‘Power Saving Mode’ on Computer.

[Stanfordian]

My computer when switched on but has not been in use for a while goes into ‘Power Saving Mode’. I find this extremely difficult and frustrating to get out of. If there is an easdy way then I am missing it. I will be very grateful if anyone can tell me how to get out of this ‘Power Saving Mode’.

[Flosshilde]

If you go to the Control Panel you should be able to change settings for how long it takes for the computer display to switch off ifc it's not being used. If you can't see where to do that search for 'power saving'.

It's probably sensible not to switch it off completely as it does save a fair bit of energy/electricity, especially if you have a laptop & are using it unplugged (although, as I've found to my cost, if you leave a laptop unplugged & in hibernation mode it's still using up battery power, & can eventually use it up & shut down completely).

[johnb]

I am using Windows 7 and, with that OS, there is a power saving 'sleep' mode. The computer takes a few seconds to wake up whenever I wiggle the mouse around.

The power saving mode can be modified or switched off:

Start
Control Panel
System and Security
Power Options

There are two options: Balanced and Power Saver.

Basically both do the same thing but the 'turn off display' and 'put computer to sleep' times are different.

Choose, say, 'Balanced'

Click on 'Change plan settings'

You can then set the idle time, before the PC goes into 'Sleep' mode, to 1 minute up to 5 hours or 'Never'

Although this refers to Windows 7 there will be similar (though slightly different) settings on Vista, XP etc

[johnb]

It's probably sensible not to switch it off completely as it does save a fair bit of energy/electricity, especially if you have a laptop & are using it unplugged (although, as I've found to my cost, if you leave a laptop unplugged & in hibernation mode it's still using up battery power, & can eventually use it up & shut down completely).

Flosshilde, are you sure you don't mean 'standby' mode instead of 'hibernation'.

My understanding is that, in Windows XP at least, with Hibernation the whole of the memory is written to the hard drive and then the computer completely switches off (i.e. it then uses no power). When the PC is turned it reads from the data written to the hard drive, making the start up much quicker.

With 'Standby' the computer merely goes into a low power mode where it just 'ticks over' using a small amount of power, which will eventually drain the battery. The 'wake up' only takes a couple of seconds.

By the way, on the Windows 7 PC that I now use both are combined into a 'Sleep' mode where the memory is written to the hard drive (as an insurance policy in case of power failure) and the PC goes into a low power 'tick over' mode.

[MrGongGong]

If you are ever likely to use your computer in a performance situation then turn ALL of these OFF
a few years ago after preparing and rehearsing for a gig I left my laptop on the stage all ready to go, connected via an external firewire soundcard and usb controller etc etc so on returning to the stage for my piece find that not only has it "gone to sleep" but has "lost" the soundcard completely .......... there really is no need anymore for a "screen saver" unless you are still using a CRT screen.

Beware also the Norton 8pm Friday scan as it will wreak havoc with your latency if doing a gig !

[Flosshilde]

Johnb - possibly; my computer, using Vista, has 'sleep', 'hibernation', & 'shut down'. If I use the on/off button to switch off, when I switch on again it's exactly as I left it, so I guess the default setting is 'sleep'.

[Don Petter]

Flosshilde, are you sure you don't mean 'standby' mode instead of 'hibernation'.

My understanding is that, in Windows XP at least, with Hibernation the whole of the memory is written to the hard drive and then the computer completely switches off (i.e. it then uses no power). When the PC is turned it reads from the data written to the hard drive, making the start up much quicker.

With 'Standby' the computer merely goes into a low power mode where it just 'ticks over' using a small amount of power, which will eventually drain the battery. The 'wake up' only takes a couple of seconds.

You are absolutely correct, john, at least for my Dell laptop (Inspiron 6400). Hibernate is a fully powered off state, while Standby is not, and 'data may be lost if you lose AC and battery power while in Standby'.

[MrGongGong]

Johnb - possibly; my computer, using Vista, has 'sleep', 'hibernation', & 'shut down'. If I use the on/off button to switch off, when I switch on again it's exactly as I left it, so I guess the default setting is 'sleep'.

I always thought the default setting with vista was

"are you sure ?"
or even

[PJPJ]

.....[I've decided] I cant cope with apostrophe's any longer. Its all too much.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Flosshilde]

.....[I've decided] I cant cope with apostrophe's any longer. Its all too much.

Can't cope with apostrophe's what?

[Dave2002]

mrgg

Just spotted this - fun heh!

