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Fixing annoying blue standby lights

fullcircuit.com

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Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#71

Post by pineaux »

wkat4242 wrote: post #55
mrweasel wrote: post #12

Why is it that manufacturers go for blue or bright white LED indicators? I assume that they are cheap enough that it doesn't matter, but green would probably still be slightly cheaper. We have a USB charger that cannot be used in a bedroom, not that you should, but it can light up an entire room. Why not just have a tiny green LED? Apple is really good about not using bright LEDs in their product, or really any LED i…

Yeah my external HDD has a blue LED that's so ridiculously bright it lights up the whole room and puts a really bright blue spot on the other side of the room. I tried covering it with a post it (several layers) and after a month I noticed that the yellow colour had whitened completely where the LED is. Probably contains an unhealthy level of UV as well. Yuck. I tried opening it up to replace the LED but it's clipped…

I have good experience with drilling a small hole in the side of the housing and through the LED. You need to aim well. Its not a good technique for all annoying LEDs.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#72

Post by bluescrn »

Black electrical tape was my solution for a Dell PSU for an Alienware laptop, with a particularly obnoxious bright blue LED on the power plug, it would practically illuminate a room while the machine was powered off and just charging.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#73

Post by fantasybroker »

Groxx wrote: post #56

Nail polish works just about everywhere too, lasts for years (unlike electrical tape, which is excellent temporarily), and is trivial to find. It can take a couple layers, but if you just want to dim it that can be a good thing. (edit: though I have no idea if it'll let infrared through like this post covers. I luckily haven't had any devices sharing IR windows like that)

That's a great tip! I bought an air purifier that has a very bright blue light illuminating the entire room at night.

Now if only I can find a way to disable its annoying on/off chimes.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#74

Post by kjkjadksj »

Podgajski wrote: post #50

And I’m wondering how much power is wasted by the literally billions of these status indicating LEDs…

I wonder if all the gains from phasing out incandescents have already been eaten alive from the probably 10000 leds that appear in the wake of every dying bulb? There’s an LED billboard (the reef) in downtown LA you can plainly see from Mt. Wilson 40 miles away. Throwing a stadiums worth of light all night like that to show junk no one wants to see. And they keep building more of these wastes of resources.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#75

Post by kjkjadksj »

chrismorgan wrote: post #20
masklinn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It made sense when HDDs were universal, it provided a quick check for a common cause of major slowdowns (you would then go hunt for the source of the IO). Also on most cases you can / could just not plug that header in. Not an option for external drives tho.

You didn’t even need a light, you could hear the disk.

Such a missing feature honestly. You could tell if the program had actually crashed or if it was running still. New macbooks should play drive noises through the speakers like new Mercedes do with engine sounds.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#76

Post by twic »

I remember years ago i was over at a friend's place and ended up crashing on the sofa in his living room overnight. Right in front of his panoply of media and entertainment devices. When the room lights were off it was like being in a planetarium.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#77

Post by arccy »

Fluorescence wrote: post #37
groestl wrote: post #28

Had an USB charger once that would shine through one layer of black electrical tape. Crazy.

The light on the end of a Dell laptop power adaptor is like that. I tried multiple layers of electrical tape, colouring it in with a sharpie and even painting over it and nope, that bastard light cannot be dimmed. My main complaint is when using the laptop in dark bed to read ebooks and it is utterly blinding. I end up folding a bit of duvet over the bloody thing.

i drop a towel over my laptop if i need to leave it charging overnight

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#78

Post by thejohnconway »

wkat4242 wrote: post #62
jjav wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blue is more rare in nature than other colors Since the sky and the ocean are blue, that suggests a majority of visual field in nature contains blue in most cases.

Yes but not the deep intense blue from most standby LEDs.

Same could be said of green or red though. I think it’s time to stop repeating this just-so story.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#79

Post by gumby »

> A free fix and you get to eat the chocolate. What could be better?

We frame it the other way around in our lab: “The IR shield was purchased from Amazon [footnote: item XYZ, which was delivered with a free spectrometer]”

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#80

Post by dotancohen »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #44
mrweasel wrote: post #12

Why is it that manufacturers go for blue or bright white LED indicators? I assume that they are cheap enough that it doesn't matter, but green would probably still be slightly cheaper. We have a USB charger that cannot be used in a bedroom, not that you should, but it can light up an entire room. Why not just have a tiny green LED? Apple is really good about not using bright LEDs in their product, or really any LED i…

> Why is it that manufacturers go for blue or bright white LED indicators? I don't know but I'm sure allergic to red. I don't understand why so many devices are using red for standby or even to indicate work (I'm looking at you Raspberry Pi). To me red is "blood" and blood is "bad". Red means error. Thankfully some devices, like ethernet switches, are using proper colors: green for trafic, orange for "degraded" link…

For me red is pomegranates. A very happy colour.

I suppose that colour preferences may be cultural.

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