S3 Standby Done Right
How to Utilize S3 Standby and Still Have ‘Always On’ Access to Your Computer or Networked Drives
Introduction:
In spite of increasing awareness in the general public about energy conservation, the ability to utilize low power states on desktop PCs is incredibly underdocumented and widely unused. My goal with this article is to change all that, to help computer users everywhere utilize these low power states without losing any original functionality of their network drives or remote applications. Heck, if you follow this guide, you may even be able to save a buck or two in the process. This guide will attempt to answer the following:
- Why bother? Why do I even want to waste my time on this??
- My computer won’t cooperate! How can I enable a S3 standby state which uses a fraction of the power vs. an Always on or a S1 standby state?
- Now that I have enabled a S3 Standby state, how can I get my computer to wake up without issues?
- I use my computer as an always on a file server / remote desktop / vnc machine. Can I actually take advantage of low power sleep states? I need access to my files at all times!
If you already know, or your computer is already configured to enter the S3 Standby mode, you may skip ahead to the following section: How to use S3 standby states when you need your computer to be ALWAYS ON.
Why bother?
For me, standby modes on my windows machine always seemed like a bother, why would I waste my time allowing my computer to go into standby mode after 30 minutes of non-usage? Why would I wait an extra five seconds for my computer to be responsive again? Yes, for me, power management was not high on my list of priorities. That was until I moved out and starting paying the power bill by myself. After I built myself another computer to accompany my first computer I saw an unmistakable jump in my power bill at the end of the month. How much money could one computer suck up at the end of the month through power consumption?
Well, todays computers with dual video cards, RAID 0 Configurations, and multiple core processors can eat up a lot of juice. High end power supply units are now rated at over 1000 watts. If we take the worst case scenario that a computer uses 400 Watts idling along, we can find some astounding figures.
- I calculated (24 hours per day) * 30 days a month = 720 hours
- Power bills are generally measured in kilowatt hours or “kWh”s. Power rates might be as much as $0.12 per kWh
- Our total cost of having the computer on 24/7 for the month in this scenario would be as follows:
- .4 kW (400watts) * 720 Hours * $0.12kWh = $34.56
That kind of money could pay for a cell phone! If you want to save some cash, keep on reading.
How Do I enable this S3 Sleep State?
If you are lucky, your computer might already be configured properly to enter S3 Standby mode. Why don’t you check and see. Click your standby button (Start – Shutdown – Standby). Now, once the computer is in standby, check the fans on your computer. Are they still spinning? If so, you are not taking full advantage of S3 standby mode. S3 standby mode turns off all the components inside your system except the memory using as little as 1.8 watts. S1 standbymode just puts your components in low power modes and uses only slightly less power than a computer that is in the on state.
If your computer is already configured correctly and your fans have turned off, then you can continue on to the section called How to use S3 standby states when you need your computer to be ALWAYS ON.
If your computer’s fans are still spinning you can try some of these options:
- Check your BIOS settings: Make sure your BIOS Power Management settings are set to S3 standby. Unfortunately if it is not set to S3 when windows was installed, Windows will not install the correct settings to allow the computer to sleep in S3 mode. However, just changing the option in the BIOS will override the windows setting on some computers and you may enter the S3 sleep state anyways.
- Are you using a USB keyboard or mouse? This may be holding you back. For fear of allowing a computer to enter a sleep state that it was incapable of resuming from due to incompatible USB devices, Microsoft decided that if USB input devices were present, it would not allow S3 Standby mode. Fortunately this is easily bypassed through use of a registry entry. Just open regedit and enter the following registry entry as described in this Microsoft Knowledgebase Article:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usb
“USBBIOSx”=DWORD:00000000
Entering this registry key, then rebooting should allow you to enter the S3 sleep state even while using USB peripherals in Windows XP. - If your computer enters Standby mode, but then immediately starts back up, your USB devices may be giving you problems, check your computer’s BIOS settings and disable (or enable) USB power on options, changing these settings can allow your computer to function properly.
Now if you are lucky, your computer is now configured for an S3 Sleep state. Congratulations!
Now you can select a power profile in the ‘power options’ control panel icon that allows your computer to enter standby mode after a user specified number of minutes!
And now We can finally move on to:
How to use S3 standby states when you need your computer to be ALWAYS ON
This section of the article will cover how you can make S3 standby states viable when a computer is acting as a file server, a remote access point, vnc host or any other kind of network activity. In my case, I have two computer, one is a media center computer in the living room, the other is a more powerful Core 2 Duo machine which has several large hard drives which serve as a repository for videos media and music, which need to be accessible on demand. I have figured out a few tips allowing the computer to wake from an S3 state and serve the files or provide the access required without any need for “magic packet” software or any other utilities other than windows itself. It simply wakes whenever it senses activity routed to it’s specific IP address. Here are the steps you can take to configure your own machines:
I have found that the most reliable way to make this work is set static IP addresses on your local network. This means that rather than having the router automatically assign an IP address on your local network, your network card decides on a static or constant IP address. This makes routing traffic around on your ports much easier. Follow these steps to set a static IP:
- Navigate to the Control Panel: Doubleclick on Network Connections
- Right click your Local Area Network: Choose Properties
- Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
- Click Properties.
