What is a Screensaver?

If you temporarily need to do something else while using the computer to work, which interrupts the operation of the computer, you can start the screen saver to hide the picture of the work status on the screen. ^[1]

If you temporarily need to do something else while using the computer to work, which interrupts the operation of the computer, you can start the screen saver to hide the picture of the work status on the screen. ^[1]

name of software

screensaver program

software platform

Xp / 2003 / Vista

Software language

c language

Suffix name

.scr

Screen saver function

What's the use of a screen saver in your computer? Discuss the score. The screen saver of some computers has the effect of saving power (because some monitors have a screen brightness lower than the brightness at work under the screen saver to help save power), and more importantly, it can protect your monitor. (Unless the screen saver is activated) When you do not use the computer for a long time, the screen of the monitor displays a constant picture for a long time, which will cause the screen light-emitting device to fatigue and discolor / even burn / eventually make the screen a certain area Color or darken.

Screen saver settings for screen saver

Screen saver screen saver setting method

If you want to change the screen saver, you can do it through the desktop Properties window. Right-click on a blank space on the desktop and select "Properties" from the pop-up shortcut menu to open the "Display Properties" window (this window can also be opened by clicking "Start Control Panel Display"). Click the "Screen Saver" tab in this window. Click on the "Screensaver" drop-down list and you will see all the screensavers to choose from. Select one of them and you can see the effect of the screen saver in the "Monitor" above this window. If you are still not satisfied, you can also click the "Preview" button on the right to experience the effect. To put it simply:

• Windows Xp / 2003 / Vista and below:

• Right-click on the desktop and select "Properties" from the pop-up menu; ^[2]

• Select the "Screen Saver" tab;

• Select the screen saver that needs to take effect from the drop-down list. If you select "None", the screen saver is turned off;

• Tick the checkbox in front of "Password Protection", then click "Settings" and fill in your password.

Windows 7 / Windows 8 and later:

• Right-click on the desktop and select "Personalization";

• Select the "Screen Saver" button in the pop-up window;

• Select the screen saver you want to set from the "Screen Saver" drop-down menu;

• The "Show login screen on recovery" check box is used to log in to the system after password authentication after exiting the screen saver.

In addition, you can:

• First directly copy all files in the program directory into the system directory (for example: C: WINDOWSSYSTEM32).

• Set in the "Display"-> "Screen Saver" in the control panel ^[3]

Screen saver installation instructions

Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8 /: *: \ windows \ system32

Windows 2000 and below NT kernel version: *: \ wint \ system32

The suffixes are: .scr

* The partition where the system is located

The usefulness of screen savers

For CRTs, screen protection is to prevent the screen from staying static for too long, and the color at a certain point must be changed continuously, otherwise the fluorescent substances on the screen will easily age and shorten the life of the display. In fact, the function of screen saver is not big. If you do nt use the computer for a long time and the host is running, it is wise to turn off the monitor. Turning on the screen saver will increase the unnecessary working time of the monitor and speed up the picture tube. Ageing.

The working principle of LCD and CRT is completely different. Since the interior uses a light tube, it is more unsuitable to keep it on for a long time. It is recommended that LCD users turn off the screen saver function. In short, the screen saver does not protect the LCD display.

When using a desktop computer, many people like to use a screen saver. When they switch to a laptop, this good habit is also retained, but they do not know that the screen saver is not good for the laptop, but instead Will cause some negative effects.

In fact, the screen saver only protects the CRT monitor using a graphical interface operating system (such as Windows), but because the LCD display and the CRT monitor used by laptops work differently, the screen saver often only works Help out.

The role of screen savers on monitors

The development principle of a CRT (cathode ray picture tube) display is that the cathode is heated by the filament, the cathode emits electrons, and then under the action of the accelerated polar electric field, it is focused into a very thin electron beam by the focusing pole. Energy to bombard the phosphor layer with extremely high speed. The target of these electron beam bombardment is the three primary colors on the phosphor screen. For this reason, the electron beam emitted by the electron gun is not one beam, but three beams. They are controlled by the three primary color video signal voltages of the computer graphics card R, G, and B to bombard the respective phosphor units and display them on the display screen. A complete image is produced.

