Standby time

Quad Cortex
1

I assume there isn’t - but is there any risk leaving the QC plugged in 24/7 in standby? It seems to get fairly warm even in this mode which would suggest a fair amount of power usage. I wouldn’t want to prematurely kill anything

1 Like
2

Here are some thoughts about this: Standby vs. Shutdown?

Personally, I would at least shut it down over night.

3

I usually leave mine on 24x7x365, unless its being moved etc., I keep mine on standby pretty much all the time since I purchased about a year ago.

4

Mine stays on all the time, in standby. I’ll unplug when electrical storms are predicted, but otherwise it stays plugged in and in standby when not in use.

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5

The “Standby” mode is not putting the device into a deep sleep. It seem to switch off the screen and that’s it.

Mem: 185804K used, 35648K free, 136K shrd, 10628K buff, 57296K cached
CPU:   2% usr   6% sys   0% nic  89% idle   0% io   0% irq   0% sirq
Load average: 4.19 2.26 0.92 1/74 1771
  PID  PPID USER     STAT   VSZ %VSZ %CPU COMMAND
  640     1 root     S     270m 125%   5% ./ZenUI -qws
...

But I guess you need to measure the power consumption on the power supply unit to determinate if the is any significant difference between standby and normal operation without any workload.
@ danimaetrix But so if you observed that the device is getting still warm there will be no real/good standby at all.

For all who let the device 24/7 running - at best with the wifi connection/internet connection: well, congratulation ! you are rich ! :slight_smile:

P.S. these are the CPU speed values (MHz) in standby mode:

# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq 
450000
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq 
450000
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq 
112500
# 
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
450000 225000 112500

Also from this point it seems that the cpu will not go down to the lowest frequency in standby mode.
But power consumption is not only a question of CPU - I guess also the rest of the hardware runs full power in standby and will not be powered off.

2 Likes
6

It is an odd unit:
Power on uses 22 watts, normal operation 16, but standby uses 13, so it’s not really a standby - it just turns the screen off.

7

I reckon it’ll cost around £50 a year to leave on permanent standby.

8

these are awesome data @audioinfected - how did you obtain it? Are you able to access the QC root system??

Based on this thread, I’m definitely turning it off now if I don’t plan to keep using it for the day. It really was suspiciously warm for something supposedly in what I thought was a sleep mode.

2 Likes
11

I think standby mode shuts the screen down and disables the I/O to prevent pops etc., going to PAs, mixers, FRFR, FOH etc.

12

Can haz root shell?! Enquiring minds must know!

13

Hi Xush:
It uses 13 watts in “standby” (normal operation uses 16 w) so that’s around £50 a year, about to increase to more like £75… or £100… or…
And… even when turned “off” it uses 1.3 watts.

14

when turned off it’s probably the power adapter consuming energy. This happens with most I think

15

Hi Danimaetrix
The unit consumes 1.3 watts when off because it doesn’t have a ‘Proper’ on/off switch but an electronic one. If you disconnect its power lead the external psu consumption drops to zero.

1 Like
16

I don’t worry about the cost, which is either small, or negligible to me. As far as the equipment goes, I subscribe to the belief that turning electronic equipment ON is more stressful than letting it run continuously.

I let my desktop computers run 24/7/365 and there has never been a problem.

17

@aa7bq

desktop computers are designed to run 24/7 and modern platforms include a lot of self management and error correcting behavior to maintain their state along with much more advance solid state storage. I’m not saying the QC doesn’t, but I highly doubt any level of stress incurred due to switching on and off will increase the risk of failure. It is after all, a pedal unit. That’s literally what it’s designed for.

Also, the unit runs on a standard micro SD card. Letting it run continuously will potentially shorten the life of that card owing to the continuous read/write process.