Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 October 5

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October 5

Windows power options "Turn off monitor"

Does it actually save any more power than just turning off your monitor? Does it just send you monitor into standby mode (which still uses power) or will it put the graphics card into powersaving mode or anything like that? 24.6.46.106 (talk) 01:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It puts most monitors into sleep mode. This is not necessarily a power saver. Some monitors have been shown to use more electricity when sleeping (or even turned off) than when turned on. Now, the power-hungry sleeping monitor feature is primarily limited to LCD televisions. However, older LCD monitors are still out there. As for the CRT monitors, which this feature was initially used for, there is a very clear reduction in power consumption when sleeping. As for how it sleeps... the video card can force it by stopping the video signal. With no signal, the monitor has nothing to display. Often, monitors have a green power light when there is video and an amber sleep light when there is no signal. -- kainaw™ 02:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a safe bet that any device that doesn't have a fairly chunky, mechanically latching, on-off switch is consuming at least some power when supposedly turned off. In theory, this could be a fairly small amount - most micro-controllers have a standby mode that consumes very little energy and so long as they are the only thing that's powered up while "sleeping" - you need not be very concerned. Waking up the micro-controller with a lightweight switch or a software command is easy enough - and once the micro-controller is up and running, it can turn on the power to everything else in the monitor. But in practice, manufacturers are lazy - and the proper standby-mode circuitry adds a little to the cost - so sometimes the "standby" mode saves hardly any power at all. SteveBaker (talk) 03:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I knew I had a note on this somewhere and finally found it... To be energy star compliant a monitor (or television) may only consume up to 1 watt while in standby/sleep mode. I also have a better memory of the monitors that uses more power in standby mode than live mode. They had manufacturer labels stating that they were HP monitors. I called HP to ask about them and I was told that the model number on the labels was not an HP model number. They were most likely counterfeit monitors - yes, there is a market for counterfeit monitors. -- kainaw™ 04:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I've used a power monitor (A Maplin one) with my 24" monitor in sleep mode, and couldn't measure any consumption. It's clearly pretty small. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Energy Star rated monitors will use very little energy while in sleep mode. My CRT monitors all seem to be of that type. I do have an LCD monitor which leaves the back-light on while in sleep mode, however. You can tell because the screen doesn't go totally black, but only gray. Another way to tell how much energy a monitor is using in sleep mode is by how much heat it produces, as that's where the energy all goes. If, after several hours in sleep mode, it's still hot on top (because heat rises), then it's wasting lots of energy. StuRat (talk) 13:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

My LCDs don't produce much heat at all. I used to leave my lunch on top of my CRT monitor. My sandwich would be toasty warm by lunch. Now, I am stuck eating cold sandwiches. -- kainaw™ 14:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

This is one of many reasons why we should keep a few CRTs around - the other that comes to mind is the presence of true black color (most LCDs cannot turn the backlight off behind black pixels, leaving a disappointingly bright gray - especially if viewed from a dark room). Nimur (talk) 14:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Mine is dark purple - still not black, but not gray. -- kainaw™ 17:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. When Windows is sending an "off" signal to your monitor when it's already off, does that affect the power consumption of your computer? Or would that depend on your graphics hardware/drivers/stuff like that?24.6.46.106 (talk) 02:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Few graphics cards have a low-power state (unfortunately) - so probably not much. Nimur (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Windows Movie Maker (2)

Is there a patch to fix Windows Movie Maker's (the Windows XP version) constant freezing? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 02:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

movie maker sucks ass, that's why microsoft dumped it after vista. get some real video editing software on your computer, like virtualdub —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 17:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Bittorrent limiting bandwidth

