Power / Hibernation Settings for beginners...

[ajdisse]

I've read the guide to Vista Power management which is available in the downloads section, so I understand that I can change my PC's power/hibernate behaviour via the control panel in power settings.

I've set it to maximum power, but this diables hibernate, which saves power, so that's a bad thing for the 80% of the time the HTPC is out of use. I know I can change the settings to re-enable hibernate after a configurable period.

On top of this - I have ASUS AI Nap software which can control my motherboards power as well. I suspect there is no feedback between the Vista settings and as AI Nap software - although I did notice that if I changed my power settings in Vista control panel, AI Nap said it couldn't control the motherboard power.

So - the question is - what do I use? I'd guess I use Vista Control Panel, and not AI Nap.

And then on top of that - I assume I customise the power settings to my needs - so bump the power up for the times the system is alive, and then hibernate after a period of time - say about 90 mins?

Any other hints for beginners in terms of what to do (and not to do?) in power settings?

Thanks!

[jollster101]

Originally Posted by ajdisse

I've read the guide to Vista Power management which is available in the downloads section, so I understand that I can change my PC's power/hibernate behaviour via the control panel in power settings.

I've set it to maximum power, but this diables hibernate, which saves power, so that's a bad thing for the 80% of the time the HTPC is out of use. I know I can change the settings to re-enable hibernate after a configurable period.

On top of this - I have ASUS AI Nap software which can control my motherboards power as well. I suspect there is no feedback between the Vista settings and as AI Nap software - although I did notice that if I changed my power settings in Vista control panel, AI Nap said it couldn't control the motherboard power.

So - the question is - what do I use? I'd guess I use Vista Control Panel, and not AI Nap.

And then on top of that - I assume I customise the power settings to my needs - so bump the power up for the times the system is alive, and then hibernate after a period of time - say about 90 mins?

Any other hints for beginners in terms of what to do (and not to do?) in power settings?

Thanks!

Personally I would go with the Vista Power Management over a 3rd party app (even if it came with your mobo).

I dont use Hibernate. I find the built in sleep more than adequate and it resumes from sleep a hell of a lot quicker than hibernate does. Sleep also saves a lot of power as the system does shut itself down completely (well a small trickle of power will be used in a similar way to hibernate).

My system is set to sleep after 10 mins of inactivity. Whenever I am using the Media Center the system does its thing. If I close MCE and leave it at the desktop it then drops into sleep. (Identical to if you had hibernate setup).

Hibernate dumps all the info in RAM at the time of shutdown to the HDD so if there was to be a power loss, it would resume reagrdless when power was restored. Sleep doesnt do that fully and so the system may fail to resume if power is lost when it is asleep.

That said though, it has never happened to me and so sleep is the way for me.

[philzgr8]

As I understand it, Vista's hybrid sleep mode does in fact mirror the contents of RAM to the HDD in a similar way to S4 hibernate. the difference is that Vista's sleep only uses this for wake IF there has been a power loss in the intervening time. To all intents and purposes the power use of an S4 (hibernate) mode sleep and a standard or hybrid S3 sleep will be pretty much the same.

Also, bear in mind that with most motherboards these days you can set in the bios for the mechine to resume in whatever power state it was before a given power outage. In addition, when set up correctly you do not need to drop to the desktop for the machine to automatically enter sleep mode after the set timeout.

[jollster101]

Originally Posted by philzgr8

In addition, when set up correctly you do not need to drop to the desktop for the machine to automatically enter sleep mode after the set timeout.

Dropping to the desktop was just an example of non activity. My machine will sleep whenever it reaches the relevant time out period of non activity whether within MCE or at the desktop.

In fact it is so efficient that it even drops into sleep immediately that I have finished listening to an MP3 album, or watching recorded TV due to the wisdom of Big Bill and his "gurus ???" not resetting the sleep timer.

That I am sure will be fixed in SP1 though. He says with everything crossed.

[ajdisse]

Originally Posted by jollster101

I dont use Hibernate. I find the built in sleep more than adequate and it resumes from sleep a hell of a lot quicker than hibernate does. Sleep also saves a lot of power as the system does shut itself down completely (well a small trickle of power will be used in a similar way to hibernate).

(...)

My system is set to sleep after 10 mins of inactivity.

All makes sense. Even learnt S3 is sleep, and S4 is hibernate!

When you say sleep is activated after 10 mins - I assume that is something you've set in Vista Power management - rather then a default setting?

[jollster101]

Originally Posted by ajdisse

All makes sense. Even learnt S3 is sleep, and S4 is hibernate!

When you say sleep is activated after 10 mins - I assume that is something you've set in Vista Power management - rather then a default setting?

Yeah, on the front end of the Power Mgmt screen you can set when the system sleeps, hibernates (or whatever you set it to) as well as the time before the display powers down.

You will want to set this here (I set mine to 10 mins and Never for the Screen). You will also want to drop into the Advanced setup of the power scheme as there are a couple of things you will want to changed there as well.

Which when I find the main one I will post (its escaped me for a sec)

[jollster101]

Got it

Power options>change plan settings>change advanced power settings>multimedia settings>when sharing media>Allow the computer to sleep

If you set it to this then the system should sleep with no probs. This setting can often cause the system to enter the Away mode (which is the default of what MS set it to).

Any probs, post back. Everyone is happy to help.

[philzgr8]

Originally Posted by jollster101

Dropping to the desktop was just an example of non activity. My machine will sleep whenever it reaches the relevant time out period of non activity whether within MCE or at the desktop.

lol... It wasn't aimed at you but our friend may have wrongly deduced it from your original post and I thought it ought to be clarified. Good get on the away mode issue BTW. I remember it annoyed the hell out of me until I found it.