waking up a PC reliably

[shaunpatrick77]

Hi
Are there any generic steps needed to make sure a machine will wake up from standby to record reliably? Does it depend on the hardware etc?

Do most people use standby, hibernate or just leave it on 24/7?

I'm not sure if there are any issues with gbpvr waking up reliably. Is it something that the bios handles?

[HarryH3]

I'm trying to get my systems to operate in a more power-friendly manner also. Here are a couple of websites that I found helpful.

http://www.exoid.com/?page_id=47

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/29941/53/

There is also an interesting looking app at this link that can help make sure that your system goes into standby or hibernate, but I haven't tried it yet.

http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/communit...chine.html

[stefan]

Whenever gbpvr schedules a recording, it also asks windows to schedule a wake up call at a couple of minutes before that recording is about to start. Windows then wakes up the computer from standby or hibernate just fine. I have never experienced a failure of this.

Getting the computer to go to sleep (automatically), however, is a different matter. For me, it's been a hit-and-miss over the years. It works for a couple of weeks, then for no apparent reason it stops working. And then again for no apparent reason it starts working again. For getting it to go to sleep automatically I use Windows' built-in power management.

[psycik]

I've just spent a week or two on this. Ended up with the xpmediacenter.com.au hibernator application and gbpvr shut down.

But it would only go down 2 out of 3 times before handing on the "Preparing for standby" screen.


And then on the way back up it would only run half of my wake up script.

So try it you may have more luck, but I've shelved my plans and will stay on 24x7 for another 6 months or so. There seems to be many factors that can stop this from happening properly,graphics drivers, chipset drivers, bios.

[pcostanza]

Before building my latest computer, I kept XP in sleep mode and my system recorded fine without ever waking up (at least I didn't see it). But, it would not update the EPG unless awake. Since building the pc, I've not been so lucky but mostly use Vista now. Vista seems to be much more picky about sleep than XP but I'm told SP1 fixes some of that.
Harry's links are what I've also found when looking for info on this but I've had no luck with Hibernator so far.

[K.S.]

it's a trial & error part. if you rely on windows to go back to standby by power management scheme it might happen to work for some months & suddenly stop. either use hibernator (link above) or create your own "solution" via batches/scripts. i use the postprocessing.bat to check for pending / in progress recordings (with Slimms GBPVRCli) or client activity using a modified bleepbloop plugin (for video playback, menu navigation) before going to standby.
it's even more complex if you use clients (as i do) & want to be able to wake the server for watching, prevent the server from standby (after some recording) while watching something & set the server to standby after your done (only if it's not recording or doing anything important) again
btw. dont forget to set that check box in the config "wake up for EPG update". it's the setting that wakes your machine for EPG updates AND for pending recordings.
i use standby as there is almost no difference between standby/hibernate/soft-off for my machine & standby is way faster on a resume, it's almost instant on (~2sec) opposed to 15-20sec for resuming from hibernate. no 24/7 if i can help it (carbon footprint, electricity bill, blabla )
you should at least think about one thing no matter if you want to standby or run 24/7: what should happen after an outage? check your bios, there should be some setting like "same state as before"/"power off"/"power on". if it's set to power off it wont restart after an outage

[cohiba]

I use Windows XP, and someone told me about the MCE standby tool which completely solved my S3 problems. I don't have mine waking up automatically yet, so there may be some lurking issues, but it sure works great from a user standpoint.

[dark_half]

K.S. would you be willing to share some of you secrets. I started playing with this last week because my wife wanted to save some money. Since I started this little adventure she has done nothing but complain. I can get the client to go into stanby no problem the server is another issue. When the server does go into standy then wakes to record it doesn't wake the video card which I understand is a windows thing. She sat down to watch tv after it had resumed and the only way I could restore the display was to put it back into standy and bring it back out. The other problem as you mentioned was how to wake the server when the client comes out of standy. I can send a WOL packet to wake it but can not find a way to send it automatically when the client resumes. I tried creating the wake.cmd in the gbpvr directory but it did not appear to run. She wants everything to go in to standy and wake when needed with no extra effort on her end.

[pcostanza]

While I applaud you and your wife for wanting to save money, from what I read, you won't save much. But if we all did this the country would be saving a good bit. Unfortunately, recently when a friend tested his house (4 systems with most on all the time) he figured he'd save less than $60 a year total.
All this aside, I would like to put my system to sleep at will with no worries for it waking up and doing it's business then sleeping again. That's something I too have trouble with.

[K.S.]

dark_half, no problem, if you want i'll post my full "patchwork" consisting of:
- a modified bleepbloop plugin to track activity on the server
- (a custom HW board for Wake-on-IR on the server (no need to push any buttons on your machine to wake it up, do it with a remote)) - now thats something i obviously cant post at the moment, technology is so way behind our ideas
- a postprocessing batch (in conjunction with a small vbs script)
- a modified version of gEd's StartGBPVR on the client (responsible for the server wake up action)

some words of caution: at the moment i dont check for audio playback or photo slideshows on the server (sorry, it's a low prio at the moment)

your black screen after resume is already "fixed" with gEd's StartGBPVR, this link http://forums.gbpvr.com/showpost.php?p=2...ostcount=3 will lead you to a fix and additional goodies

I can send a WOL packet to wake it but can not find a way to send it automatically when the client resumes. I tried creating the wake.cmd in the gbpvr directory but it did not appear to run. She wants everything to go in to standy and wake when needed with no extra effort on her end.

that's something which you can very easy achieve with my modified StartGBPVR
our client is an normal PC used for browsing, mailing & online banking, the normal stuff, not much automation, just an IR reciever on the serial port, otherwise if we start GBPVR, it will do some checks (check network connection to switch, check it GBPVR server is running) & start GBPVR. if GBPVR is no longer running it will send the server back to standby. it does not make much sense for us to also check for activity on the client side. if GBPVR is running we want the server up, else we exit the app.

as pcostanza has said: you probably wont save that much money, for me it's more of a hobby & the stubborn attitude of not wanting to use more energy then necessary (now tell me that again on the autobahn at 200 km/h )
damn, it's like a vrc, that did not have to run 24/7, it's no damn web server or the like... speaking of energy wastage: i took a stroll through our local gadget store & checked the HDTV's they had on display. damn, i was shocked... they had only one 1080p TFT with less than 200W usage! it was a 81cm sharp TFT & only needed about 130W. and forget the plasmas, they began at 350-400W...