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Monitor advice



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 19th 17, 05:10 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Larc[_3_]
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Posts: 383
Default Monitor advice

This is a bit off topic, but I have a question that should benefit from answers here.

My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?

Larc
  #2  
Old June 19th 17, 05:44 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Mr. Man-wai Chang
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Posts: 697
Default Monitor advice

On 20/6/2017 12:10 AM, Larc wrote:
My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?


To REALLY save electricity and to avoid fire, you should flip the power
switch on the AC socket to cut off ALL electricity. :0

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  #3  
Old June 19th 17, 06:07 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Posts: 1,467
Default Monitor advice

Larc wrote:
This is a bit off topic, but I have a question that should benefit from answers here.

My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?

Larc


You can set the time constant on screen blanking, in the
Power control panel, and that will blank the screen after
20 minutes or whatever. If you move the mouse, it lights up
again.

That leaves the power running on the monitor, but as you say,
it only draws half a watt. On the old CRT monitors, doing this
(surprisingly) saves no power at all. My old monitor would
still draw 200W with a blank screen. But LCD monitors are
pretty good.

Both LEDs and CFL tubes in computer monitors, have a limited
life. You can pretend for the sake of "orders of magnitude",
that the failure time is the same. The lifetime of the part
that lights up, might be 20K to 25K hours, and blanking it
will pay off a bit. On an LCD monitor with CFL tubes, usually
the inverter fails before the CFL tubes do, and if it
doesn't light up before it hits 20K hours, that's probably
a defective inverter.

It doesn't really matter whether it's in the 0.5W state
or 0 watt state. If you do flip a switch to "isolate" the monitor
from the mains, then there is less risk a lightning transient
could come up the power cable and get the monitor. But I don't
worry about stuff like that. If bad weather is forecast, I might
isolate the computer room for safety, and disconnect the ADSL
phone line. But induced lightning effects can still blow up
the LAN ports if I do that, so that's still not a guarantee.

Paul
  #4  
Old June 19th 17, 08:00 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Larc[_3_]
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Posts: 383
Default Monitor advice

On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 13:07:30 -0400, Paul wrote:

| Larc wrote:
| This is a bit off topic, but I have a question that should benefit from answers here.
|
| My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
| shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
| monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
| leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
| settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
| show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
| when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?
|
| Larc
|
| You can set the time constant on screen blanking, in the
| Power control panel, and that will blank the screen after
| 20 minutes or whatever. If you move the mouse, it lights up
| again.
|
| That leaves the power running on the monitor, but as you say,
| it only draws half a watt. On the old CRT monitors, doing this
| (surprisingly) saves no power at all. My old monitor would
| still draw 200W with a blank screen. But LCD monitors are
| pretty good.
|
| Both LEDs and CFL tubes in computer monitors, have a limited
| life. You can pretend for the sake of "orders of magnitude",
| that the failure time is the same. The lifetime of the part
| that lights up, might be 20K to 25K hours, and blanking it
| will pay off a bit. On an LCD monitor with CFL tubes, usually
| the inverter fails before the CFL tubes do, and if it
| doesn't light up before it hits 20K hours, that's probably
| a defective inverter.
|
| It doesn't really matter whether it's in the 0.5W state
| or 0 watt state. If you do flip a switch to "isolate" the monitor
| from the mains, then there is less risk a lightning transient
| could come up the power cable and get the monitor. But I don't
| worry about stuff like that. If bad weather is forecast, I might
| isolate the computer room for safety, and disconnect the ADSL
| phone line. But induced lightning effects can still blow up
| the LAN ports if I do that, so that's still not a guarantee.
|
| Paul

Thanks, Paul. A big plus for LCD over CRT is the power factor. My 27" 4K monitor
draws less than 30W in full operation. I already have things set to put the monitor
in sleep mode after 45 minutes of inactivity. But I'm more concerned with turning
the monitor off or leaving it in sleep mode when the computer is shut down. I'm
thinking from your reply that it really makes no difference as far as the monitor is
concerned.

