Screen Saver

How long should a screen saver be set to come on, I have mine set for 15 minutes. My sister-law have a year old Gateway flat screen that just went black the other day, their screen saver was set for 1 hour. Gateway said that was to long on that type off screen. Their goes $600 down the drain!
Thanks
John

 

A screen saver is not necessary, it's a novelty.

Local supplier agrees for all current screen types except "plasma montors." He feels it will be corrected over time, but current models are very susceptible to screen burn. High price scares most buyers, so it's not an issue... yet.

 

Important distinction:

A CRT (TV-tube) type display gets worn out in various ways:
* phosphors burn, proportional to light emission
* slow cathode depletion, proportional to light emission AND time spent heated
* a rather remote risk of cathode heater breakage with each on/off cycle

In practice only the first MAY be an issue if the CRT is kept on for a long time with the same image.

For LCD displays:
* the liquid crystal has a finite lifespan, but one probably in the many 10s of thousands hours, and is proportional to time powered, not to static image reproduction
* the gas discharge tubes also age, proportional to time powered and power absorbed
* power circuitry will age exactly like the guts of a TV... i.e. may live on forever or die suddenly

The liquid crystal sheet should work fine for many years, the power guts are not worth thinking about, as for the gas tubes it may be a good idea to let them turn off when not in use. This will also cul most of the power consumption and save CO2 emissions.

Moreover:
- A screensaver does NOT appreciably cut power consumption at the display (trust me, I measured it on both types!).
- Power saving controls (i.e. standing by or turning off a display) instead do.
- An elaborate, eye-candy intensive screensaver will actually burn power at the CPU level.

Conclusion:

- CRTs may benefit a bit from screensavers
- Screensavers are nonsense for LCDs
- For both types, it's a good idea to select a standby or power-off time limit when not in use.

I set screen-off at 5 minutes on my (LCD) laptop.

On my desktop (big CRT) I set a blank screen saver at 5 minutes and power off at 1 hour.

I don't know much about plasma....

 

Filippo <<<<<On my desktop (big CRT) I set a blank screen saver at 5 minutes and power off at 1 hour.>>>>>

What is your power/standby setting for notebook? Some people I know keep notebook open all day.

 

Interesting point to add:

For plugged-in operation I use the following:
video off = 5 minutes (lamps off, not blank screen)
CPU speed = auto
HD spindown = never

According to several sources, spinup / spindown cycles are eaters of residual life for a hard disk, much more so than hours spent spinning and read / write operations. This supposedly has to do with the fact that voltages and currents are rather extreme at spinup compared to steady state operation. This carries a risk of component death. I do confine automatic HD-off to battery operation.

I did some research a while ago as I installed two HDs on a desktop for dual booting a couple of operating systems. I was looking for ways of spinning down one hard disk (unused, and holding the backup of the other operating system) in order to protect it. I did find several applications, but then several hardware people pointed me to another way of looking at things.

This is quite similar to something I once worked out for some natural-gas-pumping aero-engine-driven compressors at a huge British Gas storage station. I am convinced there is a price on both on/off and running time.

On this lappie, the previous HD died after 3 years of very careful operation. The only stress I may have put on this machine was spindown after 5 to 15 minutes. With the new HD, I decided to let it spin as long as the computer is on, and all day if needed. Since I use the laptop on the move only, I do have to turn it off when not in use.

I have never heard of servers ever spinning down their HDs. There must be some server apps that do not require being ready 24/7 to do transactions at a few milliseconds' notice. That notwithstanding, it's considered a bad idea to cycle HDs.

Comments anyone?

 

Thanks for this info.

 

CRT-(TV Tube type) Regular or Flat screen.

With what most of us have on our screens today, there is very little chance of "Burn" as one normally thinks of it. This is due to the internal circuits within the Monitor, and whatever one has on the screen….for example a web page, or a "background" image. There are Limiters built into the HV, horizontal and vertical circuits within the monitor. (This is all based on everything being Normal. I grant you defects can eventually occur.)
The only time a "Burn" will occur nowadays, is if there is super High Intensity setting (Beyond Limiter setting), or if the HV circuits go wacky.

So for all practical purposes the screen savers are not really necessary IMHO, but some of them are pretty darn Cool to look at!!.