Do you leave it on?

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Am I the only one worrying for the environment here (and the electricity bill)? I put my server to sleep when not in use. It takes only seconds to start up. If just Sage would make the mvp wake up the server, but I don’t think it is a priority for them - yet.

rtengvad

Environment? We have SageTV. Who goes outside anymore?

[rtengvad]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Environment? We have SageTV. Who goes outside anymore?

Yes, yes I know but I love those nature programs….

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Yes, yes I know but I love those nature programs….

[blade]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Am I the only one worrying for the environment here (and the electricity bill)? I put my server to sleep when not in use. It takes only seconds to start up. If just Sage would make the mvp wake up the server, but I don’t think it is a priority for them - yet.

It takes seconds to wake up if it wakes up properly. Not all motherboards and configurations will wake. I had (2) nforce2 boards with identical settings and configurations and one had no problems going in and out of sleep and the other one would freeze up and crash when trying to wake.

Also many of us have recordings scheduled and people watching shows on and off almost all day and going in and out of sleep mode especially when powering down the hard drives causes a lot more wear and tear on the components. For those that upgrade often it's not a concern, but those of us that tend to use the hardware for many years it can be.

I have hardware still in use that is going on 9 years old. I'm protecting the environment by keeping it out of a land fill so I don't want to wear it out prematurely.

[acrowe]

keep in mind too that the amount of energy needed to run the computer (minus the monitor of course) is actually very insignficant. It takes more power for the computer too boot then to run for a while doing nothing. Especially if you allow your hard drives to spin down when they aren't in use.

Also take into account that more hardware failures happen on boot.

I'll leave my server on

[rtengvad]

Originally Posted by blade

going in and out of sleep mode especially when powering down the hard drives causes a lot more wear and tear on the components. For those that upgrade often it's not a concern, but those of us that tend to use the hardware for many years it can be.

I have hardware still in use that is going on 9 years old. I'm protecting the environment by keeping it out of a land fill so I don't want to wear it out prematurely.

Actually I was under the impression that for hard drives is better to stop them spinning when not in use since there usually is a max operating time on moving components.

But that aside. I left my server on most of the time last year because I too had problems with stability, but after I saw that the increase in the electricity bill my wife and I (well my wife) decided it was best if we power the server down.

I've tried to be very careful in choosing the right component, but my server alone anyway consume around 90W when operating. In my country it ads up to ca 260$/year running 24/7.

If all 200-300 million homes in USA and Europe had a server like that it would ad to…..well a lot

rtengvad

[rtengvad]

Originally Posted by acrowe

keep in mind too that the amount of energy needed to run the computer (minus the monitor of course) is actually very insignficant. It takes more power for the computer too boot then to run for a while doing nothing. Especially if you allow your hard drives to spin down when they aren't in use.

Also take into account that more hardware failures happen on boot.

I'll leave my server on

It's not completely accurate that calculation. At least for my system. I've measured that my system use ca 110-130 w during start-up. Then it falls to 90w and again to 70 when all my three HD spin down.

So maybe your system consumes more that you are aware off. Its worth checking for sure

rtengvad

[Naylia]

Pressing "Menu" on my remote dumps me back into XLobby (i like leaving my HTPC at the Main Menu) and from there the "Off" button shuts down my tv, and a/v reciever and leaves the HTPC running. The GF prefers to just push "Off" while in the middle of a show and let it record for the next 12 hours

[blade]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Actually I was under the impression that for hard drives is better to stop them spinning when not in use since there usually is a max operating time on moving components.

I believe they also have a max number of spin ups as well. Like everything else it's about balance. I'm sure spinning them down when they're not going to be used for an extended period of time helps, but at the same time spinning them down too quickly and having to restart them dozens of times a day isn't good either.

[blade]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

I've measured that my system use ca 110-130 w during start-up. Then it falls to 90w and again to 70 when all my three HD spin down.

So maybe your system consumes more that you are aware off. Its worth checking for sure

For most people that is insignificant. I agree with conserving power, but that's no more than a lamp or two pulls. Most people leave more lights than that burning when they walk out of a room or leave the house for a few hours.

[Mahoney]

Most people leave more lights than that burning when they walk out of a room or leave the house for a few hours.

Do they? I've been drilled into the habiut of turning lights of whenever leaving the room - I'd certainly never leave them on when out of the house or at night.

I probably use Sage less than most; maybe 10 hours a week, max. So for me to be pulling 70W an hour over a 168 hour week when it's only needed for 10 hours seems wasteful both personally and more generally.

Mind you, I am also now suffering from a machine that can't come out of standby without crashing, so I may have to go back to being wasteful. I wish it would report what exactly is causing the problem...

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mahoney

Do they?

Yes they do.

I've been drilled into the habiut of turning lights of whenever leaving the room - I'd certainly never leave them on when out of the house or at night.

That's great, but it does reduce the life of the bulbs just like turning a TV on and off reduces its life. Turning devices off to save electricity is great within reason, but I'm not going to turn off the lights in a room if I'm coming back in 10-15 minutes so why would I want a computer going into standby that often? I've seen people use as 3 minutes before for standby which is way too low IMO.

I probably use Sage less than most; maybe 10 hours a week, max. So for me to be pulling 70W an hour over a 168 hour week when it's only needed for 10 hours seems wasteful both personally and more generally.

Mind you, I am also now suffering from a machine that can't come out of standby without crashing, so I may have to go back to being wasteful. I wish it would report what exactly is causing the problem...

In your case it would be fine. I've never said you shouldn't try to save power, but some of us use our computers a lot and constantly powering up and down just doesn't make much sense. Anytime you have an extended period of time it makes sense, but every half hour or so seems a bit overboard.

[koelec]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I use HIP to script my on/off so that one button on my remote sleeps sage and turns everything off and the same button turns everything on and brings Sage back to the home screen.

I wish I could get standby and wake from remote working on my client but I haven't been able to as of yet.

Maybe I can help you with the standby issue. I suppose you're running on windows xp or mce. For your pc to be able to go to standby you have to do a couple of things.
1 enable standby or suspend to ram (also called STR) in the bios of your system.
2 if the str was not enabled when you installed xp, windows will never go to standby. You can either reinstall windows or use a little tool called 'MCE Standby Tool'
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~hveijk/mst/indexe.htm) which is able to change
something in xp so that can suspend to ram. I used this tool to set the standby mode properly and now my system automatically (after 2 hours) suspends to ram (all fans and hd's off) wakes up in seconds when sage has something to record or when I press the power button of my mce remote, which is controlling sagetv via HIP (would also work when configured mce remote in sagetv).
Hopefully,this info is helpful, because I enjoy the standby feature a lot, and would never want to go back to 24/7 again. Never has an issue that a show was not recorded due to not coming out of standby.

- Chris