| How can I maximize the life of my monitor? |
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| Monitor Life, Energy Conservation, and Laziness: ----------------------------------------------- A common misconception about the care and feeding of computer monitors is that they should be left on all the time. While there are some advantages to this, there are many more disadvantages: 1. CRT Life: The life of a monitor is determined by the life of the CRT. The CRT is by far the most expensive single part and it is usually not worth repairing a monitor in which the CRT requires replacement. The brightness half-life of a CRT is usually about 10-15 K hours of on time independent of what is being displayed on the screen. 10 K hours is only a little more than a year. By not turning the monitor off at night, you are reducing the life of the monitor by a factor of 2-3. Screen savers do not make any substantial difference especially with modern displays using X-Windows or MS Windows where the screen layout is not fixed. With video display terminals, the text always came up in the same position and eventually burned impressions into the screen phosphor. 2. Component life: The heat generated inside a monitor tends to dry out parts like electrolytic capacitors thus shortening their life. These effects are particularly severe at night during the summer when the air conditioning may be off but it is still a consideration year around. Note that the claim about electrolytic capacitors needing to used frequently only applies on a time scale of years, not hours. 3. Safety: While electronic equipment designed and manufactured in accordance with the National Electrical Codes is very safe, there is always a small risk of catastrophic failure resulting in a fire. With no one around, even with sprinklers and smoke alarms, such an failure could be much more disastrous. 4. Energy use: While modern monitors use a lot less energy than their older cousins, the aggregate energy usage is not something to be ignored. A typical monitor uses between 60 and 200 Watts. Thus at a $.10 per KWH electric rate such a monitor will cost between $48 and $160 a year for electricity. During the night, 1/2 to 2/3 of this is wasted for every monitor that is left on. If air conditioning is on during the night, then there is the additional energy usage needed to remove this heat as well - probably about half the cost of the electricity to run the monitor. The popular rationalization for what is most often just laziness is that power-on is a stressful time for any electronic device and reducing the number of power cycles will prolong the life of the monitor. With a properly designed monitor, this is rarely an issue. Can you recall the last time a monitor blew up when it was turned on? The other argument, which has more basis in reality is that the thermal cycling resulting from turning a monitor on and off will shorten its life. It is true that such thermal stress can contribute to various kinds of failures due to bad solder connections. However, these can be easily repaired and do not effect the monitor's heart - the CRT. You wouldn't leave your TV on 24 hours a day, would you? Some of the newest ('green') monitors have energy conserving capabilities. However, it is necessary for the software to trigger these power reduction or power down modes. Few monitors in actual use and fewer workstations or PCs are set up to support these features. If you have such a monitor and computer to support it, by all means set up the necessary power off/power down timers. However, using the power saving modes of a 'green' PC with an older monitor can potentially cause damage since some of the modes disable the sync signals. A 'green' monitor which can detect a blank screen and use this as a trigger can easily be used with a screen saver which can be set to display a blank screen - on any PC or workstation. My recommendation is at the very least to turn your monitor off at night. Turning it off if you are not going to be using it for an hour or two is fine as well. This will extend the life of the monitor (and your investment) and is good for the environment as well. For workstations, there are good reasons to leave the system unit and peripherals on all the time. However, the monitor should be turned off using its power switch. For PCs, my recommendation is that the entire unit be turned off at night since the boot process is very quick and PCs are generally not required to be accessible over a network 24 hours a day. |
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