- Set your IP address manually: (ip address generally can be whatever you want it to be within certain limits, the subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS settings should correspond to your particular router. Check your router manual for more information)
- Once you have made your changes, click ok and allow your network adapter to reconfigure itself and reconnect to the network.
- Test your network to see if you still have connectivity by pulling up a browser or checking network accessibility.
Now we can move on to configuring the computer to wake up when it senses trafic on it’s static IP address.
- Boot into your BIOS, make sure all WOL and network wake up options are enabled. Refer to your manufactuer’s motherboard manual.
- Boot back into Windows: Navigate to the control panel: Doubleclick on Network Connections
- Right click your Local Area Network: Choose Properties
- In the first box it should show your network adapter. Click ‘Configure’
- Navigate to the ‘advanced’ tab: Select ‘Wake Up Capabilities’
- Every network device varies a bit, you want to enable all capabilities, choose ‘both’ or ‘magic packet and wake on pattern’
- Click the Power Management Tab: check the box that states: “Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby”
Once you have selected these options and rebooted, you should now have set your computer up with a very powerful configuration. You can now allow your computer to go into standby mode, yet whenever your network adapter senses any activity on your specific Local ip (in my case: 192.168.0.200) it will quickly resume from S3 standby and perform the functions requested. As soon as the network is not being utilized, your computer will return to standby after the allotted time you have set in your power options settings.
Tips for Mapping network drives on an S3 standby enabled PC.
I use mapped drives to easily access files on my file serving computer. I have found that when mapping network drives from remote machines trying to get files on your S3 enabled server, it is most reliable if you setup your shares based on the IP address of the machine rather than the network name.
Here we are mapping a network drive:
So rather than mapping the drive to ‘office’ I will map it to the IP address ‘192.168.0.200′:
Conclusion:
In this article we have described how it is really possible to utilize an S3 power state while retaining constant and immediate access to your network drives, shared folders, remote desktop and VNC. By doing this you do away with having to pay the power bills that come from running a computer full time. The methods discussed here will allow you utilize S3 sleep states to their full potential, conserve energy, the environment and perhaps the size of your wallet, without any compromises.
-Cameron Butterfield
“cbutters”
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Please comment. Thanks.
Comments(109)
Cheers! Sandra. R.
[...] S3 Standby Done Right [...]
Thanks – good advise – now how do I make my computer wake every couple of nights for its Norton Anti Virus and defrag runs from 2-4 AM? That is all it must do nocturnally.
@Don Juane:
Just have Windows Task scheduler run an “empty” task a few minutes before Norton is to do its thing and set it to wake your computer to do it. Alternatively, if there is a task already setup for Norton, then try to see if having it wake your computer up to run will work. In my case, it would not execute the task upon wake up. Thus, the “empty” task. Also, you’ll need to make sure it’ll execute the task(s) without being logged in. You can create a task to run after a couple of hours (or whenever Norton finishes) that will put your system back into S3:
“rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState”
Should be the command line statement to do the action in your power options under “Do this when I press the Sleep button on my computer.” So, make sure that option is set to standby.
Hope this helps!
Can I have bittorent running while in S3 mode?
My company uses SMS to load patches on PCs at night. I assume the SMS server can wake the PC via the NIC?
James,
If you have bittorrent running and you turn off the fans, your CPU will overheat.
James, if you have bittorrent running as soon as your computer receives a packet it will wake it up out of standby, so no, you can’t.
Thanks for this interesting article.
A handful of questions – please bear with me as I’m not well versed in this technology.
1. If S3 standby “turns off all the components inside your system except the memory”, how does the network adapter sense any activity? Presumably S3 standby also keeps network adapters “awake”?
2. If so, will it keep all of these awake / powered up, or just a default one? The more it keeps on, the less the saving, but the more the flexibility I suppose?
3. I have USB keyboard and mouse, but am not brave enough to try this out without a bit more detail in the bullet: “If your computer enters Standby mode, but then immediately starts back up, your USB devices might be giving you problems …”. Please can you add a bit more information here to clarify what exactly needs to be done in this case.
4. Do I need a special type of network adapter for the “always on” configuration to work?
5. I have broadband, via a DSL modem, but it’s not clear to me whether it includes a router. If I set a fixed IP address, is there any possibility of messing up my broadband access or incurring the wrath of my service provider by misconfiguring IP settings?
Good article but what about going into standby after a download has been completed? I tried doing this for my laptop but it keeps going into standby while large files are downloading, killing the download in the process.
