CRT
Saver
Review Date: 20-April-2008
Conclusion - 4/5
CRT Saver is a small free program from Leithauser
Research which is designed to reduce the power consumed by CRT monitors.
It is NOT suitable for LCD monitors since it can increase
the power consumption of this type of monitor. In summary CRT Saver does
what it says and under some circumstances can provide a useful reduction
of energy used by CRT monitors. Tests indicate a saving of between 5% and
16% in energy use.
Description
The program works by setting the background of the display black if there has
been no activity over the background area for ten seconds. The background
is restored when there is mouse movement over the background
area. Open windows are not affected.
Obviously the benefits of this program will depend on the screen
area covered by open windows and the background colour or wallpaper. Typical
savings are between 5% and 16%.
Download Location
CRT Saver
File size 462KB
Installation - 5/5
The program comes in the form of a small self
extracting executable. Installation is simple, just double click on the downloaded
file cesarc.exe and follow the on screen instructions. The first window includes
a help screen. This will install the program for all users and
display an icon in the system tray which runs on start up. To uninstall the
program double click on the tray icon and follow the instructions.
Help - 5/5
The first window of the installer includes a help screen, the latest help information
can be found on the web site. The instructions are clear and unambiguous and
spell out the products limitations and what it does.
Test Results 4/5
Tests on the program on several computers running Windows Vista,
XP and 2000 showed no significant problems and the program operated as advertised.
CRT Saver consumes very little system resources and does not increase the energy
used by the computer, there is no evidence of memory leaks.The program could
provide further energy savings if there was the option to blank all
inactive windows. I did notice that if the PC is heavily loaded by other
programs (I was doing some background tasks at the time) the program does
take a couple of seconds to respond and get the display back when the mouse
is moved (mouse moves straight away). The only very minor bug is that when
uninstalling the program the
tray icon is not removed if the
program is running at the time. Based on the figures below it should be possible
to obtain a saving of between 5% and 16% in energy use.
A selection of results obtained with the program are shown below:
Figures are CRT Saver Not Active/CRT Saver Active
Figures in brackets are equivalent LCD figures
White background, all windows minimised, 12 icons: 78W/65W (23W/24W)
White background, open window white background, black text file 50% screen12
icons: 78W/72W
Blue background, all windows minimised, 12 icons: 70W/65W
Blue background, open window white background, black text file 50% screen12
icons: 74W/72W
Standard Vista wallpaper, all windows minimised, 12 icons: 69W/65W (24W/24W)
Standard Vista wallpaper, all windows minimised, 60 icons: 68W/65W (24W/24W)
Note: Blue background colour is: Hue 137, Sat 146, Lum 130 (Red 67, Green
149, Blue 209)
Memory usage 508-604KB (no evidence of memory leaks)
CPU load from program <1% when active and inactive
Value For Money - 5/5
It's free so it must be good value.
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