The power saving mode issue seems rather complex depending on the machine you use. Indeed I wonder how effective it is in many cases, or at least whether it is anything like as effective as it could be.

Over the last few days I have been running a recently acquired iMac and I have plugged it into a meter similar to this - http://www.maplin.co.uk/plug-in-elec...culator-223573

As I expected, the consumption with the thing up and running is around 80-85 Watts. Perhaps it will go higher if I do something really heavy and serious. In the past I measured a PC the same way, and its consumption was around 110-120 Watts. When the display was turned off this reduced, IIRC to around 70-80 Watts.

The iMac seems more conservative - and in a standby mode with the display off it appears to drop to around 25-30 Watts.

However, the first night I ran it this way, when I came back in the morning the level was down to around 1-1.5 Watts - more or less trivial.
It has not been so low since, and I wonder why. One factor could be Bluetooth. Initially I ran with a wired mouse, but because of the location I have found it easier to use a wireless mouse.
I suspect that the interaction between the computer and the mouse keeps things more active than would otherwise be the case.

Other factors could be processes which run, and perhaps as end users most of us are not aware of all of these. While it is very convenient to have one's machines available for almost instant access, if this leads to an unnecessary consumption of electricity, then this seems to me to be a Bad Thing. The problem would be the 24 hour/day nature of running such equipment.

25 Watts over 24 hours is 600 Wh, and if there are several such computers in a house then that could take the total consumption up to a couple of kWh. Not enormous compared with some other devices, but wasteful. Assuming a year of 300 days (some people do go away on holiday...) and a per unit charge of 12p/unit - which might be typical for some - then costs would be:

25 Watts continuous - 600 Wh per day: £21.60 per annum
1 kWh per day: £36 pa
2 kWh per day: £72 pa

If power saving mode really worked, and put the consumption down to around 1 Watt continuous, which seems possible, but perhaps unlikely,
then the total yearly consumption - might just as well use 360 days - as perhaps not worth ever worth turning the machine off, apart from safety issues - would be:
360*24 Watt hours = 8640 Wh = 8.64 kWh with a cost of around £1.04 per annum per machine - probably insignificant.

Laptop machines usually use less power - considerably less, though in some situations they are less convenient, while in others more so.

I'm not suggesting everyone should rush out and buy a power monitor, though if you leave your machine on all the time, the cost of a power monitor to show you how your machine(s) is/are doing is likely to be less than the cost of the electricity you could save if you can use it judiciously to check your consumption, and perhaps change your, or your machine's, behaviour.

[MrGongGong]

Interesting Dave

A mastering engineer I sometimes work with NEVER turns his main computer off at all
never connects it to the internet and stores everything apart from the OS on external drives
so that the SADIE system he uses runs on a W98 machine where the hard drive is always spinning
I think the thinking is similar to the way that with a car engine that most of the wear etc takes place when
starting and stopping not when it's running and the oil is circulating .........

[Dave2002]

Interesting Dave

A mastering engineer I sometimes work with NEVER turns his main computer off at all
never connects it to the internet and stores everything apart from the OS on external drives
so that the SADIE system he uses runs on a W98 machine where the hard drive is always spinning
I think the thinking is similar to the way that with a car engine that most of the wear etc takes place when
starting and stopping not when it's running and the oil is circulating .........

Yes, but he may feel that having continuous operation is critical to his business, and be prepared to pay the additional costs, and not worry about environmental effects. Not connecting to the internet is perhaps a good idea, and in any case if he's running W98 there won't be any more updates. The biggest problem I find with older systems is the start up time if they're turned off. Our old ones "crank" up so slowly that it's possible to make a pot of tea, and several pieces of toast, and possibly even drink/eat these in the time it takes to start up. OTOH, I was amazed at the startup time of my friend's Win 8 system (see posting re Win8/Win 7 etc. http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...ws-8-any-views) which I think was about 30 seconds, and comparable with a Mac Mini with a Fusion drive.

Perhaps often the problem with startup times and other issues with older systems is that they get infected with viruses and other malware, and just generally out of sorts, and it seems very hard to keep them under control. Also the discs get fragmented, which really messes things up. However, I'm not sure that turning a machine off and on again makes the disc fragmentation worse, and indeed if some swap page defragmenters are used these tidy things up on reboot.

Does your engineer also prevent hibernation? Not sure if that was a feature of W98?

[MrGongGong]

Hibernation is fine if you are a bear or a tortoise but seems to play havoc with some computers.