On Fri, 2008-06-13 at 17:02 +0200, Johannes Wiedersich wrote: > In my experience *any* computer will be in some kind of standby mode as > long as there is no physical interruption to the power. What about machines in PC, XT or AT style cases? This always-on-standby, soft-power-button stuff only came around with the ATX form factors. > Some power > supplies don't have a 'physical switch', but that just means that they > will always use a few watts of electricity unless you remove the cord or > put a physical switch between the box and the electrical outlet. A few W or mW? I suspect the latter, but if you've got a lot of machines doing that, it adds up. > Are all leds of your ethernet off, when the computer is off and there is > a ethernet connection to a router? Newer hardware has some 'wake on lan' > option to boot the computer via ethernet, but of course that means that > the ethernet cards are not off, but on standby -- wasting your > electricity even if you don't want to use 'wake on lan'. WoL, in my experience, is generally disabled by default on all but the lowest quality, most overpriced POSs you can buy (Dell being the worst offender). > > If shutdown isn't meant to work this way, then why does it have a -P option? > > The electronics can not really pull the plug or physically disconnect > from the sockets. It's like with your TV set: it will always be on > standby, if 'switched off' by the remote control. Heck, if the TV can be switched on by remote, it's still drawing power. Just not as much as it would to run the CRT or backlight and LCD. I used to have a stereo that could actually be turned on/off by the switch, or on/standby by remote. Though if it was turned off at the switch, the remote wasn't going to do jack. > I've even seen some floor lamps that still consume a power of some 10 W > when switched off, because the transformer is still on and has not been > disconnected. Better designs have the power switch between socket and > transformer and _not_ between transformer and light bulb. That seems like a horrible design flaw, when you consider that a lamp is basically an extension cord terminating into a switched screw or bayonet socket on a stick. The kind of thing that your average 8 year old can build in an afternoon, given the materials and (depending on how safety-aware they are) supervision. -- Paul Johnson baloo@ursine.ca
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part