I switched from an I3-530, nominal TDP 73W, to an N-100, nominal TDP 7W, and power from the wall didn’t change at all. Even the i3 ran around 0.1 CPU load, except when transcoding, and I’m left with the impression that most of the power goes into HDDs, RAM, maybe fans, and PS losses. My sense is that the best way to decrease homelab power use is to minimize the number of devices. Start with your seyrver at 60W, add a WAP at 10-15W, maybe a switch at 10-15W… Not because of the CPUs, necessarily, but because every CPU every CPU comes with systems to keep the CPU going, keep the power regulated, etc.

He made this announcement to give media something other than the “Big Beautiful Bill” to worry about this weekend.

The UPS needs some power to keep its batteries full. Could be that it’s triggering off some threshold to do a charge cycle instead of just running a constant trickle. I’ve noticed that my laptop and phone charge that way, for example.

…hanging from their cables…