Larc
  #5  
Old June 19th 17, 09:10 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
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Posts: 2,407
Default Monitor advice

On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 12:10:44 -0400, Larc
wrote:

My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?


Never had any issues with a Windows load. Think they go through three
resolution changes while the computer is powering up. I turn both
monitors off, with their provided remote controls, whenever I'm
finished using them. Except I never turn the computers off. One of
my monitors is from the first generations of flat-panel televisions, a
32" LCD which cost $1000 when I started watching it for a better sale
price. I bought it for $600, but there was a model below sold for a
monitor only without a tuner;- no different otherwise and the same
thing to my tuner-included model. Anyway, it's beyond 15-yrs-old
without issue. (It initially broke and was replaced by the next year's
model under the manufacturer warrantee;- a refurbished replacement, as
I recall, which is exceptionally tough to have chugged along so long.)
  #6  
Old June 19th 17, 10:14 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default Monitor advice

Larc wrote:
On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 13:07:30 -0400, Paul wrote:

| Larc wrote:
| This is a bit off topic, but I have a question that should benefit from answers here.
|
| My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
| shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
| monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
| leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
| settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
| show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
| when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?
|
| Larc
|
| You can set the time constant on screen blanking, in the
| Power control panel, and that will blank the screen after
| 20 minutes or whatever. If you move the mouse, it lights up
| again.
|
| That leaves the power running on the monitor, but as you say,
| it only draws half a watt. On the old CRT monitors, doing this
| (surprisingly) saves no power at all. My old monitor would
| still draw 200W with a blank screen. But LCD monitors are
| pretty good.
|
| Both LEDs and CFL tubes in computer monitors, have a limited
| life. You can pretend for the sake of "orders of magnitude",
| that the failure time is the same. The lifetime of the part
| that lights up, might be 20K to 25K hours, and blanking it
| will pay off a bit. On an LCD monitor with CFL tubes, usually
| the inverter fails before the CFL tubes do, and if it
| doesn't light up before it hits 20K hours, that's probably
| a defective inverter.
|
| It doesn't really matter whether it's in the 0.5W state
| or 0 watt state. If you do flip a switch to "isolate" the monitor
| from the mains, then there is less risk a lightning transient
| could come up the power cable and get the monitor. But I don't
| worry about stuff like that. If bad weather is forecast, I might
| isolate the computer room for safety, and disconnect the ADSL
| phone line. But induced lightning effects can still blow up
| the LAN ports if I do that, so that's still not a guarantee.
|
| Paul

Thanks, Paul. A big plus for LCD over CRT is the power factor. My 27" 4K monitor
draws less than 30W in full operation. I already have things set to put the monitor
in sleep mode after 45 minutes of inactivity. But I'm more concerned with turning
the monitor off or leaving it in sleep mode when the computer is shut down. I'm
thinking from your reply that it really makes no difference as far as the monitor is
concerned.

Larc


The screen can be blanked by dropping the VSYNC and HSYNC.

And when the computer is off, the same thing happens anyway.

*******

The various cabling standards to the monitor, implement the controls
slightly differently.

On VGA, it's RGBHV. Three colors, horizontal sync, vertical sync.

On DVI, it's RGB and a Clock pair. The Clock pair is multiplied
up, to make a pixel clock, and that eliminates the need to drive
a pixel rate clock down the cable. Because it's just RGB, the
sync needs to be "embedded" in the signal some how.

On PDF page 10, you can see the inputs.

https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%2...s/TDA9983B.pdf

HSYNC Horizontal sync pulse
VSYNC Vertical sync pulse
DE Data Enable

B
G
R

The wires on the cable, carry 8B10B encoded data. 10 bits are
transmitted, for an 8 bit color value. The "excess" of information,
allows out-of-band signaling. For example, if a data byte is
sent, there is nothing special about that. But if a "JK" symbol
is sent instead, it can have a special meaning, like "turn on
the Data Enable" or "turn off the Data Enable".

