On Tuesday 31 October 2006 17:48, Ronald Wiplinger wrote:
I wonder if a screen saver with a LCD monitor still useful is. I'll bite...
Wonder about your screen saver for an LCD monitor do you? Wonder no longer! The way you "save" an LCD (TFT) monitor is by blanking it--- that is, by blanking the back light--- by turning off the Cold Cathode Flourescent Lamp. Screen savers are interesting (esp on Linux) and they're pretty. But they don't save anything when running a monitor with a CCFL. The best way to save the life of your LCD (TFT CCFL) is to blank it out when not in use. This saves (extends) the life of the CCFL primarily, and it cuts operating costs by allowing the cpu to run cooler, and by allowing the CCFL inverter to run cooler. Typical life expectancy for a standard CCFL tube is about four years... and lots of them are going out much faster than the average. Why? Because folks run screen savers instead of blanking the tube. I blank the tube on my R30 ThinkPad... and the tube lasted a little over 5.5 years. I replaced the tube myself for $9.00, but it was a pain in the neck (the LCD monitor in a laptop is typically not designed for easy maintenance). Let's say you're the manager of a telephone support center and you have 500 CPUs running screen savers during idle times (like maybe over-night) sucking up cpu cycles (generating extra heat). By blanking the CCFL tubes (no screen no screen saver) the CCFL (and inverter) is not converting electrical energy into heat, and the extra cpu cycles are not converting electrical energy into heat---- times 500. (The electric bill will be a little lower... not a lot, but a little.) Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) needed a screen saver to keep the electron raster from burning the phosphor coating on the face of the display tube. LCDs (TFTs with CCFL backlight) do not require the save "fix". Just turn the backlight off. -- Kind regards, M Harris <><