dedicated pc

[Goose157]

Hi,
I want to set up a permanent pc - hooked up to my weather station and web cam.
As at the moment i use my laptop. Obviously this is a pain when i just want to do other work on the computer. What is the recommended specs/ operating system to use for this always on set up?
I am using windows 7 on a medium spec laptop at the moment which work fine for cumulus and yawcam/ microsoft lifecam 3000.
Cheers.

[robynfali]

Mine runs on it's own pc, alongside running the webcam, its running 768mb ram, pentium 4, windows xp

[Goose157]

Thanks Rob....i have been looking in the classified adds...quite a few bargain pc's out there of the older specs.....i need to get one soon ....going crackers unplugging the lappy and replugging in etc...
cheers..

[robynfali]

Have you heard of freegle? It's the uk version of freecycle, basically local people getting rid of things they don't want but not throwing them in the tip. Well I had this pc from a request on there, so it didn't cost me a penny,

[b.e.wilson]

I use the smallest laptop I have (1.2 GHz single core Pentium, 1 GB RAM), and balance the power/CPU so it's always on, but it throttles itself down (lowers the clock rate and CPU voltage) when the CPU isn't working hard. I use a program called "Core Temp" to monitor the CPU clock and voltage. Saves a bunch of power (my power consumption drops from 110 Watts to about 60). I also removed the battery and rely on my UPS to keep things going.

[mspec]

I must suck at the power saving stakes as I run 2 laptops, One powers cumulus (plus is a file server) and the other powers Apache, MySQL on an ubuntu setup.

[Goose157]

Cheers all for the info.... looks like i will be ok with a relatively low spec pc.....cheap or even free

[robynfali]

is this the right place buddy?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilkeston_freecycle/