Turn off LCD or let it sleep?

[KatanaBob]

Hello all. I did a search on google and here and found nothing, so bear with me.

Usually, whenever I leave my computer, I shut the LCD monitor off (by pressing the power button), like when I'm going to eat or watch a show on TV or something. This means I'm away for only 15min to, say, an hour. I'm wondering if this is a bad idea. Should I just let the LCD go to screensaver (I've set it to 5min) and then to power-saving mode (15 min)?

So in a nutshell, how long do I have to be away from the computer to justify turning the LCD off? 12 hrs? A day? A week?

By the way, I have a NEC 1770NX (not sure about the letters, but I know the figures are correct).

 

[rammedstein]

i'd say its best leaving it on but having a screensver on, let stress on the backliht, being turned on and off all the time.

 

[nhobo]

Screensavers were intended to prevent phosphor burn on CRTs, where displaying the same image for long periods of time (years) would damage the monitor. They are absolutely unnecessary for an LCD. Turn it off to save power.

 

[jitpublisher]

Screen savers are irrelevant for an LCD, as previously posted they were intended for CRT's to help minimize screen image "burn-in". As for your LCD, it's up to you. It has never been proven that leaving a your monitor on all the time, or shutting it off several times a day in it's self has any effect on the life of the monitor. But common sense tells you that the longer you leave it on, the more you are using it, so the life expectancy certainly will be diminished somewhat. Unless you plan on keeping the same monitor for 10 years though, I doubt it really has much impact. Power consumption does not seem to be your main concern, as you apparently leave your PC on 24-7. Just set it to go into power saving mode after 15 minutes or so. At least that way you are saving a little electricity.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, the difference between turning it off and letting it sleep is usually like 5 watts max. The difference between sleep and off is very little. Most of the monitor is off in sleep mode, it just comes back on when you move the mouse instead of having to press the power button.

Screensavers are effectively useless for LCD. Nhobo is right to say it's unnecessary. About the best that a screensaver can do is show some kind of pretty graphics that you'll like.

As for less stress on the backlight being turned off and on, I'm not sure there's any evidence that turning it off and on vice leaving it on 24x7 is better or worse for it. If I'm not mistaken, the backlights are fluorescent bulbs, so I'd say leaving them on 24x7 would be worse for them.

If it's any consolation, I never turn my monitor off. I just let it sleep all the time. When I shut down my computer, the monitor goes to sleep within 30 seconds with no input.

 

[goldragon_70]

Like cyberjock says the backlight in most LCD's are fluorescent, so it's a chemical light, and the chemical where's out over time, but that's after years of use (think of an office fluorescent light, only it should last longer), so really turning it off, even for short time, will save the life.

 

[Heyyou27]

Instead of turning it off all the time, you can go to Control panel and under power options choose to turn the monitor off after a certain amount of time instead of using a screen saver.

 

[KatanaBob]

Thanks all. Great to get so many answers. I'm glad I haven't shortened the lifetime of my LCD much.

Thanks again.

 

[Guest]

for heyyoy27
i did what u said but it doesmot work every time , some times turnoff other time not?!!!

 

[raven25]

Thanks for the info...

 

[Guest]

I realize this is a older post. But I want to add that a LCD with a back light can have a warm up time if allowed to sleep or turn on.
Just as any florescent light fixture. We are starting to see LED back lighted monitors which would not have this issue. I have started to leave mine on for just this reason. My desktop is in a cool basement about 62 degrees and the warm time to get good brightness is getting longer. The Monitor is a Samsung 205BW and is about 4 years old. I guess the problems really are how fast you want your computer up and ready vs saving power consumption. My other computers are laptops all of which turn the monitor to sleep and power down the computer after 15 minutes or so. None of which have ever seen a failure because of the monitor. I guess one could argue the potential for early failure of other components because of voltage surges with equipment coming in and out of sleep or powering down and back up. But I think that is much more rare these days.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey