What is the difference between switching your monitor into energy saver mode and just turning it off? I realize there are some out there that switch after a certain time period, but all I’ve had so far only go into energy saver mode at the push of a switch. When you reengage, it doesn’t seem to come back any faster than turning it on.
Anybody?
Maybe having an “official” energy saver mode lets you label it “Energy Star” compliant, which is a marketing feature 
Most of the ones I’ve seen lets Windows put into energy saver mode automatically (you can set this in the windows control panel.
Arjuna34
Off is, well, off. We’re all familiar with that one.
Energy saver mode goes 99.9% of the way to off. Just a eensy bit of electricity is used to watch for activity on your computer. If you re-activate the system the monitor saves you the trouble of turning on the power switch by switching itself on. It takes just about as long to come back from power saver as it does coming from a full power-off.
Energy saver is mostly there to turn off your monitor when you forget to do it yourself thus saving on the electricity bill. If you feel like mashing the button on your monitor everytime you start or leave your PC that’s fine too. The effect is the same.
Energy Saver mode allows you to save energy, without incurring the wear and tear of your on/off switch. It also allows you to save energy automatically, so if you walk away from your computer for a time, you don’t have to remember to turn off the monitor before you leave. Finally, by keeping just a little bit of power going to the monitor, you reduce the surge that occurs when you power up cold. Keeps the rest of the power clean and spike-free.
I remember reading that energy saving mode might help the longevity of the various components because their temperature remains slightly more consistent. Wear and tear problems occur more frequently as the temp range increases. That was the theory – sounds plausible but I have no firm evidence.
Energy saver mode is just another annoying feature that doesn’t consistently work correctly, and therefore requires that time and energy be spent on ferreting out all the settings that need to be disabled to keep your computer working smoothly. I ALWAYS turn off power-saving features on my computers, and have for years. If, for some reason, I will be leaving my computer on for several hours while I’m out of the room, I just turn the monitor off. My main monitor (a Samsung 900IFT) wakes up pretty quickly, even from turned-off-from-the-power-switch mode.
I can put my laptop into power saving or sleep mode but is there a way to do that with my desktop? It seems the automatic setting is pretty useless as it keeos the system on for a while (while you are away) and turns it off before you return. I know when I am leaving, why can’t I put it into sleep mode?
Welll, sometimes the computer is doing stuff & the monitor goes into standby but when the computer is complete, it’ll turn the monitor on so you can see …
Someday soon, monitors with no power switches.
I’m fairly sure that you can set a hotkey for that very function. Er… checks his own machine Or maybe you can’t. Hmm.
Laptops use ‘hibernating’ which is really nice. Like I would turn that on & a week later just hit a key & the screen & everything comes right up in 2 seconds…& all that time it was using the battery.
Desktops use ‘standby’ or ‘suspend’ e.g.
START:SHUTDOWN:STAND BY
My IBM Aptiva has a button on the keyboard that puts the whole computer, including the monitor on standby. I think that most Compaq’s have the same feature.