Good points, all around.

My Athlon C 1.4 likely does have an idle state, but the fans don't know about it and run full even at idle. The newer machines I manage are much better about this.

I've got some electrical engineering to learn before I'll truely know if my "enegry conservation efforts" are paying off. Too many assumptions (always turn off CRTs and room lights, but leave flourescents on because they consume more power when starting up) and not enough information (I thought the PSU always drew 350 watt).

What I do know is, my "energy conservation" is nullified by so many inefficient and wasteful systems out there. And my energy waste is similarly dwarfed by them. Makes me wonder what is the power consumption of the entire WCG (or any other distro computing project)? Maybe we should opt for having a super computer do it slower but with less total (project life) power consumption.