CRT Stand-by or off?

[cjug]

What is better regarding a CRT VGA monitor?

a) Keep them on stand-by while not being in use or
b) Turn them off with the front button

[Taiyaki]

I used to turn off all the pro monitors fully (usually in the back), I say used to as I don't use those anymore. With consumer crt's I use the front button and turn them off.

[xeos]

I used to turn off all the pro monitors fully (usually in the back), I say used to as I don't use those anymore. With consumer crt's I use the front button and turn them off.

we had one of the last great (and very commonly rebadged) CRTs: Mitsubishi diamondTron and the power button failed after just a year of tuning it off and on once a day. so if you turn it off (I would) use a power strip unless you like hacking inside high voltage enclosures.

[Taiyaki]

Wow, that's really bad luck. Were you able to repair it or did it just get tossed out?

I've had crt's that I used for years and years turning them on and off like 3 to 4 times a day, sometimes more, and never had an issue.

[xeos]

Wow, that's really bad luck. Were you able to repair it or did it just get tossed out?

I've had crt's that I used for years and years turning them on and off like 3 to 4 times a day, sometimes more, and never had an issue.

It was still under warranty (this was 2004 or so). But we had to send it all the way back to the factory. I was tempted to self repair but it wasn't my budget that had to pay shipping

[LukeEvansSimon]

Off at a power strip for maximal life.

[thchardcore]

About a year ago, I bought an open box mid-low end power conditioner from Furman. For around $80, 9 outlets, switch at the front and basically no way to hook up AC adapters without a small extension.

I have two high end CRTs, some line doublers and extron boxes and a supergun all running through it. Console stuff is all connected to a separate low end power conditioner that I don't care to turn off as often.

I wished I had done this years ago. Well worth the small amount of money. Mentioning it since I never thought about it until I had some issues with power in my apartment. Might be worth looking into.

[ASDR]

I can see two competing arguments here.

- Leaving a TV/monitor on means the PSU is doing some work. There's a red LED, there's a microcontroller waiting for an IR command from the remote etc. This means there likely is some heat on capacitors that wouldn't otherwise be there etc. There's probably less strain on things in general if they're just kept off vs turned on.

- The amount of power on/off cycles seems to be the single most important factor in the lifespan of many devices. I've never had a computer fail mid-sentence while typing. They usually don't turn on anymore the next day. I've never had a display, TV, amplifier, DVD-player die mid-operation. Every time you take a datacenter offline for maintenance some machines won't come back up. They might've run for another year or decade if the power cycle never occurred. IIRC for consumer HDDs the number of power cycles was a better predictor for lifespan than operating hours. The number one failure point for power strips seems to be the on/off switch, if Amazon reviews are to be believed.

I guess it's mostly stress from the temperature change vs capacitor lifespan being mostly determined by the temperature their at. If you have a poorly designed device that runs super hot, keep it off as much as possible to extend lifespan. If you have a device that runs at a reasonable idle temperature, keeping it running is probably the best bet. At least that's my guess based on personal experience.

[Taiyaki]

Off at a power strip for maximal life.

This. I did forget to add that I do power off a strip after powering off the tv.

[xeos]

I can see two competing arguments here.
I guess it's mostly stress from the temperature change vs capacitor lifespan being mostly determined by the temperature their at. If you have a poorly designed device that runs super hot, keep it off as much as possible to extend lifespan. If you have a device that runs at a reasonable idle temperature, keeping it running is probably the best bet. At least that's my guess based on personal experience.

pretty well reasoned argument. But... I've seen at least one CRT that was warm to the touch when "off" though so definitely check. In our lab I always enforced the policy of turning of our CRTs at the end of the day. Having used up at least 6 CRTs (including monitors and TVs) in my life they all failed by gradually accumulating image degradation rather than a poof of smoke. Presumably wear on the capacitors but I'm only coming to that conclusion post-hoc. It could be power cycles too. I'm not aware of any empirical comparisons for CRTs and certainly nobody's going to do one now.

also I did have a power supply on a desktop PC die while the PC was "asleep" (not hibernating, but in standby). Killed the motherboard and two hard drives.

[qjkxbmwvz]

I've never had a computer fail mid-sentence while typing. ... I've never had a display ... die mid-operation.

I've had computers die on me while I was using them. And recently, my trusty Amiga 1080 died on me, hopefully just of caps, while it was displaying a PS1 game. Gave me a scrambled image first and then shut off. It now, whenever plugged in, powers on without waiting for the power button and then immediately powers back off.