Who lies for you will lie against you - Bosnian proverb
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Fujitsu Siemens monitor draws zero Watts in standby
FROM THE GERMAN-JAPANESE joint venture comes a LCD screen that pulls zero watts, in standby.
How is this feat of engineering and environmental marvel achieved, we hear you cry? Easy, the power supply just turns itself off in power-save mode – it’s as simple as that.
Just how this all works is doubly simple, we’re sure the world is going to wonder why we haven’t seen this before. There’s a switching element within the power supply to the monitor, that’s controlled by the PC. When the screen’s powered down, it also triggers the PSU to completely disconnect from the mains. The next time the PC sends an output to the monitor, a wee electrical signal restores the display’s power to full glory. Yes, this works with both digital and analogue connections too, before you ask.
Ingenious, huh?
Eco screen, with an ever-so-subtle sign behind it
To justify creating this greenest of green screens, F-S sent through some facts at us. The outfit believes by switching to this monitor UK businesses could save £168,000 per year or the average bar bill for an INQ soiree.
A typical day puts a monitor through eight hours of full use, with 16 hours of standby which costs around £6 per-monitor per-year. Those figures are all based on just one per cent of the 2.8 million PCs shipped in the UK in Q2 of this year. This is with the world currently littered with displays drawing between one and six watts of powers in standby mode, shame on them!
In case you’re wondering about the apt range name the screen would fit in to, it’s the Scenicview premium ECO.
They’re not scrimping on the necessaries here either, with a display size hitting 1680x1050 pixels with a five millisecond response time. Also, ianother 30-per cent of possible power saving is a new feature, Displayview Autobright. This just automatically changes the screen’s brightness adapting to the ambient light around.
The Sceneview Eco models are available now, in all countries across EMEA with prices starting at EUR 419 for the 20-inch model. With two more screens, 24 and 26-inch coming in September. µ
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It probably uses the power from the VGA or DVI signals to turn the relay on again.
Sure, the PSU can be turned off, but I'd be interested to find out how the signal is detected - does it complete a circuit, or does it need a circuit that sits there monitoring it (in which case power, and thus zero watts, is required..)
Take a look at that sign. The background is just plain green behind the "0." What's up with that, some last minute editing from when they finally found they could cut it down to 0 watts consumed?
My monitor is powered from the 12v rail from my PSU.
Also didn't the old macs that came with a proprietary video connector (ADC) do this as well (DVI + 24ish volts for power)
Isn't there a few more cost-effective ways to do this?

1. Push the button on the monitor when you leave for the day.
2. Have the janitor shut down power to the floor at night.
3. Hook-up a relay between the usb port and the monitor power cable, so the monitor only gets power when the computer is on (and the usb has power).
Why does the "0" look like it's been photoshopped?
And at at least 120 quid more expensive than any other decent 20 inch LCD it will only take 20 years to pay itself off in energy savings!
Various manufacturers released transistors aa well as small chips to run things on mircoamps on standby many many years ago already, and they cost a few pennies, so this is a bit late and not that impressive, and I hope that panel justifies the price because putting in a 4 cent transistor does not.
And seeing how it's in fact easy and cheap to make a next-to-zero standby and the industry had ages to start using it but didn't really one wonders why the EU and such haven't stepped in yet, if you see where they did step in it's a bit curious how they skipped this.
This is complete bulls**t. Let's say that you have a monitor that draws 1,5 W in stand-by. With a little math we find out that if the monitor remains in stand-by an average of 20 hours a day it draws 20 h * 1,5 W * 365 = 10,95 kWh per year. For the sake of simplicity let's assume a price of 0,1 Eurocents per kWh. We get a grand total of 1,1 saved Euros per year. In the end you pay a lot more for this 0 W monitor than you would for the wasted energy.