I have a home server based on an old Pentium III 933 @ 500 MHz PC with 512MB RAM, a 60GB hard drive, two Gigabit NICs, running Ubuntu Server 9.04, and there are three network devices "supporting" it:
- Cable modem
- Wi-Fi router, currently used only as a wireless access point
- 5-port Gigabit switch
The server itself consumes around 35 Watts so the 300 Watt PSU inside has some power to spare.
I've been thinking - would it be possible to get rid of the power adapters my external networking devices use and connect them to the ATX PSU instead?
I know a single power adapter can take even 5-10 Watts "in idle" (when the device is not connected to it), and pretty much energy is wasted for 220v-5v conversion, so why not use the already converted energy from the PSU?
I could configure an USB or PCI wireless adapter as an access point, but internal cable modems are pretty hard to get and I don't know if my cable provider would allow that, so I don't know if I would be able to pull it off this way. Thus for now I'm only considering getting rid of the power adapters.
Has anyone tried that?