Mail Archives: opendos/2001/03/29/02:58:01
Actually the real savings in keeping your computer and monitor on all the
time is in the time that the power supplies will wear out. That is
because of the surge of power when you turn them on, which will damage
any electrical transformer over time. AFAIK an internal modem uses no
(minuscule) power unless it is turned on and you are on-line. External
modems would only use 9 watts when you are using them on-line, otherwise
they most likely use less then one watt of standby power.
When the computer (ATX) is put in sleep mode it uses only about 2-3 watts
or less. You can also set the hard drive to go in sleep mode after any
specified time (such as 1/2 hour of inactivity) and you can do the same
for your monitor. This can be done in the setup when you first start
booting your computer. The screen usually goes blank on the monitor and
a lot of people wonder where the screen saver went and many people have
screwed up their windows system by restarting the computer to find out
what went wrong.
With computer prices being as low as they are, and big businesses
replacing all of their work stations after three years, it doesn't make
sense to most of the bean counters to worry about saving money by turning
off the complete system when you are not using it. Most IT managers in
large Corporations just tell every user to turn it on in the morning and
off when you go home, just logging off of the network when you leave your
work station. This works great in the USA, until this year, especially
in California, where the electric bills went up over 200% for a lot of
people at home and more for businesses. When the cost of power goes up
the ATX systems will come in handy when set properly to turn off or go on
standby after a period of no activity.
Ain't Technology Grand?
BOB 'DOMAN' MOSS "As long as Hershey and M&M (or Cadbury's in Europe) are
still cheap we can mellow out over a great chocolate snack, and the heck
with everything else."
On Thu, 29 Mar 2001 14:16:12 +1000 (EST) DONALD PEDDER
<jims_son AT jedi DOT apana DOT org DOT au> writes:
> > There are at least two such programs listed in the Utilities
> section of
> > Dev T's fantastic collection of DOS links
> (http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/)
>
> The "power" one didn't work for me, but the "atxoff" one does.
> Holding
> the power button down for 4-5 seconds also works.
>
> As for the comments about how much power is used when it's
> "switched
> off", I don't understand that. Surely the only real power-usage is
> keeping
> the clock going (everything else being insignificant in
> comparison)?
> Once someone told me that the power used by a computer - when
> it's on -
> is so small that you might as well leave it on all the time (which
> would
> mean less wear-and-tear on the parts). THIS I found incredible.
> Surely
> just having the monitor on alone all the time would draw at least
> 30W or
> so? My modem uses 9W. Add the rest and you have a light-globe on all
> the
> time. My electricty bills are expensive enough as is.
>
>
> Anyway, thanks all.
>
>
> dp.
>
>
>
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