[Anthos]

Hi all.

So I got a smart plug recently and decided to mess around and read some power values around the house for the heck of it. A few nights ago, turned off my pc. And noticed my monitor power draw to be around 17w (only thing plugged on the smart plug). Now that got me very confused and somewhat annoyed and tried to see what’s be going on. I’ll jump straight to the point though and spare you all the little steps of the interim just some minor info beforehand.

I’ve had this monitor for 3 years exactly and had the eco mode off since usually such functions might just try to decrease brightness or some other things that thought they were unnecessary. Even now looking at the definition through the manual it states “When the computer goes into standby mode, the EcoMode enables the monitor to go into Standby mode aswell. The default setting is On. Selecting Off may prevent the monitor from going into Standby mode.” Doesn’t seem overly important whether it was on or not since when I turn off my pc I turn the monitor off as well (and even if I don’t press the button it still goes into standby mode after a couple of minutes) so all was fine. (until I read the wattage).

So overnight the monitor with the eco mode off had a constant power draw of 17watts. visual proof of those 8-9 hours straight of that constant power draw. If I turn the eco mode on then after 9 minutes and 5-10 seconds the power draw of 16-17w (occassionally might draw 20w if pc itself is on but monitor off) will drop to <1w. All of these are unaffected on whether the pc in itself is turned on/off, or whether the DP/USB cables are connected or not. Considering that I’ve had this monitor for a few years now it’s quite annoying since I live in a place where on average a kwh costs 0,33euros which means I’ve paid between 100-200 euros worth for electricity to power up literally nothing (it’s not as much the money but the principle). Like wtf? Why is this happening? It doesn’t make sense to program an eco function like this since even when a monitor is turned off you’d expect minimal power draw regardless of what setting is on or off. I’d have expected changing that setting to have more obvious visible warnings flat out stating what’s going on instead of a generic statement that doesn’t really say anything. Why is it even drawing that much power when eco mode is off even when you literally press the button to shut off the monitor? I assume some controller is still getting powered? Why? the monitor is turned off. Why still deliver power to a monitor that isn’t showing anything??? Am I missing something obvious because I honestly can’t wrap my head around this (ffs even if I was to never turn on my monitor in a whole month it would still be responsible for 8% of my whole household electric consumption in that given period……….. a turned off monitor!!!!!!!).

N.B Something more that I noticed while finishing this post. I’ve always known that my monitor (others mentioned this as well) is that when turning the monitor off but keeping the pc on if you shine with a flashlight on the screen (or any other strong-ish source of light) you can make up your background/desktop/etc. And I tested this just now with the wattage and it coincides when eco mode is on and the moment the power draw goes to <1 after 9 minutes pass that, that also goes away. So I assume that controller or whatever it is powers off after 9 minutes but if eco mode is off it remains permanently on regardless if you turn off the monitor. WHYYY?????? And why is this not mentioned in the manual anywhere???

[EsaT]

If you can see signs of image in reflection of flashlight, that means only backlight is powered down and LCD matrix itself and everything else is still active and monitor doesn’t actually power off.

Good bet that same has been happening without input signal, except that LCD matrix is controlled to show just black image.

99.9% sure you can thank Nvidia for this little “feature” of hogging power for doing nothing:
That monitor has (by itself power hungry) G-Sync module replacing standard panel control and signal electronics. And it’s unlikely that Dell has had any control over functions or much knowledge of them with the way Nvidia likes their closed black boxes. (might want to remember that next time when deciding what company to give your moneys)

[Anthos]

As stupid as is that happening (since I see no point in half the monitor still being powered when you literally press the button to turn it off) I’d have appreciated if when turning off the eco function it was way more transparent into what that actually did. Because when it says it might prevent the monitor from going to stand by when there is no signal is not really accurately describing things.

Also for whatever is worth my GPU is an AMD one and the main reason I got the AW2721D was for having a very mild anti-glare coating (since no glossy monitors are available anymore). The fact that it had a Gsync module wasn’t high on my specs preference list.

[EsaT]

All those Eco modes and other settings are really just functions of Nvidia’s black box and Dell might have been unaware of them.
Or Dell might have very little to do with anything on monitor except sticker, depending on if Alienware’s engineering/product development hasn’t been integrated into Dell and operates as separate unit.

But still that’s just plain bad product development and testing.
Then again standard gamer brands exist to make as much profit as possible with the least amount of costs/actual work done.
Or maybe issue was found and relayed, but Nvidia just told them to kiss their butt and bean counters and marketing decided to silence whole issue.

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