[...] Techmeme linked to a great article on how to use standby mode for your computer. I’m always a bit amazed at how many people leave their computers on all the time, when [...]
I was using S3 as described above on my PC (Windows Media Center 2005) and it worked great, except that whenever something did wake up the PC from standby, the Screensaver would not come on, so it would my monitor powered up all night for example. Happened at least once a day – I’d say it eliminated any power savings I had.
I set my PC and network adaptors as above behind a router. But my PC just wake up periodically for no reasons. Why is that? Is it due to background internet noise?
You’re formula for calculating power is correct, however, the numbers are off. There is NO WAY a computer uses 400 watts, eventhough your power supply may be rated at that much. Most computers use around 100-150 watts MAX.
Figuring on 150 watt draw and saving 30% of the usage at .12 it works out to a savings of $4 rather than $35/month. I also don’t see this as very useful for a server compared to good use of powersaving features like disk spindown and speedstep. A server with a moderate sized CPU with disks spun down probably only draws 30 Watts.
You would get much better savings from switching your house to use all CF bulbs rather than standard incandescent. For $15 in CF bulbs ( 8 of them ) I was able to drop my electricity bill by ~$8/month.
Hi, I put together a simple calculator based on your article:
http://tinyurl.com/24xu9v
It might be useful if you want to try out different assumptions, like 150 watts vs 400.
As anyone who’s ever used a protocol analyzer such as Ethereal will tell you, your NIC is never really idle, there are always some kind of packets coming and going. I wonder how the sleep state deals with this, is there something akin to “interesting traffic” that will cause the PC to wake up, and if so, is this configurable?
[...] S3 Standby Done Right [eXoid] [...]
[...] 24th, 2007 · No Comments Check this out for the advantages of using standby mode…Even for an ‘always on’ or [...]
Very useful. Thanks. I’ll try it out.
Thanks for a great article! I used a program called Sleeper by PassMark (free for personal use,…- I didn’t detect any spyware) to verify the S3 sleep state. All seems to be ok!
[...] power-saving capabilities, you’re sure to find this article enlightening. —Rick Broida S3 Standby Done Right [...]
This is a trade off. By turning off the PC then turning it on again all the time whether by pressing the on/off button or by automated process, PC’s get hot. Memory, CPU and hard drives get hot. Things expand when you heat them up, and contract when they cool down. So the components are always in a state of flux. Hard drives spinning up, then spinning down… sudden spikes of power constantly to turn things back on. If your PC runs all the time, temperature in the case is somewhat constant so it’s much healthier for the components, they won’t be expanding and contracting. So, make your choice wisely…. let it run at a constant temperature which is better for the machine or keep your components dancing.
Has anyone tried this on a Vista box??
I’d love to save $70 a month for two computers, but these instructions are written for Someone Who Knows What They Are Doing. I’m a knowledgeable computer user for a nongeek computer user, but this is way too much. Isn’t there an easier way to do this? Otherwise, I’m just going to go out and celebrate Take Your Pants For a Walk Day.
[...] S3 Standby Done Right [eXoid] [...]
I normally leave my computer on so I can access it remotely (via LogMeIn). As such, I’m not sure this helps that part. I can see how I could remote into one PC and have it wake up another PC. I’ll have to play with it and see.
[...] users everywhere utilize these low power states without losing any original functionality…read more | digg [...]
[...] I read an article this morning about S3 Sleep Mode. This shuts the computer down to the point where the fans aren’t running, but it can boot [...]
I used this setup and it works very well except I am experiencing 1 small problem.
Once in S3, I try to remote desktop in and the first attempt times out(system still coming up). When I try a second time I get the computers login screen, which seems like a sucess. The problem is when I type in the password the remote desktop closes back to the computer selection window.
I tried entering an incorrect password and that got me the standard incorrect password pop-up and allowed me to retry, after typing in the correct password again is closes back to computer selection window. This system worked with remote desktop sharing 3 hours earlier before I made the S3 change and it seems to be working on some level but just not behaving with remote desktop sharing login.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas of what might be causing this?
-Derek
Yea um, S1,S3,….isnt it called standby and hibernate? clikc shutdown then hold shift, standby will turn to hibernate.
[...] users everywhere utilize these low power states without losing any original functionality…read more | digg [...]
[...] eXoid.com – S3 Standby Done Right [...]
S1 and S3 aren’t just ’standby’ and ‘hibernate’, they are different *types* of standby.
S1 is what most people have as standby– your monitor turns off, cpu goes into a type of sleep, hard drives spin down. fans keep going etc, not great. move your mouse and your hdd spins up again.
hibernate – saves your memory to hard drive and turns the PC fully off. doesn’t use any power, but not that fast at turning back on.
S3 is the best of both; it turns almost everything off (but the ram, and WOL stuff), but will come back on to full use within 5 seconds. usually have to press the power button to turn it back on.
