computer shut down

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by mike1961

3. I wonder just how much electricity and/or computer life is saved by going into standby.

That depends ;-)

When I said standby, I mean "suspend to RAM" which turns off all components but the RAM, so only little power is needed for the RAM not to lose its content.
All fans, the CPU, the HDD, graphics card etc. are switched completely off and comsumes no power (and make no noise).
But for this you have certified and Suspent to RAM-capable drivers... I have an Intel system (see my signature) and it works fine. My brother has an NVidia-AMD-System and never gotten this to work properly.

[blade]

Originally Posted by mobbe123

Ok!!
I guess some of you didnt understand what I want to do!

I record 2 or 3 shows in the evening maybe 2 to 3 times a week. I work shift work (12 hours) so I'm gone all evening and night!! So when sagetv is done recording after 10 or 11 oclock in the evening the computer runs until I come back from work in the morning!!! So what I was saying is it would be nice for sagetv to shut down the computer at a set time or after the recording for that day !

Is that better?

I think most understand, but If you turn off the computer Sage can't record anything. For example once a week my latest show ends at 1 am and once every couple of weeks I have one that airs at 7 am. The rest of the time they typically air between 3-11 pm, but occasionally you have the all day marathons and sometimes even all night ones. Turning off the computer and having to keep up with what time to turn the server on and off kind of defeats the purpose of having a PVR.

[something fishy]

At the moment I am writing exactly such a tool: Look if Sage is recording at the moment or within the next 10 minutes, if yes: Wait another xx minutes and then try again. If not, then do a reboot. Can be scheduled every xxx hours (1,2,24,48 etc.).
Works with IR enabled or disabled, and does not reboot if an optional process is still running (for instance SA or Comskip).

No promise that I will release it shortly as I just switch from Delphi to C# and still a lot to learn, but I will try to keep coding

That would be splendid.

Cheers
Eric

[marneb17]

Originally Posted by blade

I think most understand, but If you turn off the computer Sage can't record anything. For example once a week my latest show ends at 1 am and once every couple of weeks I have one that airs at 7 am. The rest of the time they typically air between 3-11 pm, but occasionally you have the all day marathons and sometimes even all night ones. Turning off the computer and having to keep up with what time to turn the server on and off kind of defeats the purpose of having a PVR.

But sage wages up the computer from standby/hibernate. That is the beauty. I use a tool called hibernate@idle (German website, but the program is in english). It will monitor cpu, and/or hdd activity and depending on that it will put the computer into hibernation, shut it off, etc. I have to use it, because for me the normal power managment wouldn't send my pc into standby.(Don't know why???).
I made a button with the dynamic menus to start the program from sage. It will power off the pc once all the recordings are done. If I do nothing the program is launched at 0:30 am.
Works for me...

I do this, because power is expensive here in Germany and I have "nuclear power"-free energy, which is even more expensive, but unlike your leader I oppose nuclear-power plants everywhere, not only in Iran...

Marneb

[DFA]

Owilsky:

I have AMD-nVidia system and does S3 w/o issue. There was a lot of trouble getting there but had nothing to do with hardware. They were all software driver and MS issues.

Have your brother put a second install of Windows for a dual boot. Install no additional software for the second OS installation. Put in the S3 USB registry fixes. Use "dumppo.exe" to check and force an S3 state if necessary. Now S3 should work w/o problem. This serves as demo that AMD-nVidia is ACPI compliant and functional.

DFA

[blade]

Originally Posted by marneb17

But sage wages up the computer from standby/hibernate. That is the beauty. I use a tool called hibernate@idle (German website, but the program is in english). It will monitor cpu, and/or hdd activity and depending on that it will put the computer into hibernation, shut it off, etc. I have to use it, because for me the normal power managment wouldn't send my pc into standby.(Don't know why???).
I made a button with the dynamic menus to start the program from sage. It will power off the pc once all the recordings are done. If I do nothing the program is launched at 0:30 am.
Works for me...

I do this, because power is expensive here in Germany and I have "nuclear power"-free energy, which is even more expensive, but unlike your leader I oppose nuclear-power plants everywhere, not only in Iran...

Marneb

I didn't say anything about standby/hibernate because mobbe123 is talking about turning the computer off not putting it into standby. The fact that it can be placed into standby has already been discussed by others so I didn't see a real need for me to comment on it.

Originally Posted by owilsky

No offense and I do not want to start a political discussion, but this is a typical american point of view. Here in Germany we try not to pollute the environment, try to save energy (it is way to cheap in US!) so that our children and maybe grandchildren can have a good live!

I can think of past German points of view that didn't set too well with the rest of the world. So I wouldn't try to hold Germany up as being morally superior to anyone.

As for energy costs being too low.... Raising costs would curb usage a little. The guy or gal with 2-6 Sage clients might be more inclined to put them into standby; however, what about the single mom who has no fancy PVR that can barely feed her kids? Doubling her energy bill each month isn't going to make her more environmentally conscious (she's probably already doing all she can to cut costs). It's just going to make it more difficult to survive.

I agree that there is too much waste in the world and I do what I can within reason to curb my usage. I put my PCs into standby, use compact fluorescent bulbs, etc... However, I disagree with sacrificing quality of life for people living today to save a couple of trees or a few watts of energy.

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by blade

I can think of past German points of view that didn't set too well with the rest of the world. So I wouldn't try to hold Germany up as being morally superior to anyone.

....

I agree that there is too much waste in the world and I do what I can within reason to curb my usage. I put my PCs into standby, use compact fluorescent bulbs, etc... However, I disagree with sacrificing quality of life for people living today to save a couple of trees or a few watts of energy.

Ignorant, offensive and inflamatory nonsense.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by marneb17

I use a tool called hibernate@idle (German website, but the program is in english).

From the website:

Das Programm funktioniert nur mit einem deutschen Betriebssystem.

Translated to English: Tool works only with German language OS. Didn't try it yet...

I do this, because power is expensive here in Germany and I have "nuclear power"-free energy, which is even more expensive, but unlike your leader I oppose nuclear-power plants everywhere, not only in Iran...

I like your attitude ;-)

Oliver (also from Germany)

[mobbe123]

So most of you use "hybernate" or "standby"? Everything said above is complicate to me (maybe I'm dumb), but there is plenty of programme out there that will shut down the PC after use and that is why I ask about it!

ty all for your comments. I will try "hybernation" and see if I can figure it out with "sagetv"!!!

[mayamaniac]

I don't think SageTV will ever implement a feature that shuts a computer down and not be able to wake it up for a recording. Also, just to clarify, in WinXP hibernation mode, SageTV won't be able to wake the computer either. Only with Standby (S3) mode that SageTV can wake the computer.

I think for most folks who wants to power down the computer, Standby mode is best suited for them. It probably consumes no more energy in Standby mode than the clock on your old VCR.

For mobbe123, since this is a specific feature that is fit for you and only a few others, I think you will have to use an alternative method to get the job done and not wait for SageTV to add it. Maybe owilsky will fill that request with whatever he's working on.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I don't think SageTV will ever implement a feature that shuts a computer down and not be able to wake it up for a recording. Also, just to clarify, in WinXP hibernation mode, SageTV won't be able to wake the computer either. Only with Standby (S3) mode that SageTV can wake the computer.

Are you sure about that Sage does not wake up the computer from hibernation ? I could've sworn that I already did that, but I use standby now because the server wakes up much quicker and standby does not really consume much more power.

For mobbe123, since this is a specific feature that is fit for you and only a few others, I think you will have to use an alternative method to get the job done and not wait for SageTV to add it. Maybe owilsky will fill that request with whatever he's working on.

I am writing this tool because I saw that after more and more wakeup-/standby cycles my server gets sometimes unstable and a fresh reboot every few days lowers the risk of a crash.
BTW: There's no problem doing this for a week with 5 wakeups per day (=35 wakeups), so do not hesitate to try standby because you are worried about stability.

[mobbe123]

Hi again!
Thanks Owilsky for your opinion about this subjegt. I tried "sagewake" and I cant make it work!!! I tried "standby" and "hibernate" and it works half ways!
Everything wakes up but I cant have the "IR blaster" to change channel after a wake up of any kind.

When you say we will have to find a way ourselves to fix this, OK. But I just try to see if it was implementable for futur release. But I can see that most dont need or want this implimentation anyway. I dont think it is right to keep the computer on for 12 hours for 1 recording that's all. It's not much power I admit but it still a waste.

By the way not all of us are "advance" or have any knowledge in programing and that is why we come for help.

Thanks for your time.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by owilsky

Are you sure about that Sage does not wake up the computer from hibernation ? I could've sworn that I already did that, but I use standby now because the server wakes up much quicker and standby does not really consume much more power.

Thats how my computer works, both laptop and desktop. when I put it in WinXP hibernation, there's nothing I can do to wake it besides pressing the power button. While in standby, if I click on the mouse or press a key on the keyboard, the computer wakes. As I understand it, in hibernation, WinXP backs up your entire desktop session onto the harddrive, and then it shuts down the computer, power off completely. When you boot it backup, it restores the session from the backup. In standby, WinXP does not back up the session at all, it just put the computer in dormant mode, and only using a little bit of power to maintain that dormant state. Whats confusing is in Girder, the setting for power management is called hibernation, although what its actually doing is standby.

I am writing this tool because I saw that after more and more wakeup-/standby cycles my server gets sometimes unstable and a fresh reboot every few days lowers the risk of a crash.
BTW: There's no problem doing this for a week with 5 wakeups per day (=35 wakeups), so do not hesitate to try standby because you are worried about stability.