I'm using uTorrent and as I've got a restricted bandwidth on my connection I'm wondering if it's possible to restrict how much I download per day by the byte? The scheduler can be used to change the bandwidth rate, but I need to be able to set the actual amount downloaded, as it doesn't really matter how fast I'm downloading! Is this possible? Thanks! 210.254.117.186 (talk) 06:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The feature list of µTorrent includes "Quick-resumes interrupted transfers". Thus you can safely interrupt the transfer manually when the daily quota is loaded. I have BitTorrent which has a Pause button, but one can interrupt the download in other ways. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the OP is asking for a feature that will pause automatically when a certain limit has been hit. I don't think it's possible with uTorrent. Here is a forum post on the same subject from a little while back... which is not too promising. I imagine there would be personal firewalls with download caps of some sort, but I don't know of any and quick Googling doesn't come up with much. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

P2P internet

I remember, some time ago, that I read something about an internetlike net composed only of peers (without Internet service provides or at least less ISPs). Each peer would route traffic through its machine and receive information through other peers. Of course, if we were using a WLAN connection to connect with each other, it would only work with computers relatively near - like those in the same city. Therefore, you would still need some servers which are not users to reach other computers all over the world. Does this project exist in any usable way? Is it possible to have a P2P "Internet" without commercial ISPs? Or at least with less commercial ISPs? --Quest09 (talk) 09:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

A Virtual private network might serve your purposes. It is a network that uses the public Internet but it is "all yours" in the sense that only a select few computers can use it, and no one else can read your traffic, not even an ISP. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

mac os lite

you know hows there's lite stripped down versions of windows which remove stuff like IE and drivers, and can install in much less space than normal windows os, is there a mac equivalent? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 11:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Supposedly the operating system which runs on the iPod and iPhone is a stripped-down version based on the original codebase for the full Mac OS X. Even if you had access to its code, though, you could not run it on your Mac or PC because it is designed for the specific hardware in those products. Nimur (talk) 14:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

If you are referring to the various custom versions of windows that you find on file sharing networks and bittorrent, then I do not know of a version of OS X that is like this (though admittedly, I don't look on these sites much at all). You could do the same thing with OS X if you wished to, but to strip down OS X into the components you need it's best to be familiar with UNIX-like operating systems and editing XML files. Caltsar (talk) 16:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

List of remastering software lists a large number of products for Windows and Linux but none for OS X. That may mean that none exist. -- BenRG (talk) 18:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

That being said, you can find instructions here and there to reduce a lot of file space. For example, on a new installation of OS X there are usually a million default printer drivers installed which can take up some many hundreds of megabytes. Usually you don't need all these, assuming that 1. you aren't adding new printers that regularly, and 2. if you do need a printer driver, it's easy to find them online on the company's website. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Blender 3D

The second time I open Blender 3D the program breaks, i´ve reinstalled Windows Vista, but the problem still appear...Can anyone help me? --81.227.64.69 (talk) 15:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you re-installed Blender 3D along your new Vista installation? Does it freezes or crashes? If it freezes, maybe you are low on RAM. Also try installing Ubuntu on your computer, it could work. --Quest09 (talk) 16:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

WTF... "You're having trouble with one program, consider switching to a totally different OS.."!? Please keep your Linux evangelism to the places where it is warranted! (The RAM suggestion is not much more informed, but at least it isn't glibly infuriating.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

First step with such things is to uninstall the offending program completely, reboot, and reinstall it. If it still is a problem, try asking on one of the Blender forums, but make sure you give a detailed explanation of what you do to make it happen, what the exact error message is, etc. Because "the program breaks" is not very descriptive and it's hard to have any clue what's going on, remotely. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

When you say "the second time I open blender" - do you mean that you're trying to run two copies of blender at the same time? SteveBaker (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Also what do you mean by "the program breaks"? Does it exit without any error, or pops up with an error, or has a corrupted GUI or something else? --18:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

When I reinstall the system from scratch Blender works, but only until I set the computer on "Sleep" and then when I start the system again Blender doesn´t work. Windows says "The program has stoped working". This problem first appeared when I put my new GPU Radeon HD4870 in my HP M7796. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.227.64.69 (talk) 16:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Tuga Turtle

I'm trying to execute an L-system in Tuga Turtle, and am having some trouble with it.

