why use "turn off monitor or disks" when you can use system stand

  • Thread starter Thread starter gary
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gary

I guess I'm not following.. but I have read that system standby turns off the
monitor and disks, so why would you want to use turn off monitor or disks
along with system standby???

Also the default setting for "Max Battery" is for battery system standby
after 2 minutes and turn off hard disks after 3 minutes??? Again everywhere
I have read it tells me that system standy turns off the monitor and disks
soooooooooo why are we setting something to turn off when it already should
be off ????????????????
 
gary said:
I guess I'm not following.. but I have read that system standby turns off
the
monitor and disks, so why would you want to use turn off monitor or disks
along with system standby???

Also the default setting for "Max Battery" is for battery system standby
after 2 minutes and turn off hard disks after 3 minutes??? Again
everywhere
I have read it tells me that system standy turns off the monitor and disks
soooooooooo why are we setting something to turn off when it already
should
be off ????????????????
Click to expand...

I think you are confused (but I think you already guessed that). The
reference to turning off the monitor or disk in 2 minutes (or whatever) does
just that. It turns off the disk and/or monitor but leaves the system
otherwise running. When you select standby, this shuts almost the whole
system down, not just the disk and monitor, but shuts down everything else
except the RAM memory. Thus when you start it up, again, the protected RAM
data allows the PC to carry on where it left off. The ability to recover
is, of course, lost if the power supply fails (discharged battery).

Hibernate is almost exactly like standby except that the RAM contents are
writen to a file on the hard disk and then complete shutdown takes place.
When you reboot, Windows looks for the file on the disk* and copies it to
the system RAM if it finds it. The system then behaves exactly as though it
is returning from Standby. This mode retains the ability to recover even in
the absence of power. Some laptops auto hibernate if left in standby for
more than an hour or two.

* Some BIOSes set a flag in the CMOS memory.
 
Hey very well written my friend, but too bad you didn't answer any of my
question. Please re-read and you will see....... Oh never mind try reading
the following, I will try to re-word it.

I’m not understanding the workings of the power scheme settings. I have a
HP Pavilion dv8000 laptop and they tell me that the processor can adjust to a
lower speed if you have the setting at Max Battery. How does it know that you
have selected Max Battery? You can type in any name of your choosing here,
what triggers the processor into operating at a slower speed?

Furthermore I don’t understand the default settings if you take a look at
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/tabletpc/learnmore/powerschemes.mspx
And scroll down to say the Portable/Laptop settings when on AC current. You
have the hard disks turning off after 30 minutes. This is impossible because
the system standby has already shutdown the hard disks 10 minutes earlier
(after 20minutes).
Again when in the Max Battery power scheme, this time using battery power.
You have the hard disks turning of after 3 minutes, but they are already off
when system standby kicked in after 2 minutes. Am I not understanding
something here?
 
gary said:
Hey very well written my friend, but too bad you didn't answer any of my
question. Please re-read and you will see....... Oh never mind try reading
the following, I will try to re-word it.

I'm not understanding the workings of the power scheme settings. I have a
HP Pavilion dv8000 laptop and they tell me that the processor can adjust
to a
lower speed if you have the setting at Max Battery. How does it know that
you
have selected Max Battery? You can type in any name of your choosing here,
what triggers the processor into operating at a slower speed?

Furthermore I don't understand the default settings if you take a look at
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/tabletpc/learnmore/powerschemes.mspx
And scroll down to say the Portable/Laptop settings when on AC current.
You
have the hard disks turning off after 30 minutes. This is impossible
because
the system standby has already shutdown the hard disks 10 minutes earlier
(after 20minutes).
Again when in the Max Battery power scheme, this time using battery power.
You have the hard disks turning of after 3 minutes, but they are already
off
when system standby kicked in after 2 minutes. Am I not understanding
something here?
Click to expand...

OK, I think you put your original query not very well, and I misunderstood
it to the point that you were confused somewhat differently to what I
thought.

As you have worked out, there is a setting that allows your machine to
automatically enter standby or hibernate after a set period of time of
inactivity. As you have also found, there is a utility that allows you to
set up various power schemes that will shut the hard disk down and/or the
monitor after so many minutes of inactivity. Since you obviously have a
laptop, these schem,es can be set up for different time depending on whether
you are running on AC power of battery power. Some of the provided schemes
are fixed and cannot be altered (well they can, but the changes don't
stick). I believe 'Max battery' is one of those schemes.

There is no conflict between the two systems. Quite simply, the first one
out of the hutch does the job. So if you set (say) turn off disk and
monitor after 5 minutes but enter standby after 10 minutes, then the disk
and monitor will turn off after 5 minutes of inactivity and the system will
enter standby mode after another 5 minutes of inactivity.

If, on the other hand, you set turn of disk and monitor after 10 minutes of
inactivity but set to enter standby after 5 minutes, then the system will
enter standby after 5 minutes of inactivity. Since it has shut almost
completely down, the timer for shutting off the monitor and disk stops
running (and in fact will never run to completion because restarting the
system resets the clock as it is regared as activity). This isn't a problem
as the monitor and disk have already shut down.

Does this clarify matters?
 
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