Ideal Boat Computer?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Paul L

DH
Isn't your setup running in idle the vast majority of the time?
My Atom is way, way slower than my Nuc.

I don't know -- good question. With OpenCPN running, continuously rendering the chart (even with the monitor switched off), running the VDR, doing the navigation continuously, I doubt it is right on idle. But I don't know for a fact.


But idle will be also proportionately that much less power.


My Atom does not seem slow in OpenCPN EXCEPT when it seems to be running into system resources problems. I think it doesn't have enough RAM and doesn't have enough space on the hard drive for a decent swap disk.



But I could be wrong about that. So my inclination is to not screw with it and just solve the problem for sure. Maybe a NUC i3, or Celeron.



Why did someone on here hate Celeron? What's wrong with it?

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Why did someone on here hate Celeron? What's wrong with it?

Nothing. Especially if you are used to an Atom based system. Low end Atom based architecture chips are still branded as Atoms. However, faster Atoms are branded as Celerons.

The Intel NUC, NUC6CAYH, uses a J3455 processor. This is an Atom based chip that is branded as a Celeron. I believe this NUC consumes less than 10 watts all in.

[Lepke]

I've used non marine computers on boats and ships since personal computers became available. I've never had a corrosion or moisture related problem. But my boats are usually much dryer than most.
I have several on board for different purposes including a couple nearly 20 years old. Least reliable has been Mac Powerbook Pro because of failing components not related to moisture. None of the others failed. The older ones have run so long their motherboard batteries were replaced.
I use Linux, Mac, and Windows 7. Linux will run much better, faster and takes less space on a very old computer than any windows. Windows 10 is a bloated joke. I will never use it again.

[MikeFergie]

I run a Hp mini desk elite 800 series on my boat. It’s an i core3 processor and I put 16 gb of ram and a 256gb ssd drive

[Pizzazz]

There is always a trade-off between speed and power consumption. Any decent Intel Core setup (I believe a low power NUC is your best option) will be around 10W. The benefit of the NUC is that it can do all tasks very well, including running the boat, watching movies, email, weather fax, etc. and it always has enough power on demand. You want Windows 10 for its power saving features, an SSD and you need to play with the settings in Windows to disable most services that consume CPU cycles. Next, you want to optimize your display and this typically means having two displays, one small unit for data display and a larger one (could be the TV) when you watch movies, work and do serious navigational work.

If you want to go really low power you should consider a phone or a tablet. These are typically ARM based, can be left 24/7 with negligible power consumption. For example, a 5" Android phone draws about 300mA at 3.7V, which is 0.1A at 12V. You can't get lower than this, even your Raymarine instruments are less efficient. A phone (or tablet) can do many things quite well, including weather routing, navigation, instrument display, music, movies, etc. If you can find a minimum set of Android apps to help you run your boat, this would be the ideal setup. And, it is easy to have backup in a second phone (just get any prepaid, locked phone).

SV Pizzazz

[Reefmagnet]

The KISS answer is run two systems. A headless Raspberry Pi will draw between 200 to 300 mA and will run acceptably as a chart plotter. Use a NUC for general computing. The best for power conservation, as has been mentioned, is the I3 version. The NUC bios can be configured to favour power consumption over speed as the I3 chip (like most others these days) regulates clock speed depending on processor load to conserve power and reduce core temperature. A NUC I3 with SSD and USB powered 13 inch EPS monitor will draw less than two amps on average during typical use. The I3 NUC will also run happily on the boat's 12 Volt supply, even though it comes with a 19VDC power brick. A 12VDC input Celeron NUC will not run on a boat's 12VDC house supply because it will complain of overvoltage whenever the batteries are fully charged and refuse to boot.


Lastly, ditch Windows 10. It is NOT what you want for running an onboard system. Use Linux. If there's windows programs you must have, run them in Wine (which sucks for most programs, imo) or install VirtualBox with a Windows virtual machine guest and run only as required. Preferably, have at least 16Gb of RAM installed if going the virtual machine route.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

The KISS answer is run two systems. A headless Raspberry Pi will draw between 200 to 300 mA and will run acceptably as a chart plotter. Use a NUC for general computing.

Pi actually draws even less than that with monitor turned off. And doesn't everyone have a laptop for all the othet stuff? Also, having something manage a wifi network and run signalk really is such a game changer.

