[ale] screen saver eats 15 - 30 watts

Brian Mathis brian.mathis+ale at betteradmin.com
Tue Apr 2 16:47:58 EDT 2013


There's really no need to use screen savers anymore.  Set the power
settings to turn off the display.  Maybe you want to give a minute between
a blank screensaver and the power off, just in case you're sitting there
and want to hit the mouse or something.  If you want to know if the system
is on or not, look at the Num Lock light.

I also use "nircmd monitor off" bound to a hotkey if I want to put the
display to sleep without waiting for the timeout.




❧ Brian Mathis


On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:

> 3d screen savers with complex graphics are just as bad in Gnome.
>
> Ron
>
>
> Richard Bronosky <richard at bronosky.com> wrote:
>
> >You can also answer that question (in most cases) by removing Windows.
> >;-)
> >
> >Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S3 using the Swype software keyboard.
> >--Richard Bronosky
> >On Apr 2, 2013 12:15 PM, "Ron Frazier (ALE)" <
> >atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
> >
> >> **
> >> I never have liked the blank screen concept, since it's harder to
> >tell if
> >> the machine is still running or is locked up or something.  But, it
> >might
> >> save another few watts as you said.
> >>
> >> Ron
> >>
> >> On 4/2/2013 11:39 AM, Scott Bragg wrote:
> >>
> >> You might try the 'blank screen' screen saver and see if it drops it
> >even
> >> more.   Anything you do with the system that produces animations is
> >going
> >> to use more power than just blanking the screen and displaying
> >nothing.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
> >> atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> I've been monitoring my desktop computer that I mentioned in the
> >litecoin
> >>> thread.  I have a great little device attached to the power cord
> >called a
> >>> kill-a-watt ez, which you can buy at Home Depot.  This device
> >tabulates
> >>> both instantaneous power consumption (every second) and long term
> >power
> >>> consumption over a period of time, as well as cost to operate
> >whatever is
> >>> plugged into it.
> >>>
> >>> At any given time, the numbers vary quite a bit, but you can get a
> >sense
> >>> of the average.
> >>>
> >>> When I came in, this morning, I noticed the numbers were higher than
> >they
> >>> typically were in its steady state mode.  I did some testing and
> >found that
> >>> the screen saver was consuming 15 - 30 W.  I should note that there
> >is 100
> >>> W difference in power consumption between idling my CPU and maxing
> >it out.
> >>>  So, the screen saver is apparently taxing the cpu and gpu a bit.
> >>>
> >>> At $ .097 / kwh, it costs $ 7 / mo to run a 100 W (or .1 KW) load
> >for 24
> >>> hours / day for 30 days.
> >>>
> >>> So, just running the screen saver is potentially costing me $ 2 /
> >mo.
> >>>  It's not going to break the bank, but there's no point in wasting
> >that
> >>> energy and money.  My monitors are LCD's, which are not susceptible
> >to
> >>> burn-in.  So, I don't care what the screen saver it doing.  It's
> >more of a
> >>> lock screen.
> >>>
> >>> The screen saver I was using is mystify (windows).  It puts fancy
> >curvy
> >>> geometric lines on the screen which continually move and change.  It
> >looks
> >>> cool.  I changed it to a slowly moving line of text which shows the
> >>> computer name.  This text is a solid color, and I turned off the
> >>> "reflections" effect, which requires lots of 3d graphics
> >computations.
> >>>
> >>> My power consumption now actually drops by a couple of W when the
> >screen
> >>> saver is on.
> >>>
> >>> So, if you have a fancy smancy 3d screen saver running on a big
> >computer,
> >>> or several big computers, maybe with multiple monitors, you might
> >want to
> >>> look at how much power it's consuming.
> >>>
> >>> Just thought I'd pass this along.  Hope it's helpful.
> >>>
> >>> Sincerely,
> >>>
> >>> Ron
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and
> >K-9
> >>> Mail.
> >>> Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch
> >screen.
> >>>
> >>> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want
> >to
> >>> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate
> >energy
> >>> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
> >>> quickly.)
> >>>
> >>> Ron Frazier
> >>> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> >>> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Ale mailing list
> >>> Ale at ale.org
> >>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists
> >athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want
> >to
> >> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate
> >energy
> >> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
> >quickly.)
> >>
> >> Ron Frazier770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> >> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Ale mailing list
> >> Ale at ale.org
> >> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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> >http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
> --
>
> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
> Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch screen.
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
> quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
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