What are the 4 monitor power management options and what do they mean?

The 4 options are: 

Why do I care about monitor power consumption?

There are many reasons why, but with all the discussion about “Green IT” let’s not forget that a PC is made up of two major parts:  CPU & Monitor. If we only look at the power consumption of a PC we might not be getting all the power savings available to you. What happens in many case is that the PC is shut down or Wake-on-LAN product is use to turn off a CPU, however the monitor is not shut off. 

Using a Dell 1901FP as an example we can see that the ON mode uses maximum 75W and typically 55W vs in Active off mode it uses less than 3W. If we assume that a PC is turn off for 14 hours a day then we can calculate that power saving by having a monitor that can enter into Active Off mode.  

With average cost per KW cost 9.13¢ according to the Energy Information Administration.  

55W-3W=52W

52Watts*14 hours = 728W savings or ~6.6¢ per PC/Day or $24.26/PC/Year 

Or IBM E74 Monitor

75W-2W=73W

73W*14Hours= 1022Watt or ~1KW or ~9.3¢ per PC/Day or $34.05/PC/Year 

Now this does not sound like a lot of money to be saved but what these numbers don’t take into account are the AC cost nor do they take into account that businesses pay more for electricity compare to residential rates.  

Now take an originations with 5000 PCs, 10 000 or 100 000, how much will they save with Active Off mode using the Dell 1901FP as an example?

5000 PC                                $322.33/Day       $121 301.18/Year

10000 PC                              $644.66/Day       $242 602.36/Year

100000 PC                            $6446.60/Day     $2 426 023.60/Year 

Even farther saving can be achieved if the monitor uses any of the other modes during the day! Is $322.33/day good enough reason to care about monitor power consumption? 

Need more convincing? 

Quoting Energy Star’s web site http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_management 

“Hundreds of leading organizations have activated system standby and hibernate settings. Read how GE, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, North Thurston Public Schools and others are saving as much as $75 per computer annually.” 

Use Energy Star calculate to help you determine the cost saves. Estimate your savings using our online savings calculator 

Which of my monitors support “Active Off” option?

Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) v3 has just added this feature to collect this data and return it to your System Center Configuration Manager 2007 database.  

For more information about monitor power management options see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Display_Power_Management_Signaling or http://www.vesa.org/Standards/summary/2003_3b.htm  

What is a preferred monitor size?

Preferred monitor size is defined by the Monitor standards group (vesa) as the resolution as“The display manufacturer defines the “Preferred Timing Mode (PTM)” as the video timingmode that will produce the best quality image on the display’s viewing screen. The display manufacturerdefines the meaning of the words “best quality image”. For most flat panel displays (FPD), the preferredtiming mode will be the panel’s "native timing" based on its “native pixel format”.” 

Why should I use a monitor’s Preferred Timing Mode / Native Pixel Format?

Most LCD flat panel monitor users do not realize that operating their monitor in a resolution other than the native resolution negatively impacts the performance of their flat panel monitor. Unlike cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, the liquid crystal display (LCD) panel used in flat panel monitors has a fixed, predefined pixel format over a set area. A fixed pixel-format means that if the native resolution of the LCD panel is 1,024 x 768, there are exactly 1,024 pixels in each horizontal line and 768 pixels in each vertical line or 786,432 total pixels. When the PC’s resolution is set to the native pixel format, this allows for a 1:1 ratio and yield the best results. When the non-native resolution such as the 800 x 600 is displayed on a 1024 x 768 native resolution monitor scaling occurs. Scaling adjusted the image to fill the entire monitor screen. This results in manipulation of pixels to fill screen but, the manipulation may cause text and images to appear blurry.  There is no good way to show a non-native resolution on a fixed matrix display. 

How do I know what the native monitor size is for my monitor?

Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) v3 displays and collects this information. 

Let face it, most IT people are not finance savvy, however they unknowingly have to deal with finance issues on a day to day bases.

So to help out everyone lets discus Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

The TCO of a PC is not just the cost of the PC itself it is much more than that.

• Service Desk cost
• Infrastructure cost
• Application Testing cost
• Out of Warranty Support costs
• Etc. 

In a recent WIPRO study “Using Total Cost of Ownership to Determine Optimal PC Refresh Lifecycles” (available on the Intel web site), they listed various cost associated with TCO for a PCs.

What you might be asking yourself is why not keep the PCs until it breaks. Well this is when the more hidden cost come into play.

• Application testing
• Service desk cost
• Client performance costs
• Increase of operation cost vs newer PCs. 

How is TCO affected by application testing?

Application testing affects TCO by increasing the number of workstations needed for any application rollout. If you have a 5 year life cycle and assuming that you replace 1/5 of your workstation each year at a minimum you would have 5 different configureations but more likely you would have 10 (5 Desktops and 5 laptops). If you are a multinational company this number would increase even more with respect to different OS languages and regional procurements. By reducing the refresh cycle to ever three years, you reduce this number significantly. 

How is TCO affected by Service Desk Cost?