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by conachair

Pi actually draws even less than that with monitor turned off. And doesn't everyone have a laptop for all the othet stuff? Also, having something manage a wifi network and run signalk really is such a game changer.

Yes, quite right. My numbers are from my headless RPi that includes an AIS receiver HAT, 3x RS422 dongles, wired and wireless ethernet and a USB powered switch and outlet connected in parallel. Running OpenPlotter, power consumed is about 5 watts in this configuration. Idle CPU speed is usually 600Mhz but increases to 1.2/1.4 Ghz if running OpenCPN on the desktop which adds another couple of watts to the power being consumed.

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by SwellGuy

Why not consider macs? Not enough variety of hardware to get to your power consumption sweet spot?

The way to go low power on Macs is to use the Macbook, which has the benefit of no moving parts (including fans). I'm not sure on the figures, but it's way lower than most computers since it charges in no time from USB-C. Its life when the screen is dim is very long indeed. It has the advantages of being a real computer for when you want to do some actual work, and also that you have 8-10 hours of battery backup so you don't need to panic when the power fails. Not as cheap as a pi though...

[hellosailor]

"With OpenCPN running, continuously rendering the chart"
I don't think so. The chart data are rendered and then an image is sent to the video display memory. In fact, the entire display is kept in an assigned block of video memory, which is static if the image is unchanging. Now, if you are only powering down the monitor, the computer IS keeping that video memory alive and that will consume power. But on Win7 or Win10 it takes maybe 10 seconds to come out of a sleep state and into a full desktop. If you are not sleeping (suspending, not hibernating) your computer, you are wasting power.
Win10 is supposed to have better power saving granularity, in that it shuts down more unused subsystems than Win7 does, but Win7 itself does much better power management than Vista or NT5 did.
I don't have the current details but was told that, for example, if you are not using audio, the audio systems are powered down. If you are not using the storage drives, those systems are powered down. If you are not using the USB ports, those are powered down--unless you've set them to stay powered on. Part of the improvement is in Win7 and then Win10, but part of this is also a CPU function and the 7th, 8th, 9th, level CPUs are each progressively supposed to allow this more granular control and more power conservation.
Personally I've found Win10 no great improvement. "Hi, welcome home, by the way, I threw out your bed and got a futon, I think it suits you better" just doesn't play well with me. But then again, to use the new CPUs and new assorted hardware, you will actually be required to use Win10, as Microsoft has simply stopped writing hardware drivers for various new devices and systems, as part of dropping all investment in Win7 support.
You don't get much choice on that.
But Intel are also usually very good at answering customer support, by phone or email, about things like "What's the power consumption...how does the performance compare..." for their terrifying array of CPUs these days.
It sounds like some "tuning" of how you use your system, and some simple memory updates, may really be all you need. For instance, SSDs kill hard drives for speed, but the new NvME sticks easily double the data transfer speed versus the best SSDs. Micron, Kingston, Intel...anyone that makes the memory form factors that you are using, can tell you what options there are for lower power or better performance. You may find new storage devices are both faster, larger, and consuming less power than what you've got.
And if a Win10 system can't wake from sleep in ten seconds...it probably has been drugged.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by MikeFergie

I run a Hp mini desk elite 800 series on my boat. It’s an i core3 processor and I put 16 gb of ram and a 256gb ssd drive

How much power does it use?

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Yes, quite right. My numbers are from my headless RPi that includes an AIS receiver HAT, 3x RS422 dongles, wired and wireless ethernet and a USB powered switch and outlet connected in parallel. Running OpenPlotter, power consumed is about 5 watts in this configuration. Idle CPU speed is usually 600Mhz but increases to 1.2/1.4 Ghz if running OpenCPN on the desktop which adds another couple of watts to the power being consumed.

From memory that 150mA (@ 13.6v) was the pi playing back youtube music in chromium through a hifiberry hat. Chromium is a bit of a resource hog, don't use it much. The hifiberry was another game changer, no more car radio pulling 0.5a!
Worth repeating as well, whatever computer anyone goes foe, make the effort to get signalk installed. Apps for everything