Ash makes a good point.
I usually disable standby mode because I’m convinced that the constant starting and stopping of the hard drives causes them to fail much quicker. Until there is affordable and fast solid-state hard drives, I don’t think I could support this method. I’m all for saving energy, but if it costs me all my data every year, then it just doesn’t make sense. (Yes most hard drives have a 3 year warranty and I could easily RMA them, but that doesn’t get me my data back).
another Wake On Lan how-to article from Tom’s Networking
http://smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/29941/53/
A few comments.
Hibernate is S4.
Look into Wake on LAN articles to get your computer to wake up for remote use.
Power and heat cycling of computer was bad for them, 30 years ago, for the most part that isn’t an issue anymore and you shouldn’t be worried about it. It will cost you far more to power your machine than to replace it when it eventually wears out.
I also had problems with my USB Mouse & Keyboard. I eventually needed to plug them directly into the system, or into a cheap hub. I was connecting them to my Dell Monitor hub, that didn’t work well.
My problem is what to do about a Motehrboard and BIOS that does not support S3 standby. I have several motherboards built by ECS (Elitegroup) and they do not support S3 and have no plans of adding it (idiots). I don’t suppose anyone might know how to solve this problem. I have a Dell machine that goes into S3 nicely and I love it. The ECS machines won’t (as tested with Sleeper).
My DFI-Nforce 4 Ultra-D doesn’t do S3 right…it downclocks my CPU when I resume. Someone needs to get on their case.
Demand it, and companies will do it.
ACPI and power saving always has had bugs because nobody ever complained.
Start comparing motherboards and components according to their ACPI compliance and power consumption. When a company sees their brand being bashed for bugs and poor features, they do something about it.
Demand motherboard manufacturers list their ACPI compliance in their documentation. The latest version of ACPI is 2.0c – does your bios have that update? Do you even have any way of finding out?
http://acpi.sourceforge.net/documentation/index.html
http://www.acpi.info/
When I set my NIC to be able to bring the system out of standby, it instantly comes back on after suspend. I have some ports forwarded to my PC and with all the random IP:port scanning, some obviously get through to my PC. Are there any registry keys that I can modify to wake the PC out of standby only if the packets come from a certain IP or port?
Same as Derek here.
Can’t use Remote Desktop while the remote machine is on StandBy. I try connecting once, and for a second it seems to log in, then closes the connection. I try another time and get a glimpse of the remote login box, with my login and a password, but the connection closes on me again. Worse, I can’t get the remote machine out of standby mode anymore by acting on its the mouse or keyboard, it needs to be rebooted
I update to Remove Desktop / Terminal Client 6.0, no dice.
Am I going to fiddle with the way my computer turns its fans on and off just to save a few trees? Like hell I am
[...] eXoid.com – Tweak your Life. ? S3 Standby Done Right How to Utilize S3 Standby and Still Have ‘Always On’ Access to Your Computer or Networked Drives (tags: bios computer configuration cpu hacks hardware htpc interesting power server technology tips utilities tools standby HowTo 2007-04 2007) [...]
What’s a poor Win98SE user to do? I go into Standby just fine. Everything shuts off. HOWEVER, nothing will bring it back! Not even the power switch! I have to flip the power switch *on the back of the power supply* off and back on. Then the front power switch works. And takes me right to SCANDISK.
For this reason, I really want to dump the desktop and get some portable. Or (better) a Mac Mini.
[...] How to have your always on PC run in low power mode – The cost savings over a year look pretty big. [...]
[...] eXoid.com – Tweak your Life. » S3 Standby Done Right I need to read this cause I want to put my computer in standby but have it come on when I access it remotely (tags: reference) [...]
hello,
I bought a new computer 2 months ago and wen i play the game warcraft it doesn’t come back to desktop it stays on black screen and i can only move the mouse. I use to press the windows key n from the arrow keys put it to stand by and get it back to the desktop. Now when i put the computer to stand by it comes back on after 1 – 3 seconds. Is it because i over used stand by mode to get the screen back to desktop? and how can i fix this. If you can explain it to me detail as im not much of a computer person. thanks My computer has a verygood graphic card n speed and the game worked perfectly until 1 month. and i didn’t download any software. thanks
@Hai-Peng
I’m having the same problem (possibly the one suggested by the warning in the Power Mgmt tab)…have you had any luck fixing it?
-Mark
Cameron, thanks for the tutorial – a good read.
Anyone know of a way to track a computer’s history fo shutdown/standby/hibernate?
I’d love to know if it’s staying in standby when I leave it for extended periods of time.
I’ll give an answer to my own question about tracking standby; the best one I have so far. MCE Standby Tool is a utility designed for debugging and fixing Media Center Edition standby issues, but it works with XP SP2, also. It takes a little messing with, but it does the trick.
