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View Full Version : Is offing and oning going to off my monitor?


Cutshaw
25-08-10, 18:02
I've got a really short "turn off the display" time in my power options and I'm wondering if going to standby and back a lot will shorten it's lifespan? It's an LED backlit job if that makes any difference.
Snakedoc
25-08-10, 18:05
The most stress arguably is when you first power up a device. This is when the power will surge through the components. So yes, probably.
Cutshaw
25-08-10, 18:13
I should probably sort that then.
k3vst3r
25-08-10, 18:17
Then again they argue modern electronics can take the stress from constant power cycles.
GentleGiant
25-08-10, 18:22
I am not sure the surge problem is anywhere as bad when coming out of standby on a modern lcd display.
The components are kept "warm2 rather than cold, so the thermal shock is not so severe.

In the end it is up to you; which is cheaper, the cost of replacing the screen a year early, or the cost of the extra `leccy.
KarlHungus
25-08-10, 18:27
I had an LG lcd screen for 3 years which i let go into stand by and turned on and off probably 50 times a day and it was fine all that time.
Snakedoc
25-08-10, 18:28
In standby, many of the components are not powered at all. The standby circuit isolates them from the power. The addional strain on PSU as it powers up and the parts which were previously dormant will not help, less stressful than plugging in and unplugging. Stress is stress though, don't want to have a breakdown die to it. I leave my screen on unless it not being used to an extended period. My PC is on 24/7.

Saying that, I have a almost ten year old crt still going.
k3vst3r
25-08-10, 18:28
I had an LG lcd screen for 3 years which i let go into stand by and turned on and off probably 50 times a day and it was fine all that time.

Yep, when they make them they stress test them pretty much make sure they can with stand every normal day abuse like power on an off perhaps more than 100 times daily.
KarlHungus
25-08-10, 18:32
In standby, many of the components are not powered at all. The standby circuit isolates them from the power. The addional strain on PSU as it powers up and the parts which were previously dormant will not help, less stressful than plugging in and unplugging. Stress is stress though, don't want to have a breakdown die to it. I leave my screen on unless it not being used to an extended period. My PC is on 24/7.

Saying that, I have a almost ten year old crt still going.

I have a friend who is still using a 21/22" crt he bought new back in 2000/2001. He hasnt had a single issue with it and refuses to go lcd because he says the image quality compared to crt is poop and he spots enemies in online games much better than anyone else.
k3vst3r
25-08-10, 18:35
Saying that i wouldn't turn my pc on an off cause HDD's are mechanical an parking an making head re-spin up will wear them out quicker.
KarlHungus
25-08-10, 18:36
Seems the norm for people to leave pc's on 24/7 these days.
GentleGiant
25-08-10, 21:14
Seems the norm for people to leave pc's on 24/7 these days.


Yeah, Npower LOVE em!!! :thumb:
michaelkenward
25-08-10, 22:16
It's an LED backlit job if that makes any difference.
No one else has spotted this.

If anything, this should make it safer to switch on and off.

Nothing to "heat up".

The usual backlight has fluorescent tubes and these have a shorter life than semiconductors.

Then again, LEDs haven't been around long enough to prove this.
GentleGiant
25-08-10, 23:08
LEDs have been around for more than 25 years.

I think you mean LED TVs.
michaelkenward
26-08-10, 09:42
LEDs have been around for more than 25 years.

I think you mean LED TVs.
I meant LED backlights.

There is not such thing, yet, as an LED TV, even though advertisers mistakenly use that monicker in their ads.

A genuine LED TV would use LEDs as the switched light sources, not as a backlight behind an LCD display. These will happen, but probably as OLEDs, that is Organic LEDs, of the sort they have been working on a CDT for more than a decade.

LED backlights have not been around for 25 years. Probably three or four years.

You may be thinking about early monochrome devices, which are not really the same as the lighting LEDs that have become available in the past few years.

I had my first LED "torch" about 10 years ago. It was a novelty back then. A credit-card sized designer's thing that you squeezed to get light out. (By coincidence, it was a freebie handed out at the opening of a lab at Oxford University where they were doing research on gallium nitride, one of the semiconductors that has great promise, when they can bring down the cost.) Unfortunately, the torch died after a few years and, as a sealed unit, there was no way to fix anything.

So, back to the question, LED backlights have not been around anything like as long as the alternatives, so we can't tell how long they will last when cycled on and off. We can extrapolate from the experience with those earlier devices, but that is just a scientifically informed guess.
Cutshaw
26-08-10, 14:10
I've went for a more "balanced" turn off display time, but it's been an interesting read. I had hoped that as michael said a modern LCD/LED would take a bit more of a beating.

I had read before(some place I neglected to commit to memory) that an LED backlit monitor didn't have the same initial warm up of the "regular" types and made assumptions.