Anyone use sleep/wake

[McBainUK]

As all the house bills seem to be going up I've been wondering if I could make use if Windows XP's sleep modes to send the HTPC into low power mode if not in use.

So my question is how many people here are using these hibernate/sleep features, what is required and what are people experiences with it (reliability, noise level etc)?

[whurlston]

I don't bother. My electric bills haven't really gone up, just my gas which isn't affected by my HTPC.

[HtV]

I have my server set to hibernate after 15 mins. Mostly works very well. After some time it won't go to sleep anymore, a reboot always fixes that. It never fails to wake up to record or fetch the epg. Not going to sleep might also be a result of other computers in the lan being awake. We only use it for recording (and sometimes music) not for livetv or whatever. So there are (specially now in the sumer) a lot of days it only wakes up for getting the epg.
The only problem I have at the moment is that I can't wake it up anymore from outside the lan. With the router I had before (Draytek) that was no problem. I haven't found out a way yet with my new one (Fritz!box), but I haven't spent much time on it yet.

Hans

[K.S.]

my impression: only few users use this, the most give up when it comes to get it going/rollin'
i don't use the built in power setting cause they are crap, i.e. file access from client to server is not regarded as activity on the server, so the server would go to sleep while you watch something on a client if the client is configured to use fileshare
if you really want to go down that road you better start by considering what / how you want to achieve:
- do you want to send the server to sleep whenever not in use (what's your definition of "not in use")?
- do you use clients (MVP / PC)
- how do you want to be able to start it up again? the need to push a power button might drop WAF considerably

there are options to get it going (including waking up the PC from a remote, dunno about MVP/sleeping Server, dont have on, martin had some posts about WOL on the MVP), reliability depends upon how you do it, noise level is inaudible when the server is asleep

one word of warning: it will take you some time to get it working smooth, most likely more time than worth the savings you achieve, but then again: it's a hobby & if you don't get paid for your leisure time that might not matter

i've posted once my setup (client/server) how i got it going here

when you have decided what you want to do, post your questions about how to do it here, there's no sense to reinvent the wheel

ps: you might beware the "black screen after resume" problem most users have stumbled upon

[Captcol]

I enabled the power settings in the bios and and then in windows and that is pretty much it.

I use a service to reboot my htpc daily which removes the problems with xp not playing nice after runnign for a few days. It has played up a few times but this was due to me not changing the expiration on passwords or due to windows updates etc. There was the odd issue but a manua reboot when scheduled ones failed sorted them.

My current htpc will resume from hiberate or power off with the remote, basically all I did was unable power on from usb keyboard using any key and away it went. Mind you it is a late model motherboard with onboard hdmi etc that may have options that some other motherboards do not have.

[martint123]

I use it on my server. S3 sleep after 5 minutes of no use. I have (when it returns) the PCH setup to send a WOL to wake the server and mvpmc for the MVP can send WOL packets as well, as can PC clients.

It works very well for me. I haven't calculated savings, but I guess it is now off for 16 to 20 hours a day that it might have been on - at around 120 Watts measured.

[Hairy]

I also use S3 sleep for my HTPC. I find that it works fine, the odd glitch every now and then but it has always woken for recordings and never missed any. I find I have to give the PC about 30 seconds for the hauppauge stuff to find it's self after it wakes.

The only slight snag I ran into was that I didn't know GBPVR wouldn't prevent the PC from entering sleep mode. So recently (after I added a new graphics card) if I left GB for 10 mins (what I set sleep mode delay to) it would enter S3 state and I'd need to wake it. I was constantly at it . The work around I use is, I enable the power management icon in the task bar and from there I can simply switch between always on (during the day and evening) and sleep mode during the night. It works spot on.

With electricity priced set to rise by about 30% :eek: (here in Ireland, by the end of the year). To me it's kind of like leaving a 100watt light on all night and I won't be doing that.


...And I've also heard that if you don't put your HTPC in to sleep mode when you're not using it - Al Gore will come around to your house and kick you in the nuts

[HtV]

100 watts 16 hrs aday = 584 KWh/year ~ 125-150 Euros = over $200 here in the Netherlands.:eek:

I forgot to mention that I use the GBPVR Wake cmd to re-initialise the haup 150 after resuming from hibernate. Works nicely.

Hans

[McBainUK]

I think S3 sleep is what I'm looking for. I have an MVP but it's little used.

Requirements:
* Wake on Hauppauge r/c activity (don't want to have to press the power button all the time)
* Reliable wake (don't want to miss a recording)
* Fast wake - how long does it take to come out of S3 sleep (average)?
* Wake from internet - any tools to allow a WOL command to be sent over the internet?
* Any way from GB-PVR to tell the PC to go to sleep - rather then using a timer - that way I have more control in the early testing phase.

[HtV]

Waking from the internet depends also alot on your router, some routers (Draytek) have a menu from where you can wake up a system in your lan. Afaik routers and isp's differ in if they will pass on wol-commands or not. You probably have to find out yourself, a nice task for a hot summernight.
In the gbpvr-system menu you can send the system to sleep (afaik).

Hans

edit: the mvpmc dongle supports wol from the mvp.