[MPlayer-users] How to pause mencoder

[Stefan Baehre]

D Richard Felker III wrote:

> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> On Fri, Dec 26, 2003 at 09:02:41AM -0800, rcooley wrote:
> > [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> > On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 14:07:47 -0500
> > D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx> wrote:
> > 
> > > "Spare" cycles aren't spare; when they're not used, the cpu powers
> > > down and conserves a lot of energy.
> > 
> > That's true for something like a notebook, but I haven't seen anything
> > like that with desktops.
> 
> It's called the HALT instruction. Completely different from notebook
> powersaving features like APM and stuff. It's been there at least
> since the original pentium.

It's his northbride who doesn't allow the CPU to go to sleep state.
He should have a look at
  http://vcool.occludo.net/VC_Theory.html
to workaround that. But the only chipset that really doesn't suck is
AMDs 76x family. My Athlons all conserve around 30-40W when idle
(they are all 1.5V types with around 50W max. consumption).