I think you did get this wrong. If your laptop would really use 240W it would literally burn through your laps. And a standalone router with 120W would be more or less worthless, but for sure not a small fanless system. For comparison, my home-server, running 24/7, uses an Atom CPU with 8W TDP, together with the mainboard, RAM and the harddisk in that system I doubt that it really comes above 30-35W, a small lightbulb, something where the benefits by far outweigh the costs. Also, keep in mind that older systems were not as power hungry as modern desktops, the average TDP of Pentium II CPUs was around 28W. Of course modern system are much more efficient, but older systems definitely have their use cases.

I probably am, that math is mostly for DC to AC inverters to power such things. 0.5A for the inverter + all the A's for the devices * 120W. But on that same note, that laptop even when it had a working fan was no cool lap dog. At least with video games, video conversion, or povray renders. And with other gear like a 450W HDTV + 350W PSU desktop + 2x 225W studio speakers, I definitely could not run that from one socket or ever for any duration in this old trailer, even drawing power from multiple sockets.

You need to better educate yourself about power usage/calculations, I think. That a desktop PSU has the capability of 350W does not mean that it will draw this. And I assume taht you mean 120V in your calculation, not 120W. The problem with your calculation is that the laptop is not running with 120V, usually laptop PSUs deliver something around 18-20V, which the laptop will internally regulate to the needed voltages. Also, the speaker will have 225W maximum power output (which will blast your ears pretty good), this is not a permant power draw. I don't know about your country, but in Germany (230V power grid) 5-socket extension leads are usually made for about 3500W maximum power output.

My calculation was based on the power plug to the laptop. Which lists 1.7A. My stand alone router says 1A on the plug. The GPU on the desktop required a 270W minimum PSU. I do a lot of video type stuff so my machines are pegged / max draw just as much if not more than they idle. Since anything lengthy continues to run while I'm away from the computer.

What do you mean with video type stuff? As long as it does not involve heavy 3D lifting your GPU will idle most of the time. The wattage nominated by the GPU manufacturer is for meant for maximum 3D load. Video decoding will not even bring the GPU out of its powersave modes.
Regarding the powerplugs, usually the current listed is meant for the output, not for the input. That means if your router's plug delivers 1A at 12V the router will have a maximum (not permanent) power draw of 12W. No one with a sane mind would use a home-router that draws 120W.

There is no way that any non-faulty decent home router is going to use 120 watts. Something in the order of 5-20 watts is a realistic figure, depending on wired/wireless, power supply effiency, etc.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1983/4/

Sort of, but ATI/AMD and nVidia allow for 'yum-cha' cheapo power supplies (which cant deliver the rated power) and factor in old/tired power supplies, etc..

I'm not sure what video card Shadow_7 is using, but I'd guess its fairly low end (not some 'gamers' card) and I'd be willing to bet that the real power consumption of the video card is going to be less than a 30% of 270watts. There are also other factors...

Even if you believe the recommended power suplly size is real, have a closer look at the numbers nVidai puts up. nVidia GT220 and GT240 both have the same 300 watt 'Minimum System Power Requirement' (300 watts), even though the GT220 is rated at less power consumption that the GT240 by nVidia, and the GT220 uses about half the amount of power of the GT240 in the real world....

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desk...specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desk...specifications

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/gra...on-2010_3.html

If you are intrested in real power consumption figures, xbitlabs is a great resource. Less accurate but handy for those that worry about power consumptuion are the 'wall wart' power consumption meters. They are far more acurate than just reading the ratings on the plugs........

Try bodhi linux, hope this one help.
http://www.bodhilinux.com/about_bodhi.php

I did this on a P3 after 15 tries I ended up with antiX save yourself some time and skip to antix if it wont work I don't know what will.
I have a thread somewhere in here with my test results. I did like salix but only got it to run onec. you could try salix w/fluxbox or if you want to work for it I liked siltaz too.

I'm still pretty sure it draws more than 60W, even idle. Not including the monitor, speakers, headphone preamp, and other stuff. ATI HD4550 + Delta 44 + Leadtek TV capture card. On an old 64 bit dual core at 1.9GHz each core, with 1GB of RAM. Not a gamer machine by any measure, but not too horrid.

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As far as the OP, just install and use linux. The main limit will likely be RAM so you'll HAVE TO use swap. And everything will be slow, especially when you're using swap. You may want to, maybe even need to, recompile a custom kernel for maximum performance, or to just strip it down to free up a lot of RAM and increase boot time. Most performance gains are from custom compiles of the kernel, X, video drivers, and any media players you might want to use.

But don't feel too bad about being on the slow side. I still have to convert HD video on the above machine just to watch some clips in realtime. Anything more than 1080p24 and it's struggling. Even 720p video at a high bitrate can make it stutter. Aka most everything captured on a camcorder these days.

$ mplayer -geometry 0%:0% -ao pulse -vo gl_nosw -lavdopts fast:skiploopfilter=all,threads=2 -monitoraspect 1.6 MEDIA_FILE.EXT

Basically borderless top left orientated do as little processing as possible command for mplayer. 1680x1050 display with 22" diagonal measurement, hence the monitor aspect ratio.

KIWIlinux-linux romanesc
slax sau vizitati DistroWatch.com

If you have not found a solution with new software, you could try the old distro wolvix. Based on slackware. I had this running on an ancient gateway all in one pc with very much your specifications. It was originally running win98.