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LCD Monitor - use power button?


frapper

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When I shut my computer down each night, is it better for the monitor and its power button (longevity) to (1) use the power button to turn it off, or (2) just let it go to 'standby' or 'sleep' with the amber light by the button flashing all night? I realize this is not an earth-shaking issue, but wanted to get your opinions. Thanks. :)

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When I shut my computer down each night, is it better for the monitor and its power button (longevity) to (1) use the power button to turn it off, or (2) just let it go to 'standby' or 'sleep' with the amber light by the button flashing all night? I realize this is not an earth-shaking issue, but wanted to get your opinions. Thanks. :hysterical:
There is no benefit to turning it off manually via the power button. On every computer I have used, I simply use the power management feature within Windows to set the monitor to turn off after 30 minutes of inactivity. You can set the time duration to your liking.
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I have an old Belkin Power Authority II (think large square power-strip type device) http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/3128...L500_AA300_.jpgI have my computer, monitor, printer, external USB drive and speakers hooked up and "on". When I shut off the computer, I press the main on/off button on the unit and everything else instantly turns off. None of my devices gets the power button pressed at the end of a computer shutdown.However, if I'm leaving the computer during the day, I manually power off the monitor.So during the day, I might press the power button several times to turn the display on and off but at the end of the day I don't.The only display I ever lost was on my first IBM, an all-in-one computer with a CRT screen. My other monitors (CRTs) were e-cycled as I changed to larger CRTs or LCD displays.

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The only display I ever lost was on my first IBM, an all-in-one computer with a CRT screen. My other monitors (CRTs) were e-cycled as I changed to larger CRTs or LCD displays.
Losing them was never a big problem for me; lost one to a lightning strike, but that's the only one over the past thirty years. To answer the original question, I let the amber light blink.On another note, what do you mean by e-cycled?
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I take my equipment somewhere for someone to fix, harvest parts or, if still working, sell.The broken IBM I dropped off at a junior high school in Allentown. The newspaper did a story on one of the students who was a whiz. He'd get computers from businesses and fix them up for the school. I figured he might be able to salvage parts from my IBM to get another computer going.The working CRTs I took to a higher end pawn shop. You had to prove who you were (two proofs of ID including a photo ID) and had to have the sales receipt from whatever you wanted a few $$s for. I had the receipts and the manuals.In PA, it is against the law to dump electronics in a landfill so we look for places that will accept and possibly reuse working electronics.My church was collecting old cellphones. So I got rid of three including my old analog bag phone! I kept that because I was told it would still work for 911 calls while there were analog signals. Since it got better coverage than some cellphone services, I kept it in the trunk of the car when we went on long car trips. That old bag phone saved us on a rural stretch of interstate 40 in NC. We had our first and only blowout. They located us by triangulation (I didn't know exactly what mile marker we had passed - I generally don't pay much attention to them. We could have walked in one direction or the other to see I suppose) and sent a wrecker from the closest little town about 25 miles away. We were so grateful, we followed the guy to his shop, after he put on the baby tire, and bought tires from him. It's no fun driving miles and miles on the baby tire at slower speeds.

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Glad you're finding good uses for that stuff. I don't know if it's actually illegal to drop off electronics at the landfill here in FL, but I certainly see plenty of them along the side of the road. :w00t:

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Best Buy will also take most electronics free for recycling. They charge $10 for certain things with screens, but then give you a $10 gift card. Details on their web site. Supposedly a limit of 3 items per family per day. Just pretend you don't know your spouse. :w00t: They require that you remove hard drives from PCs prior to dropping them off. FAQs on their site.

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When I shut my computer down each night, is it better for the monitor and its power button (longevity) to (1) use the power button to turn it off, or (2) just let it go to 'standby' or 'sleep' with the amber light by the button flashing all night?
It's a good question -- and I don't know the answer, but I do know the rules are different with an lcd monitor -- you didn't say which kind you have? So ... I have a recent Samsung lcd monitor, and the blue light behind the power button will blink when it's not getting any video signals for a time. BUT -- does that turn off the backlight, or does it just blank the screen's transistors? Lcd panels work kinda opposite to an old crt -- and the two lcd failures here have both been due to failure of the backlight. Until I can be certain I'm turning mine off overnights.[edit: dang, I just now saw the thread title, you did say what kind of monitor you have] Edited by burninbush
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burninbush, I had a Samsung 931BF 19" from 2006 (like yours?). It just went bad within the last month. At bootup I had to turn the power on and off 2 or 3 times at the powerstrip and push the power button a couple times to get it to come on (after turning it off the night before with the power button). Then, if lucky, I'd get flashing red Northern Lights on the screen before it settled down a ran completely normal for the next 12 hours. Each morning it was the same thing. Finally, I just left the blue light flash all night so it would start up easier the next day.I replaced it with a "square" 19" Acer V193 which is excellent so far. Instead of the blue light flashing behind the power button all night, this one has a steady amber LED when not in use.Acer 19"Walmart carries two others, almost identical, with speakers (yuck) and a digital input.

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My Sony has an intermittent problem with "sleeping".....I put the PC to sleep at night and the monitor sometimes won't wake up the next morning. The power button does nothing and I have to physically disconnect the power cord for a few seconds.....when I plug it back in I have video! Oddly enough it doesn't happen when the monitor sleeps through the day (the computer doesn't sleep). In any case, I turn the monitor off with the button at night.Kevin

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