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Historically, Athena never shut off the video display. A screen saver with the Athena logo enabled an operator to identify dead machines just by glancing into the room. A blank screen meant a broken system. When power saving became standard practice, Athena disabled the power save feature, fearing that people would be too used the Athena convention, "blank monitor means dead Athena Workstation".
When the base OS began powering off the video monitors, Athena disabled the power save feature,
fearing that people would be too used to "blank monitor means dead Athena Workstation".
The power consumed even by a low power LCD display is significant: We expect to save in excess of 75 MegaWattHours of electricity per year. (25 watts per monitor, 10 hours idle time, 900 systems, 365 days.)
The risk is that Athena users won't realize that a blank Athena screen no longer means a broken computer.
Action Plan
- Re-enable the power saving feature from the base OS.
- Work with Athena Hotline Team to provide additional monitoring tools so that a visit to the room to glance at the monitors to identify unhealthy ones is no longer necessary.
- Publicise the change to:
- Help people remember that Athena systems no behave like the other systems and power save.
- Alert others to this small energy and cost saving action.
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