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"With OpenCPN running, continuously rendering the chart"
I don't think so. The chart data are rendered and then an image is sent to the video display memory. In fact, the entire display is kept in an assigned block of video memory, which is static if the image is unchanging. Now, if you are only powering down the monitor, the computer IS keeping that video memory alive and that will consume power. But on Win7 or Win10 it takes maybe 10 seconds to come out of a sleep state and into a full desktop. If you are not sleeping (suspending, not hibernating) your computer, you are wasting power.
Win10 is supposed to have better power saving granularity, in that it shuts down more unused subsystems than Win7 does, but Win7 itself does much better power management than Vista or NT5 did.
I don't have the current details but was told that, for example, if you are not using audio, the audio systems are powered down. If you are not using the storage drives, those systems are powered down. If you are not using the USB ports, those are powered down--unless you've set them to stay powered on. Part of the improvement is in Win7 and then Win10, but part of this is also a CPU function and the 7th, 8th, 9th, level CPUs are each progressively supposed to allow this more granular control and more power conservation.
Personally I've found Win10 no great improvement. "Hi, welcome home, by the way, I threw out your bed and got a futon, I think it suits you better" just doesn't play well with me. But then again, to use the new CPUs and new assorted hardware, you will actually be required to use Win10, as Microsoft has simply stopped writing hardware drivers for various new devices and systems, as part of dropping all investment in Win7 support.
You don't get much choice on that.
But Intel are also usually very good at answering customer support, by phone or email, about things like "What's the power consumption...how does the performance compare..." for their terrifying array of CPUs these days.
It sounds like some "tuning" of how you use your system, and some simple memory updates, may really be all you need. For instance, SSDs kill hard drives for speed, but the new NvME sticks easily double the data transfer speed versus the best SSDs. Micron, Kingston, Intel...anyone that makes the memory form factors that you are using, can tell you what options there are for lower power or better performance. You may find new storage devices are both faster, larger, and consuming less power than what you've got.
And if a Win10 system can't wake from sleep in ten seconds...it probably has been drugged.

Thanks -- this is fascinating, and shows how far behind I am on current PC technology.


But I still don't understand why the computer would go to sleep, if it's running OpenCPN. As you move through the water, the chart will be continuously rendered -- no? It doesn't make any difference whether the display is switched off -- the computer will be running and using power, or do I misunderstand something?


Now another question -- you say you need Win 10 to use the new processors. I was afraid of that. Not in relation to Win 7, which I would never use, but in relation to Linux. If I were to go to Linux, would I end up consuming MORE power because the OS doesn't control the hardware the way it's design to be controlled?


I don't mind Win 10 in most respects, and Windows finally has a UI which is logical and works well (for me anyway). But the "I threw out your bed and bought a futon" functions drive me crazy. If I could kill those somehow I wouldn't mind staying with Win 10.


But the box has to go -- it's not worth fixing the system clock, so it goes in the trash. And anyway clearly I need more storage and memory. 120g SSD drives 2.5", SATA 3 or 4, now cost something like £20 -- there seems to have been a price collapse. And 500g ones are like £45. So I don't mind buying a new box.


So the first question remains -- Celeron/Pentium Silver (Atom type low power system), or a Core based system? I'm guessing an Atom-type Gemini Lake system will use a lot less power and perform adequately if it has enough RAM and disk space.


Then the second question is whether I need to be using Windows, or whether the performance and power saving potential of the hardware can be achieved with Linux.

[Kenomac]

I know it was mentioned before on this thread, but why not consider purchasing a new or used 15 inch Macbook pro? It works well for us and is very reliable with low power consumption. Plus, it’s a real computer with 1TB of storage. After 30 years of fussing with pc windows stuff, I made the switch to relability two years ago and couldn’t be more pleased. I know the macs cost more, but they seem to last forever.

Don’t you finally get to the point where you just want something of quality that works?

The macbook is what I see being used by most of the folks producing the youtube cruising videos, so the computer can be utilized for multiple uses.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by conachair

. . . doesn't everyone have a laptop for all the othet stuff? Also, having something manage a wifi network and run signalk really is such a game changer.. . .

My boat computer is not used for general computing (I have other devices for that, including my work laptop) and is practically never connected to the Internet. It is used to run OpenCPN and some other navigational programs like Neptune Planner, and XyGrib. I might use it for audio or movies, but this is not an important function. I might use it as a media server, but this is also not important.



The main thing it needs to do is run OpenCPN flawlessly, with no resource issues and no crashes. In my experience using O on different platforms over the years -- as admirably light as it is, it does need a certain amount of power, especially if you are using raster charts and have a large number of charts installed as I do. So I would be reluctant to try it on a Raspberry Pi.