hello, I am considering the best ways to save power while I am off the pc and in general. my question, is thee a difference in terms of powersaving between manually shutting down the monitor (pushing the button) and the screensaver monitor powering off. moreover, is the graphic card keep on working the same when the screensaver poweroff the monitor?
thanks, YB.
Dj YB yehielb@mail.ru writes:
I am considering the best ways to save power while I am off the pc and in general. my question, is thee a difference in terms of powersaving between manually shutting down the monitor (pushing the button) and the screensaver monitor powering off. moreover, is the graphic card keep on working the same when the screensaver poweroff the monitor?
The power on monitors I've tested is the same when using the front-pannel soft-off button or when the computer does a soft-off over the DVI or VGA connector. Note, soft off on many monitors leaves some circuits powered, so the power draw is still a few watts (mine all seem to be around 5 watts). Using the hardwired power supply off switch on the bottom or back of the monitor saves those extra 5 watts.
The big difference I see between software blanking and explicitly pushing the button is that my mouse is sometimes between two position reports and is essentially on hair trigger. Bumping the desk, or in some cases just walking into the room causes it to vibrate enough to unblank the monitor. I therefore try to turn off the monitor anytime I'm leaving for a while.
-wolfgang
On Sunday April 18 2010 22:18:18 Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
Dj YB yehielb@mail.ru writes:
I am considering the best ways to save power while I am off the pc and in general. my question, is thee a difference in terms of powersaving between manually shutting down the monitor (pushing the button) and the screensaver monitor powering off. moreover, is the graphic card keep on working the same when the screensaver poweroff the monitor?
The power on monitors I've tested is the same when using the front-pannel soft-off button or when the computer does a soft-off over the DVI or VGA connector. Note, soft off on many monitors leaves some circuits powered, so the power draw is still a few watts (mine all seem to be around 5 watts). Using the hardwired power supply off switch on the bottom or back of the monitor saves those extra 5 watts.
The big difference I see between software blanking and explicitly pushing the button is that my mouse is sometimes between two position reports and is essentially on hair trigger. Bumping the desk, or in some cases just walking into the room causes it to vibrate enough to unblank the monitor. I therefore try to turn off the monitor anytime I'm leaving for a while.
-wolfgang
thanks, is the blanking also power down the graphic card? regards, YB.
Dj YB yehielb@mail.ru writes:
is the blanking also power down the graphic card?
I can't really measure that very easily. I understand some cards do have provisions for running at a lower clock speed and lower voltage, but I have no idea if X11 (or some other mechanism) makes use of that yet. Sorry.
-wolfgang
On Monday April 19 2010 02:12:14 Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
Dj YB yehielb@mail.ru writes:
is the blanking also power down the graphic card?
I can't really measure that very easily. I understand some cards do have provisions for running at a lower clock speed and lower voltage, but I have no idea if X11 (or some other mechanism) makes use of that yet. Sorry.
-wolfgang
thanks.
On Sun, 2010-04-18 at 17:57 +0300, Dj YB wrote:
is thee a difference in terms of powersaving between manually shutting down the monitor (pushing the button) and the screensaver monitor powering off.
That depends on your monitor.
If it's power switch is a mechanical one, one that has two physically different on/off positions, it actually cuts off the power when you turn it off. So, yes, turning your monitor off by hand will stop it using any power, at all.
Conversely, if your monitor has a soft power switch, it never turns off. It'll go into some sort of standby mode, which is still using power. With some equipment, the standby power is significant. With such equipment, you may find that the monitor uses the same amount of power in standby mode whether turned off on the monitor, or remotely by the computer. Or there may be different levels of powering down, some monitors have several levels, since they power down enough to affect recovery speed, the manufacturers have built in options that are less annoying (rapid turn on, versus more waiting before you get to see a picture). That will depend on the monitor, the graphics card, and the drivers (whether the monitor and graphics card can do it, and whether the computer can control them).
moreover, is the graphic card keep on working the same when the screensaver poweroff the monitor?
I keep meaning to remotely log into my computer to check that. Like wondering whether that fridge light really goes off when you close the door, I've wondered if the system was smart enough to do nothing with the display rendering when the screen was inert.
On my laptop, I'd often notice that if I closed the lid, which is set to simply turn off the display, and not shutdown the OS, that the cooling fan would rev up. So, it certainly didn't look like the computer was doing less work without the display. But I never get around to testing it properly.
-
Dj YB -
Tim -
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht