How to quickly/automatically change monitor refresh rate?

[LegendaryDragon]

So I got a 240hz monitor but most of the time 120/144Hz is good enough for me. Right now I am manually xhanging refresh rate before and after each gaming session back and forth between 240 and 144Hz. I do it to save some electricity and potentially prolong monitor/gpu lifespan by reducing the load (?). Also I can feel the monitor heats up more than my old 165Hz so does lowering Hz help with that? Is there a way I can quickly change refresh rate without having to go to Nvidia control panel and navigate the change, confirm the change everytime I want to switch back and forth? Desktop/keyboard shortcut? Automated program that change refresh rate when a specific app (game) is open?

On a side note: whenever I turn off the PC I notice it still consume electricity because the headphone light is still on and sometimes the keyboard does too. So I usually unplug monitor and PC whenever I am done. Is it good? Bad? I can connect both to an extend power socket with switch but I am worried about safety as plugging to wall is probably the safest bet for a stable power source without fearing overloading the socket.

[Hinjima]

7 minutes ago, LegendaryDragon said:

So I got a 240hz monitor but most of the time 120/144Hz is good enough for me. Right now I am manually xhanging refresh rate before and after each gaming session back and forth between 240 and 144Hz. I do it to save some electricity and potentially prolong monitor/gpu lifespan by reducing the load (?). Also I can feel the monitor heats up more than my old 165Hz so does lowering Hz help with that? Is there a way I can quickly change refresh rate without having to go to Nvidia control panel and navigate the change, confirm the change everytime I want to switch back and forth? Desktop/keyboard shortcut? Automated program that change refresh rate when a specific app (game) is open?

On a side note: whenever I turn off the PC I notice it still consume electricity because the headphone light is still on and sometimes the keyboard does too. So I usually unplug monitor and PC whenever I am done. Is it good? Bad? I can connect both to an extend power socket with switch but I am worried about safety as plugging to wall is probably the safest bet for a stable power source without fearing overloading the socket.

You are not going to save a lot of electricity by changing it from 240 to 144hz.. Its not worth the hassle.

You might save a couple of cents a year, if that.

Its also not going to increase the lifespan of your monitor or GPU by doing this.

 

Constantly unplugging your monitor and PC is not a good idea.. Sockets and plugs are only rated for a certain amount of connections and I would worry more about wearing out the plugs over anything else.

Stop doing this.

 

Where did you get all this paranoia from?

Did you read somewhere or?

[DreamCat04]

19 minutes ago, LegendaryDragon said:

So I got a 240hz monitor but most of the time 120/144Hz is good enough for me. Right now I am manually xhanging refresh rate before and after each gaming session back and forth between 240 and 144Hz. I do it to save some electricity and potentially prolong monitor/gpu lifespan by reducing the load (?). Also I can feel the monitor heats up more than my old 165Hz so does lowering Hz help with that? Is there a way I can quickly change refresh rate without having to go to Nvidia control panel and navigate the change, confirm the change everytime I want to switch back and forth? Desktop/keyboard shortcut? Automated program that change refresh rate when a specific app (game) is open?

On a side note: whenever I turn off the PC I notice it still consume electricity because the headphone light is still on and sometimes the keyboard does too. So I usually unplug monitor and PC whenever I am done. Is it good? Bad? I can connect both to an extend power socket with switch but I am worried about safety as plugging to wall is probably the safest bet for a stable power source without fearing overloading the socket.

For most monitors, the component with by far the most power draw is the backlight. You'll save very little power by lowering your refresh rate. If your monitor supports GSync, just leave it at the highest refresh rate and lower the FPS target in-game.
 

You do technically prolong the life of your GPU by putting it under less load, although you're much more likely to upgrade it before it actually degrades far enough for you to notice any performance decrease.

 

It's fine for your PC to be in a power bar as far as I know. For me, disconnecting my PC from power in any way (switching the PSU switch, unplugging, switching off the power bar), it starts, shuts off after a few seconds and then successfully starts&boots properly. Idk why that's happening. I used to use the power on AC back feature that would turn my PC on when I turned my power bar off and turned it back on the next day. It was really practical since my monitors remember their last state, meaning if they were disconnected from power, they'd power back on once reconnected to power but would remain off if they were unplugged while turned off

[mariushm]

Stop unplugging your computer, or turning off the power strip that powers your computer. You'll do more damage to the computer over time doing that, compared to how much power you save by doing it. 

 

A computer that's turned off will typically consume under 0.1 watts.  A led on a mouse, or some leds on headphones or keyboards will maybe raise the power consumption to less than 0.5 watts.  You're paying maybe 0.5$ for 1kWh, so you'd need to keep the computer turned off for 2000 hours or more in order to pay half a dollar more on your electricity bill - that's nearly 3 months of your computer being turned off. 

 

If the lights bother you, you should be able to go in BIOS and turn off the feature that keeps those USB ports powered when the computer is turned off.  It will be something about enabling charging functionality (to charge phones using those USB ports in the back) or something about waking computer using events from USB (like a mouse click, a key press) 

 

The amount of power saved by the monitor changing the refresh rate will be minimal, maybe 1-2 watts when your monitor consumes 60-80 watts. As others told you, the backlight consumes most power and that remains constant. You'll save more power by reducing the brightness by a few points (out of 100).

 

The video card may actually consume less power if it runs at 165 Hz instead of 240 Hz. That is because at 240 Hz, the amount of data going through the cable could be high enough to require using more data pairs through the cable, or to enable real time compression of the data that goes to the monitor (compression will use some power, decompression on the monitor end uses very little power)

In Windows, or while watching a movie, the different in power consumption should be small (like maybe 5 watts), but in games the difference could be higher.

 

You may want to stay with 165 Hz even in some games, because often the color accuracy and quality is better at lower refresh rates. SOME monitors (not all, may be it's not the case with your monitor)  have lcd panels that can't actually achieve 240 updates per second if it was to accurately change a pixel... let's say from red to blue... so instead the monitor may resort to tricks like changing the pixel from red to some dark magenta color or a color close to that blue, and on the next frame you may get the transition from that intermediary color to the proper blue.  Basically, at 240 Hz, you may get 240 updates but the colors could be less accurate, you could have lower image quality.

 

33 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

It's fine for your PC to be in a power bar as far as I know. For me, disconnecting my PC from power in any way (switching the PSU switch, unplugging, switching off the power bar), it starts, shuts off after a few seconds and then successfully starts&boots properly. Idk why that's happening. I used to use the power on AC back feature that would turn my PC on when I turned my power bar off and turned it back on the next day.

 

The computer may think that removal from power was a power loss event  or a crash caused by overclocking, and just to be careful in case the computer crash because you overclocked your RAM, it runs some ram tests and then reboots with the memory preset validated as safe. 

 

 

It's actually healthier for a computer to stay running 24/7,  you can configure from power management plan in Windows to automatically turn off hard drives (if any) after so many minutes of inactivity, and processors and video cards will reduce their frequency to reduce the power consumption as much as possible. 

 

The system in my description probably consumes under 20-30 watts just left turned on over night, I just either lock my screen or just turn off my monitor and leave the computer running.  It's better for the internals of the computer (and for mechanical hard drives) to stay at a constant temperature instead of constantly going cold when they're turned off and getting up to temperature. 

 

The 5-10$ extra on the power bill paid each month is worth the lower failure rate, it's like an insurance for computer components. 

[DreamCat04]

19 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The computer may think that removal from power was a power loss event  or a crash caused by overclocking, and just to be careful in case the computer crash because you overclocked your RAM, it runs some ram tests and then reboots with the memory preset validated as safe. 

Interesting. Though it only turns on for maybe 2-3 seconds before going off. I haven't been doing it anymore since I think it may have caused my RAM to die quite a few times (like 5 times in total over a year....). I never truly figured out what caused it but my current kit has now lasted me way longer than any kit ever has. Some have died after as little as a month. My entire setup with two monitors, an AliExpress USB power station (2 USB-A plugs with 27W combined, 3 USB C plugs, 2 sharing 65W with the third getting dedicated 65W plus a wireless charger), Logitech G923 draws like 5W with everything on Standby and the PC shut down (hibernation doesn't work since any accidental input will wake it (isn't the entire purpose of hibernation to have the device fully off but able to resume exactly where you left off???)

[LegendaryDragon]

1 hour ago, Hinjima said:

You are not going to save a lot of electricity by changing it from 240 to 144hz.. Its not worth the hassle.

You might save a couple of cents a year, if that.

Its also not going to increase the lifespan of your monitor or GPU by doing this.

 

Constantly unplugging your monitor and PC is not a good idea.. Sockets and plugs are only rated for a certain amount of connections and I would worry more about wearing out the plugs over anything else.

Stop doing this.

 

Where did you get all this paranoia from?

Did you read somewhere or?

Part of me just want to min-max stuffs, part of it is from habit of unplugging everything to avoid potential fire/electrical hazard but it seems like it is not worth the hassle from what people have said so I probably overthought everything

[Hinjima]

Just now, LegendaryDragon said:

Part of me just want to min-max stuffs, part of it is from habit of unplugging everything to avoid potential fire/electrical hazard but it seems like it is not worth the hassle from what people have said so I probably overthought everything

Understandable   But sometimes it might cause more harm than good.

Just leave it alone and you'll be fine.

 

I turn my PC off maybe 10 times a year due to updates or wanting to go into the BIOS, the rest of the time my PC is always on.

Monitors in standby mode or just turned off close to no power.

 

 

[LegendaryDragon]

1 hour ago, DreamCat04 said:

For most monitors, the component with by far the most power draw is the backlight. You'll save very little power by lowering your refresh rate. If your monitor supports GSync, just leave it at the highest refresh rate and lower the FPS target in-game.
 

You do technically prolong the life of your GPU by putting it under less load, although you're much more likely to upgrade it before it actually degrades far enough for you to notice any performance decrease.

 

It's fine for your PC to be in a power bar as far as I know. For me, disconnecting my PC from power in any way (switching the PSU switch, unplugging, switching off the power bar), it starts, shuts off after a few seconds and then successfully starts&boots properly. Idk why that's happening. I used to use the power on AC back feature that would turn my PC on when I turned my power bar off and turned it back on the next day. It was really practical since my monitors remember their last state, meaning if they were disconnected from power, they'd power back on once reconnected to power but would remain off if they were unplugged while turned off

I have a VX24G10 which supposed to be G-sync compatible but apparently not? Or am I missing something? I have already turned on VRR from monitor settings

[GuiltySpark_]

2 minutes ago, LegendaryDragon said:

I have a VX24G10 which supposed to be G-sync compatible but apparently not? Or am I missing something? I have already turned on VRR from monitor settings

It sure is, as are most displays today. Just doesn't have some fancy and worthless validation from Nvidia to prove it. 

 

But you have GSync on, so it works. Check the box for Enable settings for the selected display model. Or better yet, ditch that ancient program and that confusing 3rd option and just use the NVApp.

[LegendaryDragon]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

Stop unplugging your computer, or turning off the power strip that powers your computer. You'll do more damage to the computer over time doing that, compared to how much power you save by doing it. 

 

A computer that's turned off will typically consume under 0.1 watts.  A led on a mouse, or some leds on headphones or keyboards will maybe raise the power consumption to less than 0.5 watts.  You're paying maybe 0.5$ for 1kWh, so you'd need to keep the computer turned off for 2000 hours or more in order to pay half a dollar more on your electricity bill - that's nearly 3 months of your computer being turned off. 

 

If the lights bother you, you should be able to go in BIOS and turn off the feature that keeps those USB ports powered when the computer is turned off.  It will be something about enabling charging functionality (to charge phones using those USB ports in the back) or something about waking computer using events from USB (like a mouse click, a key press) 

 

The amount of power saved by the monitor changing the refresh rate will be minimal, maybe 1-2 watts when your monitor consumes 60-80 watts. As others told you, the backlight consumes most power and that remains constant. You'll save more power by reducing the brightness by a few points (out of 100).

 

The video card may actually consume less power if it runs at 165 Hz instead of 240 Hz. That is because at 240 Hz, the amount of data going through the cable could be high enough to require using more data pairs through the cable, or to enable real time compression of the data that goes to the monitor (compression will use some power, decompression on the monitor end uses very little power)

In Windows, or while watching a movie, the different in power consumption should be small (like maybe 5 watts), but in games the difference could be higher.

 

You may want to stay with 165 Hz even in some games, because often the color accuracy and quality is better at lower refresh rates. SOME monitors (not all, may be it's not the case with your monitor)  have lcd panels that can't actually achieve 240 updates per second if it was to accurately change a pixel... let's say from red to blue... so instead the monitor may resort to tricks like changing the pixel from red to some dark magenta color or a color close to that blue, and on the next frame you may get the transition from that intermediary color to the proper blue.  Basically, at 240 Hz, you may get 240 updates but the colors could be less accurate, you could have lower image quality.

 

 

The computer may think that removal from power was a power loss event  or a crash caused by overclocking, and just to be careful in case the computer crash because you overclocked your RAM, it runs some ram tests and then reboots with the memory preset validated as safe. 

 

 

It's actually healthier for a computer to stay running 24/7,  you can configure from power management plan in Windows to automatically turn off hard drives (if any) after so many minutes of inactivity, and processors and video cards will reduce their frequency to reduce the power consumption as much as possible. 

 

The system in my description probably consumes under 20-30 watts just left turned on over night, I just either lock my screen or just turn off my monitor and leave the computer running.  It's better for the internals of the computer (and for mechanical hard drives) to stay at a constant temperature instead of constantly going cold when they're turned off and getting up to temperature. 

 

The 5-10$ extra on the power bill paid each month is worth the lower failure rate, it's like an insurance for computer components. 

Thanks, those numbers definitely give me peace of mind, but doesn't uptime somewhat affect overall performance or is it just laptop thing? Also by leaving it always, doesn't it increase risk should any power outage happen?

I am using VX24G10 which is 200Hz native and OC to 240Hz since it is factory OC and on by default I am guessing it doesn't do as much damage as user OC but do you recommend turning it off and go down to 200Hz cause I have read multiple of 24/30/60Hz is better for syncing which tearing or something like that

 

[Poinkachu]

2 hours ago, LegendaryDragon said:

Right now I am manually xhanging refresh rate before and after each gaming session back and forth between 240 and 144Hz

But.... why?

 

If you feel 120/144 enough, then just make it stay at 120/144 all the time ? <_<

Though it also makes me wonder why you bought a 240hz monitor if you just gonna use it as 120/144.

[OddOod]

Yanked from Google:
"A test on a Framework 16 laptop found a difference of 1-1.5W between 60Hz and 165Hz, while running a YouTube video"
1.5W * 1 year = 13.1kWh 
Highest average power cost is 0.5$/ kWh so, assuming you have ABSURD power costs, 13.1*0.5$ = 6.55$/year
This is a case where it's a more valuable use of your time to skip 1 latte a year than to ever worry about it

[Biohazard777]

28 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Or better yet, ditch that ancient program and that confusing 3rd option and just use the NVApp.

AFAIK NVApp still doesn't have all the features of Nvidia Control Panel.
I personally still use G-Sync indicator:

Didn't find it in the app, and more annoyingly I have to manually re-enable it after each driver update...
I don't mind the green text in the top right corner, and for my monitor and GPU it pretty much fails to G-Sync once every couple of weeks (simple reboot fixes it).
Could I spot it without the indicator - sure, but only after being annoyed by it being off, so I prefer the indicator.

@LegendaryDragon if you are unsure if G-Sync is working you can tick that checkbox, 
also for quick testing, I prefer starting the Nvidia G-Sync Pendulum demo (because it is very quick to launch):

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/community/demos/