Don said:
But when is OFF, OFF?
If you do a Start, Shutdown, Shutdown, OK it seems the computer drops out of
Windows and the computer turns off; it SEEMS the computer turns off.
But deep within the motherboard is a chip called the BIOS which is alive and
well (God willing) which can be given instructions to turn the computer on
each day at a particular time of day. So, what we think is OFF is really
PRETEND OFF.
So to ensure OFF is OFF, a flip of the power switch would be required.
(But the BIOS is still getting nourishment from the onboard battery!)
Let's just hope computers are friendly for they may take over the world. Or,
have they already accomplished this?!!
The BIOS code is in the EEPROM (which can only be changed by a flash
program that tells the hardware to raise the voltage to burn in new
values into the EEPROM). The table that is copied into CMOS is keep
alive by a battery (which is also used to keep alive the real-time
clock). Obviously the little wafer battery does not supply enough amps
to power up the motherboard and device.
In AT-style hosts (mobo and PSU), the power switch was a harness that
ran to the PSU to disconnect power. The entire host was powered down
(except, of course, for the battery but only kept the values in the
table). In ATX-style hosts, the power switch does not go to the PSU.
Instead it is a momentary contact switch used to tell circuitry on the
mobo to pull the PWR-ON signal (pin 14, green wire) on the 20-pin header
for the cable harness to went back to the PSU. The close of the power
switch had the circuitry pull PWR-ON low which told the PSU to power up
the host. Circuits don't function without power. Although the PSU is
powered down, it continues providing a 5-volt standby to power this
power-up circuitry. As a consequence, the resume timer (one of the
wakeup events in the BIOS although it might not be a user-configurable
option to enable/disable but some mobos have a header to enable/disable
wakeup events) can be programmed to bring up the host.
Whether a scheduled event with "Wake the computer to run this task"
enabled will run or not depends on the power management features in the
BIOS. If the BIOS supports APM (Advanced Power Mode) version 1.2 then
this will work. It's been over a decade since this has been around and
considered a legacy function. If it is not working then maybe the user
has disabled the APM option in BIOS. See
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308535. You don't need to wake a host
in Ready state. You can wake a host in Standby, Suspended, or Hibernate
state. You cannot wake a host in Off state. The OP said his PC was
off. Off is off despite the 5VSTBY line from the PSU is still powering
the power management circuity on the mobo. APM is described at
http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/1/161ba512-40e2-4cc9-843a-923143f3456c/APMV12.rtf.
Section 3.1 mentions the power management circuitry required on the mobo
and another reason why the 5VSTBY line is needed from the ATX PSU. No
circuitry runs without power (and the CMOS battery isn't for powering
the mobo and devices).
APM was replaced with ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface).
ACPI has been around for a decade (2 years after APM). Power management
is just one of the functions of ACPI. You cannot simply switch between
APM and ACPI in the BIOS as it also requires a change in the HAL
(Hardware Abstraction Layer) for Windows; that is, you would have to do
a repair install (aka in-place upgrade) to change to the appropriate HAL
to match your BIOS setting. ACPI handles the same power states as does
APM although the power states are differently named; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface
and
http://www.acpi.info/DOWNLOADS/ACPIspec30b.pdf. ACPI also adds some
other power management features, like Soft Power On/Off which defines
the function of the Power button (the OP never mentioned changing the
definiton of the Power button to, say, change it to put the host in
Standby or Hibernate mode versus powering it off after shutdown).
"Wake the computer to run this task" works when the host is in Standby
or Hibernate power states. Although the host is powered off (except for
5VSTBY) in Hibernate mode, this is a managed power mode. Off is off (G3
power state in ACPI). Readers had to assume the OP meant what he said.
G2 (the soft off state which allows the wakeup events) is an OS-
initiated system shutdown. The OP never mentioned doing a shutdown of
Windows.
"Anti-virus and anti-spam programs ... and see them pop on". So what
does that mean? It certainly doesn't appear to describe the host
powering up, going through the POC, loading Windows, and going through
an auto-login to then load the user's desktop, the delay for all startup
programs, and finally get around to displaying a popup alert from a
security program. "Pop on" sounds like the host is already powered up,
that Windows is already loaded, that the delay from loading the startup
programs has already completed, and that the host is still fully powered
on and booted into a Windows session - so it is NOT off.