Some great stuff. I have been using S3 for quite some time now. The commercial laptop such a thinkpads have always provided ways to do this quickly. Thinkpad users can look for a little “moon” sign on their keyboard. This key can be used in combination with the “Fn” key to put the computer into a standby and wake it up pretty quickly.
Thanks for the great tip on the network card thing. It was quite a obvious thing to do now that I think of it. But sometimes one just doesnt see it. Thanks for the tip.
@Mark
None. It’s probably where it relies on the NIC to tell it yes or no bring it out of suspend, there’s no way the NIC could look at registry entries. Just my guess.
Hi, I think this article is great, however, you were slightly inconsistent at answering the following question: “Now that I have enabled a S3 Standby state, how can I get my computer to wake up without issues?”
I just recently reinstalled WinXP Pro on my comp. I tried enabling S3 standby in the BIOS, and it does go to Standby just fine, but for whatever reason, when I push the power button to get it to turn on, the fans come on and everything, but nothing shows on my display! Is this a video card driver issue or a mobo issue? What do I do to test this? I can’t seem to find any help online… please help, thanks a million!
Just a friendly reminder.
Wake on Lan will NOT work with wireless.
See the tomshardware article link in the comments for reason.
Very good article. I’m glad this did so well on digg. Maybe you really have made a significant impact!
Leaving a system on for no other reason then supplying multimedia content to a multimedia pc is a waste of power in itself, no matter if one has S3 enabled or not.
Why not go for NAS storage, like a Netgear SC101? This will save you a lot more power I promise and is even more comfortable.
$0.12 KWH? You’re getting raped!! Where are you, California? The highest rate on my bill is $0.0574. Just a bit more than half a cent! My last electric bill was $62.89 with 2 computers running 24/7, 150 gallon fish tank with lights and filters, fridge, microwave, oven, power tools, washer & dryer, home theater, and lighting. Just because your computer has a 500W power supply does not mean that it is regularly consuming that much power. If you want to save money then get smart about your usage habits. CFL bulbs, natural lighting, efficient use of fans in moving air in the home, energy efficient appliances, LCD monitors, other efficient electronics.
Lastly, I’ll note my computers aren’t slouches. The file server is a 2.8 P4 w/ 600GB RAID 5 array constantly serving music to my Squeezeboxes. My main machine is a Core2Duo, 7900GT, 3 hard drives, and occasionally two monitors.
[...] eXoid.com – Tweak your Life. » S3 Standby Done Right – Guide to setting up S3 standby with Wake On LAN on Windows XP [...]
I live in a very rural area, and corporate power generating stations simply aren’t a reliable option for me. (They’d rather cut us off out here in the boonies than turn off some soccer-mom’s soap-opera in town.) I rely on solar & wind as much as I can; and I’d constantly be in the dark if it weren’t for tweaking my four machines to S3. (I run a file server, a front-end for a PVR, a laptop, and a dedicated Linux weather control station — an absolute necessity to keep the solar pannels lit on otherwise overcast days.)
I’ve also switched out my PSUs (power supplies) with regulated DC filters. The solar panels & the two box fans I’ve converted into wind turbines produce DC power anyway, so it was an easy decision. Even the new “green, high efficiency” PSUs run well under 80% efficiency. That’s 20% of input wattage wasted — turned directly into heat!! And with most ordinary PSUs, we’re talking closer to 30%!!
If you have to live “on the grid”, for Jesus Christ’s sake, at least have the decency to do something with all that wasted energy. I’d suggest using a water cooling system for your PSU, that pumps the hot water into storage tanks near your kitchen sink and shower. Or at least can the heat and save it for later…like when it’s cold outside.
I know these things can be expensive, but its worth it just to know that you’re using your resources wisely. Working a few extra hours a week to make up the difference never killed anybody, and if it’s saving you money then it’s worth it. You just never know whe
Greetings,
I use S3 all the time on my Elite Group KN1. No issues there at all. However I have noticed something between my laptop and PC. On my laptop when I want to wake it up I need only push a key. On my PC I have to use the power button. I like the any key wake up but can not find an option for it on my PC. Does anyone know how I can enable this?
I too have the issue where if the system wakes up from s3 standby from WOL or a scheduled task, there is no video. Only if I use the mouse or keyboard will video return (but not always). Is this normal or specific to the bios/motherboard?
How do you set a program to restart on resume? I have a UPS monitor program that loses its connection to the UPS on stanby and errors when it comes out of standby.
hi i just formatted my machine and installed win xp pro again….when i try standby the monitor turns off but hard drive doesnot turn off…b4 formatting it used to….can anyone suggest a solution?…i have dell xps DXG051 model machine….thanks
Some people have problems waking up from S3. I have the opposite problem. When I attempt to put my system to sleep (into S3), it goes all the way to shut down. Since I’m running Vista x64, state is saved to disk, so when I power on I resume correctly, but it is slow, not a few seconds like S3.