I'm not siure if there's any stability problems with multiple wakeups from standby or hibernation. I mean I've used my laptop for years using hibernation and it isn't much of an issue, at least no porblems that I could pin point to the wakeups as the culprit. The only time I reboot is if an app caused XP to lockup or after Windows updates. But overall, I think its always great that you are taking time to write something that is useful for the community, may it be for a few or many users.

Originally Posted by mobbe123

Hi again!
Thanks Owilsky for your opinion about this subjegt. I tried "sagewake" and I cant make it work!!! I tried "standby" and "hibernate" and it works half ways!
Everything wakes up but I cant have the "IR blaster" to change channel after a wake up of any kind.

Standby is tricky for me too, it took a few tries to get to work on my desktop. And sometime, the computer would wake itself up for no reason. And I used to use the USB-UIRT, and after the computer wakes from standby, the USB-UIRT would go wacko and sometimes it would take a minute or two to reinitialized itself. Standby seems more stable on my laptop and works like it should.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

when I put it in WinXP hibernation, there's nothing I can do to wake it besides pressing the power button.

Sorry, but that's not true. Both when your computer is in standby and when it is in hibernation it could be woken up by software.
Try this:
Go to task scheduler and schedule any program to run in 5 minutes. Select "reactivate computer to run the task" (name may be slightly different, I have a German version of Windows XP).

Then hibernate the computer. It should wake up to run that task.
It is a windows API function, SageTV also uses it to wake up from hibernation or standby.

[jptaz]

I know for a fact that a computer can wake up from hibernate. I did it for over a year with SageWake. The reason I had to use Hibernate instead of Standby is becasue several drivers did not recover from Standby, but they did for hibernate. The main difference between hibernate and standby is that hibernate totally turns off the computer and sets a BIOS timer to wake up and none of the peripherals can wake it. Also when the OS resumes from hibernate it actually reinintializes the drivers in the system, which in many cases allows drivers that are not S3 powermanagment aware to work.

[Jouden]

Hi,

I agree totally on this subject. It is very handy so it would be much appreciated to have this standby tool. Besides handy, energy saving is important for saving the environment! I 'am looking for this tool. Have you finished it can I use it or somewhere find it?

Very much appreciated!

Thx,
JC

Originally Posted by owilsky

So it is a good solution that my server wakes up when there is something to record and goes to standby after that.

[Jouden]

Hi,

Unfortunately the power mangement is not very stable together with SageTV (sometimes it works sometimes it does not!). The reason for this could be some other programs or applications as well but I have doubt. I think that the v5 is causing the problems of instability. Therefore it would be very much appreciated if Sage could develop such a simple and handy option within it's application. I think many people will very much appreciate this option.

Regards,
JC

Originally Posted by Opus4

Probably. I just couldn't figure out the point of an actual shutdown since nothing else would be able to record after that. So, it just semeed like some sort of standby mode made more sense... and that's the part that can already be done.

- Andy

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by Jouden

Have you finished it can I use it or somewhere find it?

Unfortunately no!
The power management works quite ok for me. SageTV wakes up my machine from standby 2 minutes before a recording and goes back to standby after 10 minutes with no cpu utilisation.

One of the first thing I change after each installation of Windows XP is to prevent a reboot after a blue screen of death.
But on a server this is not good, so I reconfigured Windows to reboot after a BSOD.
So I don't have many problems... Machine is always recording...

[trini0]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Right... isn't this a feature that is already available? Just set up the Windows power management options & SageTV will let the system do its power management stuff when it isn't being used to record anything, watch anything, etc.

- Andy

Not always the case. If your PC is part of a domain, power management such
as what you described doesn't work (at least it wouldn't work for me).
But for those running their PCs in a domain, and have access to Active Directory Group Policy, you can try ->
EZ GPO
I just installed it last week, so not much experience with it, but it seems to work.
But the eventual plan (when I get the server up & running) is to have the server go into S3 Sleep when it needs to,
and enable Wake On Lan, for when a client needs to use it.

But to have Sage control whether to power down or go into standby,
would be a welcomed feature....

[TakeFlight]

I have my SageTV server (HTPC) running 24/7 in my media room so that I can connect to it at any time via the web interface, SageTV clients and of course the most important, so it can record shows anytime during the day. I have another computer running 24/7 in my basement that serves as my home automation server. And I have a 3rd computer in the kitchen (tablet PC) running 24/7 that serves as a big touch screen remote control using MainLobby that I can take out of it's dock and use anywhere. I'm going to be adding a second tablet touchscreen remote for the second floor that will also run 24/7.

I think it's safe to say I'm in the "Don't care" or "No" camp on this one.

And I think it's also safe to say that you can group be with the rest of the wasteful Americans.