Metro said:
Lately there has been lot's of so called power saving ' tips ' by lot's of
so called ' experts '. Not being full savvy on electronics what is the best
to do with regard to turning off the stand by on your devices?
Pandora called. She wants her box back.
Surely there is a reason for the facility.
A number of reasons, the minimal is convenience, other reasons may
include memory retention, pre-warming, it depends on the device, what it
needs and who designed it.
Many manufactures require that the stand by be left on.
Various reasons being, for updates, faster start up etc.
Keep correct time.
All of those a are valid reasons. Though exactly *HOW* they're done,
and how much power they take, varies enormously depending on who
designed it. Some of the more power-efficient methods cost more when
you purchase the box, so that matters too.
One box might cost a lot less at the till, than the OTHER box, but the
first box costs more to run long term in regards to power than the other
one.
Bottom line is, customers usually do NOT look at power consumption when
buying fucking huge wide-screen TVs. They usually only care after a
year or so, when they're trying to shave off the power bill AND the TV
is now worth a tiny fraction of what it used to.
At the end of the day, the first vendor sold a TV, and the competitor
did not.
THAT'S what matters to the sales and marketing people.
You have to decide what matters to YOU...
What is the best thing to do in the NG's view
There is no "best" thing, because there are different "bests" for
different equipment.
In the case where "pre heating" is involved, in the interests of fast
start-up time, it's best to leave it on standby.
In the case of memory, (and timekeeping) it depends on who designed it.
If they have some form of non-volatile backup, then it's probably safe
to remove power from the mains, because the batteries and/or flash or
whatever will keep your settings (and time) live. Otherwise, you need
to leave it plugged in.
Ditto goes for updates and timed devices like PVRs, VCRs and such that
need power applied to turn themselves on at timed events to start recording.
In these cases, if there is a valid technical reason to leave it on
(and the trade-offs are not something you're happy to live with), you
should leave it on standby.
For everything else, the biggest feature you're likely to lose is the
convenience. Now how much THAT costs you (power wise) again depends on
who designed it. You need to do some tests, and see if the consumed
power in standby is high enough to warrant losing the "on via remote"
convenience, verses the cost (in power) for having that feature.
I can't answer this particular question, because you'll need to plug in
a power meter to your particular device and do some sums yourself.