Even audio can be multiplexed into the stream on each gun.

My problem is, finding a diagram with the exact details.

In any case, the concept remains the same. If, at the computer
end, the HSYNC and VSYNC are removed, the monitor end interprets
that as "I should go to sleep now". Because that's what multisync
monitors do.

The DE signal, can be derived from HSYNC and VSYNC. If you didn't
have a DE, you could make one from the info on HSYNC and VSYNC. For
any pixels that are supposed to be visible on the screen, DE is
logic one. For any pixels that are not visible (i.e. time wise,
under the bezel), the DE value is zero.

So when those signals go quiet, the monitor goes to sleep.

If, on the other hand, you pull the cable entirely from the
monitor, the monitor has impedance sensing amongst other
things, and the OSD will report "no signal" or "cable disconnected"
and the OSD may move around the screen to prevent burn-in. I don't
know if my monitor will eventually go to sleep when the
cable falls off or not :-)

My older monitor is a "better sleeper". It shows an OSD
indication for only a few seconds, and then it just goes
black. The newer monitor is a bit of a show-off. But that's
what happens when you only pay $100 for a monitor.

Paul
  #7  
Old June 19th 17, 10:48 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 1,453
Default Monitor advice

Paul wrote:

You can set the time constant on screen blanking, in the
Power control panel, and that will blank the screen after
20 minutes or whatever. If you move the mouse, it lights up
again.


Blanking a monitor won't save on power or lifespan of the LEDs or CFLs.
Blanking just means the light doesn't get through. The lights are still
one. Powering them off would save energy and perhaps lengthen lifespan.

You want to configure the monitor to power off after some idle time
threshold, not just show a blank screen. While a screen saver might
blank the screen, luckily the power options that you mean actually power
off the monitor. Well, not completely. The monitor is told to turn off
its display but the logic in the monitor is still powered so it can
receive further commands, like to turn the display back on.

There's also the Power button on the monitor itself rather than relying
on idle thresholds to tell the monitor to turn off only its display. Of
course, that means wear on the switch. However, I've found hosts where
the screen saver and power options for turning off the display become
ineffective. Despite the host being idle, the monitor stays on despite
vastly exceeding the threshold. Rebooting gets it straightened out
again ... for awhile.

I've also had programs that were running on a blanked out screen or when
the monitor's display was turned off that prevented me from seeing why
the host is refusing to acknowledge changes from the mouse or keyboard
to get the display back. I can see anything, the screen won't come back
up, and I'm screwed by having to do a power cycle (sometimes not even
the option to use the Power button for graceful shutdown will work).
While I might still have to power cycle to unhang Windows, I'd still
want to see what the screen might've shown me. Might provide a clue why
the hang happened. With a power switch on the monitor, I can just push
it and see the screen without relying on commands sent from a hung OS to
bring the display alive.
  #8  
Old June 19th 17, 10:50 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 1,453
Default Monitor advice

Larc wrote:

This is a bit off topic, but I have a question that should benefit from answers here.

My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?

Larc


You could get a kill-a-watt meter to measure how much power your
computer, monitor, and whatever else you leave running in low-power mode
will consume. Then look at your electric bill to see how much you pay
per kilowatt (which might be a moving or seasonal average). Then you'll
know how much it costs to keep the computer running during your sleep
hours.

Where I live, the savings would be a whopping 13 cents per night or
about $4 USD per month. That's for my computer, monitor, speakers, and
monitor, not just the monitor. I leave mine powered on all the time,
especially since I could be using the computer at any time and don't
want to wait for it to power up and boot to a usable state (not just for
when the desktop appears) despite having an SSD where is the Windows and
apps partition.