Has anyone else experienced this? I don’t know if it’s a BIOS or Vista problem. My BIOS is setup correctly for S3 sleep.
-Todd
Kogda nastanut holoda i belaja doroga ljazhe. Zelda Herakleides.
Can you tell me why my windows-xp takes up to 1 minute to resume from sleep mode ? This shoul only take 5 second .
Thanks for you help
Marc, Are you using Sleep mode or hibernate mode? Hibernate takes significantly longer.
I am using sleep mode not hibernate mode.When I installed Windows Xp I it was taken about 5 seconds to resume. Now it is about 1 minute.
I’ve been able to get S3 working with my network connection (where if any other computer accesses a file on one of my mapped network drives it’ll wake from standby), but it won’t wake from movement of my keyboard/mouse. Could it be due to the fact that both the keyboard and mouse are USB?
It doesn’t really matter. The power button also wakes it from standby.
xvolution,
You want to be sure to check your BIOS Power Management sections, there should be a setting for wake from usb devices. you will want to make sure that is enabled.
Great article on S3 standby, it is apparently the new “it” thing to do when it comes to power management. Just a clarification on the power states.
S0 = Full Power-On. The computer is operating and fully active. Even though this is the case, Laptops and Desktops can still shut some devices off or put them in low power states (So in Windows Power Management, when you shut off monitors, hard-disks, etc, you are still in an S0 State.
S1 = Light Sleep. This level will clear your processor memory (caches) and will stop running operations whiles most extra devices like video cards and hard-disks will be put into low power mode or shut off entirely…Fans will either continue to run or go into a low-rpm mode. This state is no longer very common as the CPU and RAM must remained powered up, but not under load. Power savings in this state are minimal.
S2 = Sleep. This mode is identical to S1, except the processor is fully shutdown, This however, is not used by most systems.
S3 = Standby. This is one of the most effective power-savings modes since it allows you to maintain some degree of quickness in resuming work, while also decreasing power usage. ALL components are shutdown, with the exception of the USB controller, NIC, and RAM. The RAM will continue to be run in low-power mode as to maintain your current operating state. Waking up from Stand-by takes roughly a few seconds, as most operating systems store their state solely in RAM. WARNING: If you lose power while in S3, you will lose any information that was not stored to hard-disk before going into stand-by. If you wish to prevent this, or lessen this effect, disable Disk caching/buffering. (Wikipedia)
S4 = Hibernate. This is the closest to off, since your computer is actually turned off. The operating system will store RAM to your hard-disk, and then completely shutdown your computer. When it resumes, it must move the RAM from your harddisk back to RAM to resume. This is the best power-saving, but also takes significantly more time to resume operations.
S5 = Soft-Off. This is the state computers go into when most users turn their computers off. It uses very slight amounts of power in order to operate components used to wake up the computer.
Off. The computer is electrically inactive. This occurs around 20 to 30 seconds after a computer has been shutdown and unplugged. The only component to remain on is the Real-Time Clock and CMOS Memory chips.
————————
S1 is the most common power savings in older machines. S3 and S4 are now more widely used.
Network devices and other devices used to wake the machine use only minimal power when in low-power states (
Hi
Looks good! Very useful, good stuff. Good resources here. Thanks much!
G’night
This is an energy & money saving idea, Sugar Daddy. Disk storage is dirt cheap & you should have a proper (regular) backup anyway. Modern pcs components have a life spans of 10 years. Ash, your pc will be obsolete long before typical degradation. Heat in a pc is its major killer. Leaving it on risks overheating, with slow component degradation or a fan failure frying the lot. Hibernation regularly can corrupt and require a reboot risking Windows corruption. S3 is no substitute for occasional proper shutting down, defragging, flushing rubbish etc. But it saves a hell of a lot of energy, not to mention the additional cost of air con in rooms where a pc is chugging away in the corner.
Thanks for the article, I was looking for a way to get XP to go into a standby mode similar to that which Vista uses, this did the trick for me!
Using a What’s Up/Pro power monitor, my Dell desktop uses 15 watts in standby, 180 active with a flat panel monitor, 260 watts with a CRT display. At 12.5 cents/KWH each watt costs 9 cents per month. I save around $12 per month in a non-server environment.
If you don’t want to use IP addresses directly for net share’s you just need to make sure there’s a name mapping in an active DHCP “store”.
One way is to put it into the host file of each machine that needs access. Another way (which depends on your router/firewall) is to put the “reservation” to this host/IP into the DHCP server even though that PC now has a static IP – some DHCP routers will then resolve based on DHCP reservation.
Also – if you have a PC that just won’t stay in standby, try disabling the “wake on magic packet”. It will still wake for things like ping, file access, remote desktop, etc – just not for the AMD “wake workstation” software that uses this packet. Yes, I need to track down who’s sending that one out, but it was lots easier to just turn it off.
