As usual, ZP, you ask 100 questions in two sentences <g>.
I like that -- matches my outlook.
>> I don't worry about the juice. I am mostly concerned
with extending component life.
I don't worry about juice either, particularly, but I
do have a problem with heat, so I think about these things.
The monitors produce the most heat, by far, so I shut them
down. My 21" is on a Matrox millenium which, for the life
of me, I can't get to go into power saver mode in NT
(it did under Win 95). Since it's easy to push the off
button, I have not pursued this aggressively. My 17" on
an ATI card goes nicely into power-saver mode, but what
the heck -- push one button, push two.
I just can't justify shutting the disks down for heat reasons,
and old disks humping along without a break for over 6
years now, plus various backup strategies, plus the fact
that the oldest and humpiest are still chugging along
since 1992 with no more than a few weeks' respite altogether
(and then only when I was out of town for several weeks
at a time), all lead me to the philosophy that these
guys should, to borrow a phrase, work for ME.
The spin-up I referred to is on my wife's PC where I keep
our mirrored disks and therefore the critical stuff (yep,
my wife's PC runs NT server. The best compromise -- she
doesn't care WHAT it runs and I don't have to screw around
with Server too often <ggg>). In truth, it's down in
the noise too, for me, because I only access it two or
three times a day and I KNOW why it takes 20 seconds.
My wife makes more noise, which may make me go change it
eventually. But then I'd have to figure out how to do it
again.
BTW, toning down the brightness doesn't do much for the heat,
though it probably does help the life quite a bit. If my
monitor would go into power saver mode realiably I would
let it do it. Beyond that, I admit the off/on is probably
not the best thing for the monitor. Still, TVs do it for
years, so I'm not going to get bent out of shape over it.
The switching UPSs switch on a voltage sag that sags enough.
I forget the specs, but they're in the APC manual. PC tolerance
for sags is pretty high, though. It's spikes and surges that
do them in. I've never had a (known) problem with this, so
I intend to continue in my blythe what-me-worry mode on that
issue. Company owned monitors help with this attitude, I
expect <gg>.
To keep your ISP in shape, get Quote Tracker from Jerry Medved
($25) and set it to a 5 minute refresh interval (or whatever
keeps 'em hopping). Works wonders.
medved.net
You can get sensors which sense motion and/or body heat
to keep the lights on while you're in the room and turn
them off when you leave after 20-30 minutes or so.
My company's corporate offices
have them. They work well, though I sometimes find myself
in the dark during periods of deep slee .. thought. This
is true with the lights on also, however <g>.
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