Standby Mode

[Bill Martin]

Can someone describe what "Standby" mode is under the power settings? I'm using
XP-Home on a Dell Dimension desk top. I've looked through the XP help and Dell
manual that came with the computer, but they're not much help as to the
specifics of what the mode actually does beyond "save power".

My understanding is that "Hibernate" mode pretty much shuts down the computer as
if I used the power switch, except it saves RAM contents to disk first and
retrieves them when I turn it back on to hopefully restore the state. Correct?

But it's not clear to me what "Standby" mode does -- what systems are shut down.
For example, if the system scheduler is set to invoke a backup program at 5am
will it do so from standby mode? And I understand the system won't enter
standby mode until, say 1hr, after I've stopped banging on the keyboard. But if
I leave the machine running a compute intensive task for hours, will it enter
standby or not? And if it does, what happens to the compute intensive task --
does it continue to execute?

Thanks.

Bill

 

[Richard Urban]

Standby is also known as "sleep" mode. There are various steps of the sleep
mode. You can read about them here:
http://informationweek.com/story/IWK20020927S0028

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Bill Martin]

Standby is also known as "sleep" mode. There are various steps of the sleep
mode. You can read about them here:
http://informationweek.com/story/IWK20020927S0028

--------------------

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately it still says nothing about whether the CPU
continues to execute code at a reduced rate to keep the scheduler alive or not.
Or precisely what set of conditions XP looks at to invoke standby. It does say
it watches the keyboard/mouse of course, but no clue as to whether XP also
monitors CPU usage for example as a trap to enter standby.

I guess I'll have to resort to the empirical approach.

Thanks.

Bill

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Bill,

A definition of the various power states:

S0 - Up and running

S1 - Standby. Drives, display off. Power still on to cpu, fans, ram

S2 - Standby. Same as S1, but cpu is powered down

S3 - Standby. Power only to refresh ram

S4 - Hibernate. No power, contents of ram copied to hard drive before
powerdown (hiberfil.sys)

S5 - System off.

Not all states are supported on all systems, and this is a somewhat
simplified view. Some systems, hardware, or combinations thereof will not
support any of these states.

Unfortunately it still says nothing about whether the CPU
continues to execute code at a reduced rate to keep the scheduler alive or
not.

S1 will execute commands, S2 - S3 will have minimal execution of code (deep
sleep), S4 will not execute any.

Or precisely what set of conditions XP looks at to invoke standby. It
does say
it watches the keyboard/mouse of course, but no clue as to whether XP also
monitors CPU usage for example as a trap to enter standby.

Standby is invoked when the system does not detect *user* initiated activity
(generally defined as user input from the keyboard, mouse, or other input
device), not system generated activity, though there are applications that
inhibit standby from kicking in.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Bill Martin]

Hi Bill,

A definition of the various power states:

S0 - Up and running

S1 - Standby. Drives, display off. Power still on to cpu, fans, ram

S2 - Standby. Same as S1, but cpu is powered down

S3 - Standby. Power only to refresh ram

S4 - Hibernate. No power, contents of ram copied to hard drive before
powerdown (hiberfil.sys)

S5 - System off.

Not all states are supported on all systems, and this is a somewhat
simplified view. Some systems, hardware, or combinations thereof will not
support any of these states.


S1 will execute commands, S2 - S3 will have minimal execution of code (deep
sleep), S4 will not execute any.




Standby is invoked when the system does not detect *user* initiated activity
(generally defined as user input from the keyboard, mouse, or other input
device), not system generated activity, though there are applications that
inhibit standby from kicking in.

I saw the S0-S5 list, but it's not inclusive. Many laptops for example also
have states where they slow down the clock to save power. The CPU still runs
but it limps. The S0-S5 list doesn't acknowledge that common approach so I
figured it's usefulness in figuring out when the CPU runs is limited.

To me, when I start up a program that runs 100% CPU for 6 hours, that's user
initiated activity -- but it's not well defined anywhere.

I ran several tests last night. As far as I can tell:

1) The CPU running intensively does keep the machine alive.

2) Once it enters standby though, the machine is dead. The scheduler did not
come up to run my backup or virus scans.