Finally – if you want to save some more power, have a look at rmclock (cpu.rightmark.org) – freeware
You don’t know how lucky you are boy. Rae Halvdan.
I run five hard disks of which two are SCSI 15K. I do not want the wear and tear of starting and stopping these disks. But, I do want to save on electricity. My video card alone consumes 129 watts idle so I do use S3. My question is: If I use S3 but flag “never turn off hard disks” in my power settings will they continue to spin at a lower speed and not be turned off? When my pc comes out of standby I do not hear any chirping from my SCSI drives and their temperatures are around 70F so I can only assume they are in a spin down mode and not off. I am willing to use S3 on 12 pc’s at my workplace if I can confrm that I can keep my disks spinning (spin down) while in S3.
I am having a major issue with Standby and can’t figure it out! Please HELP!
My computer can go into standby just fine (S3 mode). But it will not wake up from standby! I have updated every single piece of drivers in device manager. It still does not work. I have a custom built computer with Core2Duo, and Asus p5w-DH motherboard. Anyone have any suggestions?
Update: S3 does not work still but S1 mode works; it brings it back from standby. Anyone have any idea?
I’m a consultant for the Federal Government, and work in a Lab (doing Quality Assurance ) there’s 12 Computers. I tried the WoL and it works great. I sent the Information to Upper management, but so far only on thinks is a great Ideal (Merci Jean). Anyway I’m not going to go into the details.. But can you Imaging the coast SAVINGS if Everyone in the Federal Government would start using the WoL ~ > (make it mandatory I say). These saving would effect ALL Tax payers
. That’s all for now
UPDATE!!!! finally fixed the problem… Turns out.. it’s a bad power supply that would not wake my computer out of standby.
I had an Antec 430 power supply which i guess didn’t have enough juice to turn the system back on. Replaced it with a 550watt Antec and all works well!
Try replacing your power supply for those who are having problems!
I managed to put my pc on S3 mode (fan off). But when I did the network card power management (check both boxes as shown above), the fan will not turn off during standby.
When those 2 boxes are unchecked, the S3 works (fan off) but I cannot wake it up remotely (Symantec ghost console).
Does anybody know how to fix the problem? make the S3 works (fan off) and still let the computers to be waken up remotely?
A couple of posts have mentioned that the nothing shows up on the display after waking up from S3. I had a similar issue and found that a BIOS power setting similar to “Repost video after S3 wake-up” needed to be configured.
Also
Re – the Symantec Ghost console issue. Do you have a layer 2 or layer 3 network? If you have a layer 3 network then the WOL traffic (magic packet) sent from your Ghost Server will be not be allowed to broadcast over different LANS or VLANS. Setting up “Directed IP broadcasting” may help. There are also other products that get round this, they use the MAC and IP address of the PCs you wish to wake -up. The means that you can effectively wake up PCs on your corporate network over the internet – but I wouldn’t advise this as you would need to punch very large holes in your external firewall.
This is a great article – I wish more people and businesses would think about the amount of power they use when it comes to technology.
My PC has S3 enabled by default. Putting the PC to Standby mode never a problem when the MCE remote controller is unpluged. When I plug in and use my MCE remote control to do the same task. It would go to Standby mode but the fans still on. The above registry kep works like a champ. Will try the WOL option later. Thank you.
Hi, I seem to be having a slightly differnet problem…. I can put my PC into Standy, and I can even wake it up again (using http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/woli.aspx) to send a magic packet. Then I can even access my pc remotely using http://www.logmein.com, but after I have connected for a few minutes my pc goes back into standby. This happens even when I don’t remotely login. It seems that because I do not physically touch the mouse or keyboard the pc goes back for a doze, (even though I maybe running programs remotely). I thought it may have something to do with the display, but even when the monitor is switched off, the same thing happens.
Anyone have any ideas please???
Thanks for the article mate – I was having problems with my PC waking up from shut down because of network traffic – at first i thought it was the router. Unplugging the cable before shutdown… and then plugging it back in once shutdown worked but that’s obviously not a great solution. Especially if nobody is home to do it!
Thanks to you, I’ve set the ethernet controller to only wake on magic packets – and use an website to send them – now the PC wakes from both S3 and shutdown properly and only when i want it to. Brilliant
Thanks again
Matt
I was having trouble with using standby with fans off. Your tips on using the S3 bios setting sorted it out – thanks.
Nice! Only changing the BIOS worked for me, but the keyboard doesn’t wake it up anymore.
Now, how to do this in Linux.
[...] about mid-way down where they mention USB devices and how you may have to make registry changes. eXoid.com – Tweak your Life. S3 Standby Done Right __________________ x2 3600 @ 3.1 3gb xms2 c4 EVGA 590 sli EVGA [...]
