; I was scouring the setup menus - thank you!
You might not find much savings here. Often, especially when its in BIOS/UEFI, disabling something will disable it from a system resource standpoint, but it won't disable it electrically. It can still be drawing power, its just "walled off" from the rest of the system. In these cases, you may still see a modest power drop because the disabled component is permanently in an idle state.

Since there's a physical jumper, you may have better results though. And since you have a thermal capable camera, you may want to check out the 10G NIC's heatsink after you disable it to see it it stays warm.

Cheers!
 
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