CRT display working principle diagram

Under the operating system of the graphical interface, the colors displayed on the display screen are various. When the user stops operating the computer, the screen display is always fixed on the same screen, that is, the electron beam bombards the same area of the fluorescent layer for a long time. Over a long period of time, the fatigue of the fluorescent layer of the display screen will cause the screen to age, and even the picture tube will be broken down. Therefore, since the Windows 3.X era, the screen saver has been the best helper for protecting the CRT display screen. Through the constantly changing graphic display, the fixed points on the fluorescent layer will not be bombarded for a long time, thereby avoiding screen damage.

LCD working principle diagram

The LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), or liquid crystal display, has a core structure similar to a "sandwich", with two glass substrates filled with moving liquid crystal molecules. The signal voltage directly controls the on-off state of the thin-film crystal, and then the transistor is used to control the liquid crystal molecules. The liquid crystal molecules have obvious optical anisotropy and can modulate the light emitted from the backlight tube to realize the display of the image. A complete display consists of many pixels, each of which looks like a transistor that can be switched on and off. This allows you to control the resolution of the display. If the resolution of an LCD can reach 1024 x 768 (XGA), it means that it has 1024x768 pixels for display. Therefore, the working principle of LCD can also explain many questions that people will ask, such as why the optimal resolution of LCD is fixed, why the LCD refresh frequency is only 60Hz.

Screen saver damage to LCD

From the above-mentioned working principle of LCD, we can see that an LCD that is displaying an image has its liquid crystal molecules always on and off. For an LCD with a response time of 20ms, the liquid crystal molecules have been turned on and off. Hundreds of times. The number of switching of the liquid crystal molecules is naturally limited by the life span. At the end of the life span, the LCD will age, such as dead pixels. Therefore, when we stop operating the computer, the screen saver that still displays colorful and repetitive motion on the screen will undoubtedly keep the liquid crystal molecules in an on and off state.

The effect of screen saver on battery

As more screen saver makers pay too much attention to the expressiveness of the image and the change of color, they have completely made the screen saver as an animation. Some even 3D real-time animations require the cooperation of the graphics processor. Therefore, many beautiful and bulky screen savers came into being. Although such screen savers can give viewers a visual enjoyment, at this time, it becomes a burden for the hardware inside the computer. The design of the protection program to rest the computer hardware is seriously deviated from the original intention.

Due to the need to cope with changing screen savers with rich color details, the workload of the CPU, hard disk, and graphics card may be higher than usual applications. For laptop computers that sometimes use battery power, this is the case at this time. Screen savers have undoubtedly become power killers.

Different monitors need different maintenance methods

Therefore, when you may be leaving your laptop for a while, especially when using battery power, turning off the LCD is the only correct way for you. Of course, there are many ways to close it.

The most direct way is to turn off your laptop. This is also the most power saving method. Of course, you may just leave it for 10-15 minutes. Restarting may feel impatient. You can also buckle the screen. At that time, the system will automatically turn off the screen and enter the standby state, and the screen needs to be lifted again to return the notebook to the working state.

In addition, like the IBM notebook computer provides a shortcut key to close the screen, as long as the HotKey driver is properly installed, you can temporarily turn off the screen by pressing the FN + F3 key combination, and press any key to relight the screen. Of course, not all laptops can turn off the screen individually, but almost all laptops provide shortcut keys to turn off the backlight tube. Since the light from the LCD screen comes from the backlight tube, the light tube also works for a long time. It will naturally age. Since the screen cannot be turned off directly, it will not allow the screen saver to burn the lamp.

If you are not sure how long you want to leave, you can leave the screen off to Windows. You can set how long in the power management program to shut down the screen and the computer after losing operation on the computer.

Don't be fooled by a beautiful screen saver. To better protect your LCD, keep them away from your laptop.