What does it mean, in the Power Saving options, turn off monitor, and turn off hard disks,
and system hibernates, and system standby? There's times for each.
Turn off monitor after what? No keystrokes?
Does the system hibernate after (say) 15 minutes if there's a program running, if there's
no keystrokes?
> What does it mean, in the Power Saving options, turn off monitor,
> and turn off hard disks, and system hibernates, and system
> standby? There's times for each.
They are all different methods of saving power. The reason for all the
different options is the fact that each one is a tradeoff. Using
System Standby brings the system to a point where it is consuming less
power than say, turning the monitor off. It takes longer to recover
from standby, but you are using less electricity when the computer is
in standby mode.
Turning off your monitor and hard disk drives are the first steps in
saving a little power with fairly quick recovery to normal operation.
All hardware devices are running at full power less the display and/or
hard drive.
Standby is the next step, which causes the system to use less power
than just turning off the hard disk and monitor. It won't come back up
to usability quite as quickly, however. Certain hardware devices can
wake the computer from standby.
Hibernation saves the most power by writing everything in RAM to a
special file (hiberfil.sys on Windows 2000 and XP) and then turning
the power off. This takes a while to do and is the slowest option for
the computer to recover from. Your computer can theoretically stay in
hibernation indefinitely. Wake-ups usually can't be triggered from
hardware devices as they are typically all turned completely off. The
system BIOS and real-time clock may let you set an alarm for the
system to power up, which would still work if the computer is plugged
in.
> Turn off monitor after what? No keystrokes?
No keystrokes, mouse movements or (in some cases) activity from
certain hardware devices.
When the timers run up to whatever value you've set, the system should
take that action. At least that's what happens in a perfect world.
Sometimes the desired result doesn't take place. What you want to set
these at is completely up to you. There is some suggestion that
desktop hard drives are designed more for continuous operation while
the computer is on as opposed to be spun up and down. I'm not sure
there is any practical difference.
On a laptop, you have added options that can be taken at the time the
battery becomes low. A desktop computer attached to a UPS that shows
up as a generic battery will have those same options.
wm_walsh@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> > What does it mean, in the Power Saving options, turn off monitor,
> > and turn off hard disks, and system hibernates, and system
> > standby? There's times for each.
>
> They are all different methods of saving power. The reason for all the
> different options is the fact that each one is a tradeoff. Using
> System Standby brings the system to a point where it is consuming less
> power than say, turning the monitor off. It takes longer to recover
> from standby, but you are using less electricity when the computer is
> in standby mode.
>
> Turning off your monitor and hard disk drives are the first steps in
> saving a little power with fairly quick recovery to normal operation.
> All hardware devices are running at full power less the display and/or
> hard drive.
>
> Standby is the next step, which causes the system to use less power
> than just turning off the hard disk and monitor. It won't come back up
> to usability quite as quickly, however. Certain hardware devices can
> wake the computer from standby.
>
> Hibernation saves the most power by writing everything in RAM to a
> special file (hiberfil.sys on Windows 2000 and XP) and then turning
> the power off. This takes a while to do and is the slowest option for
> the computer to recover from. Your computer can theoretically stay in
> hibernation indefinitely. Wake-ups usually can't be triggered from
> hardware devices as they are typically all turned completely off. The
> system BIOS and real-time clock may let you set an alarm for the
> system to power up, which would still work if the computer is plugged
> in.
>
> > Turn off monitor after what? No keystrokes?
>
> No keystrokes, mouse movements or (in some cases) activity from
> certain hardware devices.
>
> When the timers run up to whatever value you've set, the system should
> take that action. At least that's what happens in a perfect world.
> Sometimes the desired result doesn't take place. What you want to set
> these at is completely up to you. There is some suggestion that
> desktop hard drives are designed more for continuous operation while
> the computer is on as opposed to be spun up and down. I'm not sure
> there is any practical difference.
>
> On a laptop, you have added options that can be taken at the time the
> battery becomes low. A desktop computer attached to a UPS that shows
> up as a generic battery will have those same options.
>
> You can also use a program to trigger some of these events manually--
> one such utility is Wizmo:
> http://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm
>
> William
The trouble is, I start a program on the laptop that will run for days. Will it
turn off the hard disk on it even though the program's running? Will it go into
standby? Seems like an insane behavior.
That is, I don't know what sort of thing triggers the timers. So I can't make
any sane choices.
-- rhhardin@mindspring.com
> The trouble is, I start a program on the laptop that will run for days.
> Will it turn off the hard disk on it even though the program's running?
That depends very much upon what the program does, as well as how it
was written. Programs can request that all of the power management
timers be suppressed. Check your program's documentation or ask the
publisher about that. If you need the program to be running for a long
period of time, cancel all the power management or leave only the hard
disk and screen timeouts enabled. That way the program can run, and
will continue to do so even with the screen blank or hard drive spun
down. If needed, the program will make a request to re-enable either
one.
In the case of the monitor going blank or the hard disk being spun
down, programs running on the computer will simply start them back up
if needed. Windows (or any other OS that I'm aware of) doesn't say
"the disk is spun down and will stay that way" if a program asks for
something that requires a disk read. The same is true of the monitor
timeout--if a program wants to turn the monitor back on, it can do so.
Standby is a little more permanent...it's a "deeper sleep" that
programs normally can't break out of. The processor stops running (or
slows drastically), video shuts down, the hard drive spins down and
only the memory is left running to maintain its contents. This stops
all running programs and "freezes" them until the system returns from
standby to full power.
Hibernation is effectively the same as "off". Nothing happens.
> That is, I don't know what sort of thing triggers the timers.
System inactivity...from the keyboard, mouse, other hardware,
software, and operating system.
Power Schemes? 
Linear Mode
