PC auto power off after TV recording

[maverick87]

Hi there, I've just joined this community

I don't understand why WMC hasn't got an option to auto switch off our PC after a scheduled TV recording. WinTV has it, but you can't set it to record series, that's a great feature of WMC, with Wintv you have to manually set each recording, that's why I don't use it. Do you know any workaround apart setting manually a standby command every time (that would be impossible)?

Thanks!

[sbaeder]

do you really need complete power off, or is sleep good enough - since if the GUI isn't on, and the PC is set to sleep automatically, things should "just work" (Ya, I know that isn't nearly always the case, but...)

So, if you have the PC sleep when not busy, WMC recording service should wake things up to record, and then go back to sleep.

If you really turned things OFF, how would it be able to record (unless you remembered to turn it on)???

[maverick87]

do you really need complete power off, or is sleep good enough - since if the GUI isn't on, and the PC is set to sleep automatically, things should "just work" (Ya, I know that isn't nearly always the case, but...)

So, if you have the PC sleep when not busy, WMC recording service should wake things up to record, and then go back to sleep.

If you really turned things OFF, how would it be able to record (unless you remembered to turn it on)???

I know, I could just turn auto sleep, but I don't really like WMC management of this thing. WinTv has this option, why on earth it has not been built into WMC??

I heard of MCE standby tool, I tried it months ago and I didn't like it, now I'm trying it again, let's see if it works. Practically it enables auto-sleep only if WMC is running and idle, it should work even when finishing recording, but it doesn't...





Let's see if it fix my issue!

[maverick87]

In the end I solved it with Windows built-in auto standby, in power savings options

[adam1991]

Hi there, I've just joined this community

I don't understand why WMC hasn't got an option to auto switch off our PC after a scheduled TV recording.

The assumption is that you're using it as a DVR. You do NOT want your DVR to POWER OFF.

What you want is your DVR to go to as low a power state as is practical, while still being alive and ready to record when needed. And that's what the built-in Windows mechanisms do, and have done since the beginning.

This is another case of someone over-thinking the entire thing, and wanting to go off in bad directions based on bad information.

[DavidinCT]

My wife gave me a hard time about this ONCE. Power usage high and ask if the computer needed to stay on all the time (I was using a 3rd party remote access program at the time). So I got one of those Kill-a-watts and did some tests.

My HTPC has a CORE2Quad @ 3ghz, with 8gb memory and a total of 4 drives. During idle, it was about 120w, during peak (recording 3 shows and watching live tv), it was able 150-190w, not too bad over all. At one time I saw a peak of 260w but, it was only while ripping a Blu-ray in the background, recording 3 shows while watching a baseball game. It's got a 480w Power supply so way under.

So I enable sleep mode (s3) and put the computer to sleep, it used 2-3w in sleep mode. This enables me to hit the power button on the remote and wake the system up (ready to use within 3-4 seconds), or if any recording kicks off, it wakes, does the recording and after 45 min it will go back to sleep.

2 or 3 watts is pretty much what most tvs use on stanby... worthy to do. A power off option is worthless for a DVR, as if you forget to turn it back on, it wont get the next recording.

[Mike88]

I'm using a dual core Pentium G620, 4GB RAM, a single 1.5TB HDD and 2 dual tuner cards running WMC7.
In Sleep mode it uses 2W and when Off if still uses 1W. Only a 1W difference. If I turn off the PSU switch it then uses 0W.
When On & idle it uses 45W, and when recording 4 programs & playing a different one it uses 56W.

FWIW my quad core desktop also uses 2W when in Sleep & 1W when off.

[glassr]

Hi. I am having power/standby issues. For about 2 years, things worked well, then I had to reinstall windows and set WMC up again. I use HDhomerun Prime, 4 xbox extenders and an external shared drive off of this PC.

Prior to reinstalling windows, The PC and WMC DVR worked well slept and woke well. I now cant get it to standby by itself.

BIOS is set to S3 and enabled away mode. Power options are never sleep, away mode yes, media streaming - away mode, NIC is set wake with magic packets only. The PC will sleep when I hit sleep at the start button and will wake with keyboard, but will not wake with extender.

The PC will not sleep on its own. On the PC I keep WMC open.

Please help me understand the best standby settings. Thanks. And, how do I know if the PC is in away mode?

[glassr]

Turned off away mode and set to sleep after 30 minutes and things seem to be back to working correctly. Seems like it had to settle in.