what is the purpose of screensaver? i have been thinking about this for while. if screensaver is use to save energy, then whats the point of those fansy screensaver?

ok im no expert but from what i have been told,when the same image appears on your lcd/crt for prolonged periods of time,it can deteriote the quality of the components in the lcd/crt after a while,so by having a screen saver it ensures that there is always a moving picture rather than a static picture,i hope this helps

The LCD monitor does NOT require screen saver as there will not be any permanent burn in such as the case with the earlier CRT monitors.

i_XpUser

oh i thought the purpose is to save energy. wait, but what about blank screensaver that your monitor is blank black. is the monitor actually off? but the LED light on the monitor is green, not orange.

That is exactly right.

You can burn a image that looks like a ghost image on your screen if you always have, for example, the same desktop up all the time.
Issue is the phosphor coating on the glass that lights up when the RGB guns hit it can become fixed and not change.

This was the reason for screensavers invention. It was never a power savings issue.

I was taught that with VGA and above that you didn't need screen savers any more. You would never need a screensaver for flatpanel displays.

Guess what? That's not true.

I personally have seen burnin on both a 17" monitor and a 17" flat screen. It was caused by a static screen saver :-)

If you leave your pc idle for hours at a time put on a screensaver that MOVES. You will be glad you did.

Give a person a fish you feed them for a day.
Ask a person to internet search and they learn a skill for a lifetime.

Your monitor will always be on with screensaver - it doesn't have anything to do with power management & does not save energy. The screensaver is carried over into XP from the days of Windows 3.1.

i_XpUser

"I personally have seen burnin on both a 17" monitor and a 17" flat screen. It was caused by a static screen saver :-)"

What you experienced with your flat panel was technically NOT a burn-in but something called "temporary image persistence" and the term temporary is used as a relative term because it can vary greatly from one display to another.

Image persistence usually occurs when a "ghost" of an image remains on the screen even after the monitor has been turned off or a different image is being displayed. However, image persistence in almost all cases tend to be redeemable by turning the monitor off for as long as the image was displayed or by displaying the same image in the complementary colors.

You can use the tips below to prevent image persistence or what some would call burn-in on your LCD monitors.

0. Use a screen saver

1. Change your background image periodically

2. Use the power save feature of your monitor or Windows to turn off the monitor after a period of inactivity and at the same time prolong the longevity of the display's backlight.

In the likelyhood that you actually have an LCD with this anomaly, trying the suggestions below should help you get rid of the image persistence (burn-in) on your display.

0. Turn your monitor off for several hours/days/weeks.......months j/k ;-)

1. Use a screen saver that uniformly "exercises" each part of your screen.

2. Display a white image on your screen for several hours/days/weeks

forget about screensavers, send your monitor into standby after xx minutes. not as much an eye catcher as the playmate of the month' screensaver but more effective :-)

Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

icq 10183575

a better replacement of screen saver is to set the power saving option such that the monitor will switch of it self after 5 min. or more.It is far better than screen saver and will save u from what ever problem that may arise.the power saver optin is present in the same tab as the screensaver. well any one can tell me whether there is any disadvantage of using monitor turn off after xx min.

BHABANIPRASADPATI@GMAIL.COM

oh, but i set my screensaver if the pc idle for 30 mins, is that too long?

Also jak, another disadvantage of a screensaver is it will interfere with some things you might be trying to do. Better to just set the monitor to turn off, or do it manually when not in use. If you are doing an install or defrag and it starts up, the whole process will stop and start over again.

MANUALLY SWITCHING OFF/ON A MONITOR IS NEVER A GOOD PRACTICE. ALSO IF U'R SETTING U'R SCREEN SAVER TIME AS 30 MIN , IT IS TOO LONG JUST TOO LONG .RATHER SET U'R MONITOR SWITCH OFF TIME AS 5 MIN OR JUST 2 MIN. SO THAT WHEN EVER U 'LL LEAVE FOR SOME TIME IT'LL SWITCH OFF AUTOMATICALLY(ASSUMING U'R PERSONAL USE, AS IT CAN NOT PROVIDE ANY PROTECTION).

BHABANIPRASADPATI@GMAIL.COM