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How much power does your computer monitor use?

For those of you that leave your computer monitors on at home or work, you may need to think again, especially if you still are using an old CRT type monitor instead of a newer LCD. I get a daily PC Mag email sent to one of my email accounts and the subject finally caught my attention.

As stated in the article by PC Mag,

“CRTs use more power when operating than LCDs do, but use slightly less power at idle (according to a power-management study conducted by Microsoft ).”

Also don’t fool yourself that just by using a screen saver that you will reduce power. It’s the opposite actually. By having a screen saver running your monitor never goes to “sleep” and keeps operating as if it were actively being used. A typical 35-watt LCD will use about 2.5 watts per hour while idle.

Even a screen saver that puts up a black screen results in no power decrease whatsoever. In fact, some 3D-intensive screen savers, while very pretty, may draw even more power, since they’re using the 3D graphics card to render those colorful pixels.

  You are better off using your operating system to set  a “time  out” for when your monitor will shutdown and go into “sleep mode” reducing the overall wattage of the device.