Apparently I need some way to have scheduler kick the machine into standby after
it's finished the backups for the night or some such. This gets off into the
arcana of my particular setup I suppose.

Thanks...

Bill

 

[Richard Urban]

A laptop is an entirely different animal. Most manufacturers use their own
power saving, either hardware or software, and that preempts anything that
Windows will try to do. Look to your laptop instructions.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Nepatsfan]

I ran several tests last night. As far as I can tell:

1) The CPU running intensively does keep the machine alive.

2) Once it enters standby though, the machine is dead. The
scheduler did not come up to run my backup or virus scans.

Apparently I need some way to have scheduler kick the
machine into standby after it's finished the backups for the
night or some such. This gets off into the arcana of my
particular setup I suppose.

Thanks...

Bill

If your backup and virus scan are initiated through the Windows
task scheduler, you might want to check the following:
Go to Control Panel and open Scheduled Tasks.
Right click the icon for your backup job.
Click on the Settings tab.
Make sure there's a check mark in the Box next to "Wake the
computer to run this task".
Do the same for your virus scan job.

Nepatsfan

 

[Bill Martin]

If your backup and virus scan are initiated through the Windows
task scheduler, you might want to check the following:
Go to Control Panel and open Scheduled Tasks.
Right click the icon for your backup job.
Click on the Settings tab.
Make sure there's a check mark in the Box next to "Wake the
computer to run this task".
Do the same for your virus scan job.

Nepatsfan

------------------------------

Ahhhh.... That may be the silver bullet! Thanks for pointing me in that
direction. I've just set the flag for that mode, but I won't have time to play
with testing it until its normal time tonight. I'll know in the morning though
if it solved the problem.

Thanks...

Bill

 

[Nepatsfan]

------------------------------

Ahhhh.... That may be the silver bullet! Thanks for
pointing me in that direction. I've just set the flag for
that mode, but I won't have time to play with testing it
until its normal time tonight. I'll know in the morning
though if it solved the problem.

Thanks...

Bill

Why not run a test job? Create a new scheduled task that runs
your backup program but have it backup a single small folder.
Schedule it to run in 10 minutes. Make sure the "Wake the
computer..." box is checked on the Settings page. Put your
computer into Standby mode, Start -> Turn off computer ->
Standby. Come back in 15 minutes and see if the backup program
ran successfully.

If the job runs, you can feel somewhat confident that it will
work overnight for your real backup job.

Nepatsfan

 

[Bill Martin]

Why not run a test job? Create a new scheduled task that runs
your backup program but have it backup a single small folder.
Schedule it to run in 10 minutes. Make sure the "Wake the
computer..." box is checked on the Settings page. Put your
computer into Standby mode, Start -> Turn off computer ->
Standby. Come back in 15 minutes and see if the backup program
ran successfully.

If the job runs, you can feel somewhat confident that it will
work overnight for your real backup job.

Nepatsfan

--------------------

I'm a stock trader type, and can't have the machine do anything at but analyze
data all day. I'll let you know how it goes though.

Thanks...

Bill

 

[Bill Martin]

If your backup and virus scan are initiated through the Windows
task scheduler, you might want to check the following:
Go to Control Panel and open Scheduled Tasks.
Right click the icon for your backup job.
Click on the Settings tab.
Make sure there's a check mark in the Box next to "Wake the
computer to run this task".
Do the same for your virus scan job.

Nepatsfan

--------------------------

That worked quite nicely, waking the system up from standby to do the backup on
schedule. Now you've got me ambitious enough to try it from "hibernate" mode,
though I don't think the timer chip still has power in that mode -- it's not
clearly defined though so I'll give it a try.

Thanks...

Bill

 

[Nepatsfan]

--------------------------

That worked quite nicely, waking the system up from standby
to do the backup on schedule. Now you've got me ambitious
enough to try it from "hibernate" mode, though I don't think
the timer chip still has power in that mode -- it's not
clearly defined though so I'll give it a try.

Thanks...

Bill

You're welcome. Glad to hear you got your backup to run
successfully. I think you'll find that it won't run if the
computer has been set to hibernate.

Nepatsfan