I have been shuting my computer down overnight but leaving the displays on (they do enter sleep). Would I save any electricity by shutting the displays off completely?
I'm just wondering if i should let the computer/displays sleep overnight or shut both down to conserve power.
In short, yes. Even though your monitors go into sleep mode, they are still powered and will wake up when signalled to do so by you switching on your computer. Another name for sleep mode is Standby, and that is what most people do to their TVs last thing at night; they turn them off by the remote but not on the set or at the wall. In effect, the TV enters the same state on standby as your computer monitors do when they go to sleep.
Interesting question.
I checked the specs of one normal LCD monitor. It is supposed to draw less than 0.6W while it's in sleep mode.
If you drew that for a full year, that'd be 15kWH of electricity. I think that'd cost me about $3US.
You may not save the world by turning off your monitors, but it'd be the polite thing to do.
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