Power Options

[E/B]

Without warning unattended desktop with WinXPHome SP3 causing new HP
L2208W monitor to 'black out' and display the XP logo; mouse movement
presents clean screen.
Power options set at Home/Desktop and Never, Never, Never.
Tweaked Control Panel/Display yesterday to increase font/item sizes as
an assist for legally blind wife.
Suggestions for technically challenged user?

 

[DL]

rt click on the desktop (an empty space) select Properties, screen saver
tab.
Mind you its not really reccommended to have the desktop visible (no screen
saver) for long periods

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was Wednesday, April 15, 2009 3:36:37 PM, and on a
whim, DL pounded out on the keyboard:

Mind you its not really reccommended to have the desktop visible (no screen
saver) for long periods

Why do you say that?

Terry R.

 

[Anna]

rt click on the desktop (an empty space) select Properties, screen saver
tab.
Mind you its not really reccommended to have the desktop visible (no
screen saver) for long periods

E/B...
Any chance that when you "tweaked" the Display Properties sheet you also
accessed the Screen Saver tab and possibly set the screen saver to "Windows
XP" logo for x amount of minutes?
Anna

 

[E/B]

Thanks, Anna. You aired my error.
Never use a ScreenSaver (it makes life particularly difficult for wife)
but it was my bad and has been undone.

BTW, DL, agree about no screen saver and use MS Office Shtcut Toolbar.

 

[Bill in Co.]

But what's wrong in your opinion with using a screen saver (after say 20
minutes, of inactivity)? You just move the mouse and your desktop appears
again.

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was Wednesday, April 15, 2009 9:41:56 PM, and on a
whim, Bill in Co. pounded out on the keyboard:

But what's wrong in your opinion with using a screen saver (after say 20
minutes, of inactivity)? You just move the mouse and your desktop appears
again.

Screen savers aren't what people should use. Monitors aren't subject to
burn in any longer. They should use the power settings and turn OFF the
monitors so they don't burn OUT.


Terry R.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

...
Screen savers aren't what people should use. Monitors aren't subject to
burn in any longer. They should use the power settings and turn OFF the
monitors so they don't burn OUT.
...

When you say "turn off" I assume you mean via the power setting,
and not by pushing the power button on the monitor? I wouldn't
physically power down a peripheral with the system running.

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was Thursday, April 16, 2009 8:55:39 AM, and on a
whim, Anthony Buckland pounded out on the keyboard:

When you say "turn off" I assume you mean via the power setting,
and not by pushing the power button on the monitor? I wouldn't
physically power down a peripheral with the system running.

I wouldn't have prefaced the "turn OFF" with "use the power settings" if
I didn't. ;-)


Terry R.

 

[Danny Krychek]

When you say "turn off" I assume you mean via the power setting,
and not by pushing the power button on the monitor? I wouldn't
physically power down a peripheral with the system running.

You're being overly cautious. WAAAAAAAY overly.

I've even physically disconnected a monitor from a running system, to
hook it to another running system. Ooodles of times.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

When you say "turn off" I assume you mean via the power setting,
and not by pushing the power button on the monitor? I wouldn't
physically power down a peripheral with the system running.

There is no problem at all physically powering off a monitor while the
system is running.

And although you say "I wouldn't physically power down a peripheral
with the system running," my very strong guess is that you do it with
printers, as almost all of us do very frequently.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

... although you say "I wouldn't physically power down a peripheral
with the system running," my very strong guess is that you do it with
printers, as almost all of us do very frequently.
...

Nope, mine is always powered up. Maybe I'm showing my age,
and modern systems are more tolerant, but I was once taught to
always power peripherals up first, then the system, and the same
in reverse for powering down, and it's stuck. The rationale was
that the system might suffer in unspecified ways from the
transients. Mind you, I've never seen an actual negative effect
from a power cut, where _everything_ powers down and later
up together. As somebody else wrote, I probably worry too
much.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Nope, mine is always powered up. Maybe I'm showing my age,
and modern systems are more tolerant, but I was once taught to
always power peripherals up first, then the system, and the same
in reverse for powering down, and it's stuck. The rationale was
that the system might suffer in unspecified ways from the
transients. Mind you, I've never seen an actual negative effect
from a power cut, where _everything_ powers down and later
up together. As somebody else wrote, I probably worry too
much.

Your choice of course, but in my view, you worry, not only too much,
but about the wrong things. If your printer is always powered up, you
are almost certainly shortening its life and wasting electricity, and
you are doing so completely unnecessarily.

I turn my printer on when I want to use it, and turn it off when I am
finished using it. I've been doing it that way for many years. I have
never had a problem doing so.

I of course can't guarantee that I'm right when I say "as almost all
of us do very frequently," but in my experience, almost everyone does
it the way I do, not the way you do.