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Do Later LCDs Need Screen Savers?
bwdunn asks: "Do we need to run screen savers again to prevent the burn-in we saw on the very old CRTs? Dell's latest and greatest laptops, the Latitude D800 and Inspiron 8500 both suffer from horrible screen burn-in problems with burn-in visible after as little as 2 hours. Dell claims this is an industry wide problem. The high end displays from Apple also seem to have this problem. I have never seen this problem before 2002. Is this something new due to inferior LCD screen manufacturing compared to screens from just a few years ago?"
Sounds crazy to me. Got three LCD panels at work that basically sit around displaying the same thing for 12 hrs a day (when we are not there).. I wasn't aware that it was -possible- for an LCD to burn...
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I bought a Dell Inspiron 5000E about three years ago (they are no longer made) with the expensive 1600x1200 LCD display.
Luckily, it doesnt have this problem. Ive used it every day for three years and not had any burn-in. None. Zero. Zip.
Another reason I'm glad my LCD doesn't have this problem is this: the energy saver just turns off the backlight. I can shine a bright flashlight on the display and see that the liquid crystals are actually still displaying the screen. Once I even moved the mouse pointer around while the backlight was off, and I could see it with the flashlight. (There is a button which turns off the backlight. It is positioned so that shutting the lid pushes it.)
Some screen savers also have a tendency to use the same areas of the screen, so watch out. "Blank Screen" is probably best because it really does set all the pixels to black, whether the backlight is on or not.
I wonder whether it is black or white which causes the pixels to "fade."
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
CUT CORNERS? Are you joking me? The Dell Latitude series has been a joke to me for years. While I haven't used any of their more recent machines (about 2 years), I can safely say that there is absolutely no justification for the Latitude's inflated price.
They are not durable, they don't perform well compared to the competition, are poorly built, and (with a few exceptions) weigh a ton. While Dell's Inspiron line isn't exactly great, they're priced accordingly.
The high-end notebooks from other companies, however, such as the IBM thikpad do indeed show improved quality which reflects their high(er) price. If you've ever used or felt one, you can see that they are very sturdily built.
When all else fails, you could always get an iBook. Cheap,
and well-built to boot.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
If that's the case, then dark screensavers would not actually help as I previously thought.
Many household devices today use more power when their state is changed than they would if they were just left on constantly.
Go get yourself a meter like the WattsUp and gather some stats. In my experience, for computers there is an initial power surge that is maybe 2-3x normal draw, and lasts anywhere from 20 seconds to a couple of minutes. So worst case, if you will be turning your computer on again within 6 minutes, you probably should leave it on. Otherwise, turning it off will save power.
For screens, it's more complicated; CRTs draw more while warming up, but only for 15 seconds or so. But they draw less when showing a fully black screen, and different resolutions draw different amounts. Also, modern CRTs have assorted sleep modes. So whether or not to turn off a CRT depends on your usage patterns. For LCDs, I have no data.
I was also interested to note that high CPU usage produces measurable extra power usage. On a dual-processor P3/733 system, each processor pulls an extra 10 watts under load. So it turns out that things like SetiAtHome aren't free.
My mother, for instance, wastes more power than she saves by going around turning off all her fluorescent lights.
A common misconception, but not true. See this article for the details. They recommend leaving them on if you'll need them again within 15 minutes. But this isn't because of power usage; it's because turning them off and on too often reduces bulb life.
Aren't LCD monitors designed in the same way? They only use power when they are updated?
You'll note that in a dark room, you can see the LCD just fine. This means that it's producing light, which takes power. According to this week's Economist, "an LCD is only 10-15% efficient at converting energy from its power source into a readable image."
The Dell Latitudes are not marketed to people who want high performance machines. They're marketed to people who want to be certain that if they order multiple machines with identical specifications they'll get multiple identical machines. Not only will you get several identical machines if you order them all at once (which is much more unusual than you may realize), but you'll also be able get identical machines if you order them again three months later (which is a much more common requirement than you may realize). And, you'll still have identical machines after the various warranty replacements you'll inevitably have over the next three years.
If you don't get any value from having multiple identical machines, then you don't want to buy Dell Latitudes. They don't offer anything of value to you. But don't act as if that means they don't offer anything of value to anyone.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Funny, but maybe not exactly accurate.
Some components wear faster if they're shut down, as I understand it.
I seem to recall, for example, some articles claiming that disk drives have become increasingly susceptible to the effects of powering on and powering off. As storage space has increased, powering them on and off does more damage, leading to newer units failing quicker on average.
I might be wrong about this. But I've been told by numerous people that powering off the system can lead to damage in the long run that isn't incurred by just leaving the computer on but in sleep mode or something of that sort. It's not just a possible-length-of-uptime issue.
Timex TMX watches have (I swear!) a "screen saver" function. It also has a handy magic-8 ball function. See here for an example. Endorsed by Lara Croft too!
I have had a 22" cinema display for four years (one of Apples oldest LCDs), running many hours a day (main machine) with no burn-in. I have a G4 Powerbook over a year old with no problems, and the two+ year old G4 powerbook it replaced (sold to a friend) has no problem either. I also know a few people with LCD iMacs, with no problems. Sounds like a dubious rumour to me.