There are hundreds of way this is affects TCO but some of the more common ways are:

• Locating drivers when moving from one version of an OS to the next
• Increased conflict resolution between drivers
• Increase in image sizes due to the number of drivers that need to be supported
  • Increase in bandwidth used by image deployment
  • Backup cost for bigger images
• Increase in troubleshooting
• Once a PC is out of warranty, there could be costs with stocking parts such as hard drives, RAM, monitors, etc. 

What are some of the client performance costs?

This is a catch-all for anything that affects the client. Costs in this section range from

• Downtime due to hardware failure
• Cost of overtime to recover from data loss
• Increase in cost of out of band PC replacements
• Inability to run needed software 

What are some of the increase operating cost vs newer PCs?

For example take these two Intel processors E5410 vs L5410, There is a difference of 30W. If you assume that you have 10000 PCs that were replaced you would see a 30*10000 = 300 000W or 300 KW/H. At $0.10 KWH that is $30 an hour in saving between the two processors. If you assume 7.5 hours a day with 200 working days a year that equates to almost $50K  is savings. ($30*7.5*200 =$45 000). From this we can see that you can save money by picking the right processor.  

We all know that if you that a PC and lock it away in a closed room that the room will get hot. Now take several hundred or thousands of PCs in a building, this will increase the air conditioning (AC) cost. Yes it will decrease the heating cost but you will find that AC cost will out weight your heating savings. As you look at processor specs you will see that some run hotter than others, there is a trade-off. This is where upgrading to a newer CPU might give you more saving with respect to AC / power consumed, etc. with the same performance. Don’t forget about the capital  & operating cost of the AC units and UPSs that you might need to run this equipment.  

What this is ultimately meant to show is that there is a lot more to a PC’s cost than just the capital cost of the PC. We need to look at all the costs to determine what is right for our company. These are just example of some of the costs are involved in TCO for a PC. 

Attached is a simple spreadsheet that you can used to help determine what is the appropriate TCO and therefore PC replacement cycle for your company.

TCO.xlsx (11.63 kb)

When I look at my monitor’s serial number it is a 20 character serial number, but when I run MIR or other tools they display a 12-13 character serial number. Why is that? 

The answer to that is simple: VESA, the monitor standards organization, has defined “up to 13 alphanumeric characters of a serial number may be stored”. This is why that EDID Serial number is a maximum of 13 characters long.  

When I look at my monitor’s serial number it is a 20 character serial number, but when I run Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) or other tools they display a 12-13 character serial number. Why does it not display the last 13 characters of the serial number? 

This answer is not so simple. Although the standards say “up to 13 alphanumeric characters of a serial number may be stored”, they don’t define which 13 characters are stored. Therefore it is up to the manufacturer to select which part why want to encode within EDID. 

Follow up question: But how can I determine which monitor is the right monitor? Keep watching here for an announcement on how to better handle monitors and their serial numbers.

There are a few reasons why you would want to clean out the monitor data that exists on a PC, for example monitor data included with the imaging process and falsely marked as active monitors.

With all version of the Windows there is no built-in way to clean up monitor data. Therefore these manual steps are needed to fix this issue.

Before beginning download and install Subinacl.exe .

Open an elevated command prompt and execute the following command.

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY /grant=<Domain>\<User Name>=f

Open Regedit, and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY

Delete the Display key.

It is important to reboot the PC at this time. This will allow the OS to recreate the display key with the appropriate data and to reset the security on the registry key.

Many firms don’t have a predefined refresh cycle. This can lead to many issues such as cost of downtime, loss of data and PC repair costs, particularly when a PC is out of warranty. When a PC is under warranty there should be no cost associated with PC repairs and generally it is unlikely there will be unexpected downtime or data loss. When a company has no refresh cycle or a refresh cycle of more than 3 years this will lead to higher costs in the long run.

In a resent WIPRO study “Using Total Cost of Ownership to Determine Optimal PC Refresh Lifecycles” (available on the Intel web site), based on WIPRO analysis they found the average yearly cost for laptops and desktops. The cost includes capital cost, support cost and repair cost.

Laptop

Yearly TCO for 3 year refresh is $1266

Yearly TCO for 5 year refresh is $1430

That is a saving of $164 a year per laptop.

Desktop

Yearly TCO for 3 year refresh is $740

Yearly TCO for 5 year refresh is $802

That is a saving of $62 a year per desktop.

It should be noted that WIPRO found that the yearly support cost per PC was twice as much in year 5 vs year 1.

One of the interesting notes within the study was “Wipro’s survey data shows that a firm with 30,800 PCs can reduce power consumption costs by $214,000 a year once they optimize on a three year refresh cycle…” because “Newer PCs use significantly less power because of improved processor efficiency”.

WIPRO concluded that a three life cycle for replacing desktops and laptops was the most cost effective. They also concluded that putting off PC purchases only shifted the burden and ultimately increased the Total Cost of Ownership.

What I found interesting was there was not discussion on how to determine when a PC was out of warranty. It is great to say that all PCs that are 3 years old get replaced but how do you know that a PC is out of warranty? Using their example of 30 000 PCs how do you find the 10 000 PCs that need to be replaced?

This is where Warranty Information Reporting in conjunction with System Center Configuration Manager can be used to determine this information thereby reducing your support cost even further.