politics123
Active Member
Hi --
I have a couple touchscreens that I haven't hooked up yet, and while I'm still experimenting with the HS, CQC, ML, mControl (and hopefully, soon, the Johhnynine's and 123's control sets, etc), I know I want to do the following:
1) Drive 2 touchscreen monitors (likely via USB and a VGA video splitter-- running the VGA over cat5 directly)
2) Perform 1-wire tasks (reading temperatures, creating graphs, and uploading data to a hosted site)
3) Perform automation tasks (essentially, controlling the ELK, but letting the ELK rule's focus on security-related items) using automation software
In terms of computing, I want the lowest cost (but not necessarily smallest form-factor), lowest power consumption possible.
Are micro-ATX computers powerful enough to do these three tasks reliably? Are there any prebuilt micro-ATX computers, or is it essentially a home-built market? How much power savings can one really expect out of the micro-ATX boxes? Anyone figure out a way to get a normal ATX computer to consume about the same amount of power?
On a related note, I have 3 older laptops (2 P3s -- one running 2000 the other XP, and 1 P4 running XP). Anyone try driving the automation software from an older laptop? The advantage of the laptops is that they have power-saving built-in (eg: they can automatically reduce CPU speed). Anyone want to guess whether a laptop would consume more power than a micro-ATX? Which would win on performance?
Thanks!
Michael
PS -- if I were to go micro-ATX, can someone recommend a good place to shop?
I have a couple touchscreens that I haven't hooked up yet, and while I'm still experimenting with the HS, CQC, ML, mControl (and hopefully, soon, the Johhnynine's and 123's control sets, etc), I know I want to do the following:
1) Drive 2 touchscreen monitors (likely via USB and a VGA video splitter-- running the VGA over cat5 directly)
2) Perform 1-wire tasks (reading temperatures, creating graphs, and uploading data to a hosted site)
3) Perform automation tasks (essentially, controlling the ELK, but letting the ELK rule's focus on security-related items) using automation software
In terms of computing, I want the lowest cost (but not necessarily smallest form-factor), lowest power consumption possible.
Are micro-ATX computers powerful enough to do these three tasks reliably? Are there any prebuilt micro-ATX computers, or is it essentially a home-built market? How much power savings can one really expect out of the micro-ATX boxes? Anyone figure out a way to get a normal ATX computer to consume about the same amount of power?
On a related note, I have 3 older laptops (2 P3s -- one running 2000 the other XP, and 1 P4 running XP). Anyone try driving the automation software from an older laptop? The advantage of the laptops is that they have power-saving built-in (eg: they can automatically reduce CPU speed). Anyone want to guess whether a laptop would consume more power than a micro-ATX? Which would win on performance?
Thanks!
Michael
PS -- if I were to go micro-ATX, can someone recommend a good place to shop?