Devices that don't turn off

[arcticpenguin]

I find it annoying that equipment doesn't really turn off anymore. Your computer for instance - the motherboard has power even before you hit the switch. It's just pretending to be off. I remember when this trend first started, being wrist deep in printed circuits only to notice that the fan was still turning. Odds are probably better than even that you power supply doesn't even have a "real" switch anymore.

TVs, stereos, etc don't really turn off either, so they can burn electricity while they wait for commands from your remote.

What prompts this rant is this article on wireless-enabled laptops: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...1&u=/nm/20030923/tc_nm/tech_intel_centrino_dc

"Right now the Wi-Fi chip doesn't do anything for you when you have closed your laptop. We'll make it communicate even when it's closed, so the laptop can download calendars or emails while people are walking the corridors," Perlmutter said.

No, no, no! I do not want strangers putting viruses on my laptop when I think it's turned off. What are they thinking?

 

[Phil]

No, no, no! I do not want strangers putting viruses on my laptop when I think it's turned off. What are they thinking?

Easy, AP . . . easy. . . Unplug . . . remove battery . . . step away from the machine.

It's going to be all right.

 

[Occasional Chemist]

No, no, no! I do not want strangers putting viruses on my laptop when I think it's turned off. What are they thinking?

Mainly, when I turn my laptop off, I do so to conserve batteries. The laptop still being on, downloading junk (and consuming power) sorta defeats the purpose of turning it off.

 

[Psi Baba]

I have a HP 3100 All-in-one printer/fax/scanner. It does not have a power switch. At all. The reason? Since I might be using it as a fax machine, HP figured that I might be too stupid and casually switch it off, therefore possibly missing an important incoming fax. Yeah. I have yet to even use it for faxing.

 

[garys_2k]

Real PC power supplies still have switches!

But it is true, how much parasitic energy is wasted due to "always on" technology. Even wall warts probably burn a couple of watts waiting for the load to come on. Nobody seems to want to switch the AC anymore.

 

[Ove]

You know, you are touching an area with really a lot of money involved here. I saw a calculation once, unfortunately i cant find it at present but it showed that the consumption in stand-by mode for Europe in one year could power Denmark one year.

The compagny i work for (Bang & Olufsen) has devoted a lot of time and money to get the stand-by consumption down on our products. Currently our (new) TV's are using below 0,5W in stand by mode but since we have done so much work in this area we also have done a lot of research and a consumption of around 10-20W is not uncommon.

We also made a calculation and discovered that the compagny alone could save 0,5 mil Kr/year if we turned our PC's completely off instead of just leaving them in "sleep mode". True, they will take about 1min to start every morning but still.

 

[Zep]

You can save the majority of the power on a desktop PC by just switching the monitor off. The drawback here is that the time when monitors usually fail is when they are being switched ON - when current draw is highest.

Spinning down disks saves another notable chunk. However you will need to wait for it to spin up again next morning (gee, wait a few secs, why don'tcha!)

All easy to implement.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Psi Baba

I have a HP 3100 All-in-one printer/fax/scanner. It does not have a power switch. At all.

I have one too, and I've used the fax feature like once. It really bugs me that there isn't a power switch. The guys at HP evidently consider this printer to be the most important part of my system, whether I think so or not -- when it runs out of paper, it announces this fact with an unnecessarily long series of really loud beeps, as well as with a window which pops up right on top of whatever else I was doing (that couldn't possibly have been anywhere near as important). At least it did that until I figured out how to disable it.

In a fit of temper, I actually ripped the front right off the machine once. I was copying something important (well, I thought it was important) I was in a hurry, and it jammed up and refused to give it back. Later I put it back together, and it works fine. In fact, it hasn't jammed since, and for a few times after that, it even picked up only one piece of paper from the bin instead of all of them like it usually does (I think it was afraid to beep at me).

Give me one of those laptops, I'll show you how to turn the thing off.

 

[Psi Baba]

In fact, it hasn't jammed since, and for a few times after that, it even picked up only one piece of paper from the bin instead of all of them like it usually does (I think it was afraid to beep at me).

Mine exhibits that exact same problem. It must be a design flaw or poorly made rollers. Having only one sheet of paper in the feeder at a time makes that loud, out-of-paper beep that much more annoying because it happens more often unless you're hovering over the machine waiting to feed it the next sheet. Maybe I should try your, um, aggressive troubleshooting procedure.