It seems that what I’ve been trying to do is not possible in S3 mode, according to your article, but maybe someone has another idea for me…
I’m trying to simply lower my power consumption when the computer is doing nothing other than downloading stuff in µTorrent. At first I figured there had to be a way to be downloading while in standby. A few hours of searching later, I’ve learned all kinds of crap about ACPI, Power State Mappings, Stages of sleep for devices as well as the system – all this learning is wonderful! Still, I would like to see if _something_ could be done.
That said, your article was well-written, fascinating, and good natured, i.e. GOOD FOR NATURE. Thanks for writing this article to help us all save a few bucks and give the planet a few more good years.
Peace,
Jim
Great article!
However, i have one problem with WOL that i’m hoping one of you have a solution to. WOL seems to be working in S3 mode, S4 mode and in S5 mode.
The problem is that after a period of time (after approximately 1-2 hours), when i send a magic packet the PC simply will not wake up. WOL is working fine a few minutes after entering standby or even after a complete shutdown. But after a few hours, it’s like the PC looses the ability to receive the magic packet.
Anyone who has experienced the same problem and has a solution?
Regards
Kenneth
Very good, ive been using a pc for over 20 years now and i cant believe this is the first time ive found standby useful, Thank you.
I’m trying to make a new dell inspiron 1501 notebook wake from standby mode when AC power is restored to it. I’ve tried using a UPS to bring the machine down gracefully but it won’t reboot since that’s not an option in the bios. The device is on a closed sensor network and doesn’t receive traffic to it’s nic card except for DHCP requests.
Can anybody recommend APC UPS software that will put the machine in standby mode instead of fully off?
Thanks!
Bill
I have two questions. First, i have a USB cable connected to my phone then to the USB port on my laptop to charge it when i go away for a little. Is there a way i can leave power to the USB ports when the computer is in standby mode to keep charging the battery of the phone? Secondly, on my desktop computer i have a TV tuner card which can record scheduled recordings. Is ther a way to make the computer wake up from standby mode when a recording is comming up? Just e-mail me with your much appreciated answers at elesbb91@aol.com please and thanks!!!
When I open regedit I do not have a usb folder in which to add the entry you suggest. The folders read:
UPS
usbccgp
usbehci
usbhub
usbprint
usbscan
Your comments please -
Everything is working fine in my situation, apart from one “small” problem. When I put my computer in S3 standby it allways wakes up a few seconds later. Using wireshark (network sniffer) I found that my router is pinging all computers on the network every 30 seconds or so. I guess this ping wakes up my computer.
I tried 3 different routers and all three had the same behaviour. My current router is a Draytek 2900G.
Did anyone have the same problem and if so, could you fix it?
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Great article! For less experienced users see also the PC World article “Reduce Your PC’s Power and Operating Costs” at http://www.pcworld.com/article/137328/reduce_your_pcs_power_and_operating_costs.html#commentsjump
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thanks for the very good tutorial – i have one problem – it seems that there is endless network trafic on my system as once wake-on-lan is set up it keeps waking up few seconds/minutes after going into standby… any advice?
I always assumed the BIOS had full control of the NIC.
Upon this day it never woke up from S3 mode because i didn’t know i had to configure the NIC in the OS.
Thanks for this rather simple but very interesting tutorial.
To reduce demand on my PC–and to let it stay in S3 longer–I bought and hacked the Linksys NSLU2 (see http://www.nslu2-linux.org/). This little $45 device can be hacked to fully run Linux, becoming a very low power web-, proxy-, ftp-, and file-server. I’m saving $10/month by leaving my PC in S3 most of the day and night.
Hello
As newly registered user i just wanted to say hi to everyone else who uses this bbs B-)
What is bumburbia?
Eric, one question. I can ping my pc across a network, and it will start up okay from S3. But, how can I ‘ping’ it from outside the network, or get some activity going to its specific IP address (static IP) from anywhere else but on my own network (i.e. using Orb, want to wake it up from outside). Email your response to me please.
THanks,
HJ
[...] BIOS, Power Management, and set the sleep mode to S3, or enable ’suspend to RAM’. See exoid and here for more info on this, and I’ll touch on it more later. This needs to be done [...]
[...] reasoning tells me otherwise. A recommended reading if you plan on setting this up correctly. LINK __________________ ^Member Of ^Current [...]
I am having an issue when resuming from s3 standby. My computer anywhere from a couple minutes to a couple hours after coming out of s3 standby will freeze. It is inevitable with this standby. Never had a problem before this. I can restore my registry to before the USBBIOSx and not use s3 and my computer will go for days and not freeze. I have cleaned up the registry using ccleaner to see if that was the problem. Any suggestions as to why it freezes. I am using a intel q6600, msi 750 platinum mobo, ocz reaper ram, wd 500gb hard drive, logitech mx 5000 keyboard/mouse combo. Don’t know what is causing it to freeze but maybe someone can help please.
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