In TI-89 BASIC, the code I am trying to execute is equivalent to

:Define w()=Prgm
:  x+i*cos(theta)-->f
:  y+i*sin(theta)-->g
:  Line x,y,f,g
:  f-->x
:  g-->y
:EndPrgm
:Define a(n)=Prgm
:  If n=0 Then
:    w()
:    Return
:  EndIf
:  a(n-1)
:  theta+2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:  theta-2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:  theta-2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:  theta+2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:EndPrgm
:0-->theta:0-->x:0-->y:2^(-n)-->i
:0-->xmin:1-->xmax
:0-->ymin:.866-->ymax
:ClrDraw
:a(n)

My version of the code for Tuga Turtle is

Def r
  turn 60
end
Def l
  turn -60
end
Def a(n)
  if n==0
    walk 10
    return
  end
  a(n-1); l; a(n-1); r; a(n-1); r; a(n-1); l; a(n-1)
end

a(n)

This runs into syntax errors. Can anybody help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs) 19:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, Tuga Turtle might not be the best choice of programming environment. You're porting from an esoteric language into an obscure language implementation that was apparently designed for "personal use"; I think that you're going to have nothing but frustration if you really want to use that environment for any serious programming. Nimur (talk) 20:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

the final a(n) needs to be a(60) , a(100) etc - your error is that n is undefined - I haven't checked against the TIbasic program - but try with a(60) and see if that does what you want.83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Google Voice: Computer-to-computer?

Hi all,

I recently got Google Voice and am a little confused. Isn't it support to support computer-to-computer calling? As far as I can see, I can only call phones with it. Isn't GV supposed to be a "Skype killer?"

Am I missing a feature? Thanks — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 20:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Google Voice says "The service provisions a U.S. phone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account." Which sounds like it is explicitly about phones. I think you want Google Talk if you want computer-to-computer. The "Skype killer" aspect refers to the ability of Skype to use regular phone lines (which is more impressive than computer-to-computer, which has been a standard part of IM programs for ages). --Mr.98 (talk) 00:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes it's more impressive, but it would be even more impressive if it were all seamlessly tied together in one application. I'm guessing that they'll get to it eventually. Thanks, — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 15:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Toshiba display drive

Hey guys. For some reason the display drive on my Toshiba went bezzerks, reducing the screen to a fraction of what it's supposed to be (if you know what I mean). The Model is PS271U-6K9J0K. However, this notebook OS is Win98 (obsolete, I know). I did quite a bit of searching, but I cannot find the display driver download on the Toshiba website. There are drivers there, but I cannot find my model and OS. Is there anywhere else I can go to find this driver, or did I not look hard enough at Toshiba? Thanks. --LastLived (talk) 23:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You might have to do a system restore. Or better yet, get Windows Vista or get Windows 7 when it is released.  Btilm  01:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

There is probably a good reason the laptop is on WIn98. Vista etc are not going to run on a machine with 64Mb at most 128Mb RAM.

Look on another national Toshiba site; some model numbers were not the same country to country, although the machines appeared identical. Look under the name Toshiba Satellite 2715XDVD. Also you cannot rule out physical fault in the screen. A new driver will only help if the Properties tab tells you the driver is not working correctly.

If it is a physical fault, you may be able to get a second hand replacement screen; it's fiddly but not hard to replace one. - KoolerStill (talk) 20:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I found the problem with looking up the display driver. Turns out at Toshiba that I was looking up the Model serial PS271U-6K9J0K, not Satellite 2715XDVD. Well, turns out that it was under the Satellite 2715XDVD that I found the display driver for Windows 98. As you know, I really need an upgrade. But as for now, thanks for your help!--LastLived (talk) 03:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)