You might also consider using hibernate mode instead of a full shutdown
of Windows. Hibernate mode copies the system RAM into a file on the
disk and does a power off. On power on, the file is written back into
memory and you are the same state you were before. Resuming from
hibernate mode is usually faster than having to load all programs again
(startup and whatever you left open) on a Windows boot. Of course, that
means you are back to the prior state even if that is not what you want
in the next startup of Windows. Most monitors will automatically go
into low-power mode (display off) when they detect no signal from the
video output of a computer (that is powered off).
  #9  
Old June 20th 17, 01:03 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Larc[_3_]
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Posts: 383
Default Monitor advice

On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 16:50:54 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

| Larc wrote:
|
| This is a bit off topic, but I have a question that should benefit from answers here.
|
| My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get up in the morning and not
| shut down until just before I go to bed at night. I've also been turning off the
| monitor, but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no worse -- to just
| leave it on. If too much of Windows loads before I switch it on, some visual
| settings are affected. I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
| show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is only 0.2W more than it draws
| when turned off. Are there any significant negative factors in leaving it on?
|
| Larc
|
| You could get a kill-a-watt meter to measure how much power your
| computer, monitor, and whatever else you leave running in low-power mode
| will consume. Then look at your electric bill to see how much you pay
| per kilowatt (which might be a moving or seasonal average). Then you'll
| know how much it costs to keep the computer running during your sleep
| hours.
|
| Where I live, the savings would be a whopping 13 cents per night or
| about $4 USD per month. That's for my computer, monitor, speakers, and
| monitor, not just the monitor. I leave mine powered on all the time,
| especially since I could be using the computer at any time and don't
| want to wait for it to power up and boot to a usable state (not just for
| when the desktop appears) despite having an SSD where is the Windows and
| apps partition.
|
| You might also consider using hibernate mode instead of a full shutdown
| of Windows. Hibernate mode copies the system RAM into a file on the
| disk and does a power off. On power on, the file is written back into
| memory and you are the same state you were before. Resuming from
| hibernate mode is usually faster than having to load all programs again
| (startup and whatever you left open) on a Windows boot. Of course, that
| means you are back to the prior state even if that is not what you want
| in the next startup of Windows. Most monitors will automatically go
| into low-power mode (display off) when they detect no signal from the
| video output of a computer (that is powered off).

Since published specs for my monitor claim sleep mode power draw is 0.5W and it still
draws 0.3W when it's off, that extra 0.2W isn't even a consideration. At current
rates, leaving the monitor in sleep mode overnight would cost me about 6.17 cents
more per year based on an average of 9 hours per night (0.657 kW hours @ 9.387 annual
average cents per kWh). My concern is for the long run health of the monitor, and
I'm thinking it doesn't really matter whether it's left in sleep mode or turned off
when the computer is off. IOW, it basically doesn't shorten the life of the monitor
to leave it in sleep mode overnight.

Larc
  #10  
Old June 20th 17, 02:48 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
John Doe[_9_]
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Posts: 410
Default Monitor advice

Larc wrote:

This is a bit off topic, but I have a question that should
benefit from answers here.

My main computer is usually turned on shortly after I get
up in the morning and not shut down until just before I go
to bed at night. I've also been turning off the monitor,
but am wondering if it would be better -- or at least no
worse -- to just leave it on. If too much of Windows loads
before I switch it on, some visual settings are affected.
I'd like to avoid chances of that by leaving it on. Specs
show my monitor draws only 0.5W in sleep mode, which is
only 0.2W more than it draws when turned off. Are there
any significant negative factors in leaving it on?


You mean "in leaving it in sleep mode". Because you want the
screen to automatically come on when the computer is
starting.

In other words... You are talking about the small amount of
electronics inside of the monitor that still run when the
monitor is in sleep mode.

Sounds like something that can be researched, in addition to
asking here.

I am curious about what visual settings might be affected. Do
you have a touchscreen monitor? I did not know that any
ordinary monitor sends any data back to Windows. Or at least
not any data that changes any settings. Unless maybe you are
using a laptop with an external monitor connection.
 




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