Stand by vs. Hibernate

**akula169** · 08-30-2006, 03:11 PM

So, my laptop has this nice little feature. When I close the lid, it will go into Stand by mode for about 20 minutes. If I don't turn it back on within that 20 minutes, it'll go into Hibernate automatically.

Now, I'd love to be able to do this with my CarPC. I have the VIA EPIA M10k.

I'm tired of going into a store for a few minutes and having to wait for the machine to come back out of Hibernate every time... but of course I don't want it to go into just sleep mode, as when it loses power from the PS after the set timeout (I have a M2-MTX) it'll power off and lose the current session.

Am I missing something? Is it possible to get the motherboard to do what my laptop does? Or am I just stuck with Hibernate?

**akula169** · 09-03-2006, 05:34 PM

The more I think about it, the more I think this might be a BIOS/motherboard related issue.

But, then again, it makes me think that it would be a windows thing, because I don't think the motherboard/BIOS would know the difference between powering off and hibernation...

I guess everyone else is stumped too...

**geeky_hawkes** · 09-03-2006, 05:43 PM

This is certainly how i intend to use my laptop carpc install and its driven by windows settings in control panel. As im going to use a laptop i cant comment on how you would do it witha desktop type install but hope you get an answer (expect the search police to be along soon though as this is bound to have been covered before!)

**akula169** · 09-06-2006, 01:09 PM

I welcome the search police.

If they are able to search and point me to the solution (believe me, I've tried... a lot), I'll bow and say I'm not worthy.

**evandude** · 09-06-2006, 01:32 PM

As far as I know, it's not possible to go straight from standby to hibernate with standard mobos. I'm not too surprised to see it on a laptop, where the hardware is all custom. To do it on a regular mobo I would expect you'd have to boot it back up out of standby, and then put it in hibernate. Since the computer isn't actually doing anything when it's in standby, you couldn't do it entirely with software, you'd need your SDC to do the work. And since your power settings can only set the power button to standby OR hibernate, you'd need an additional method of input to the PC to have the SDC able to activate either mode at its choosing; if the mobo had a separate "sleep" button, that could work, otherwise you might need a combination of some kind of serial/parallel/usb interface, and a custom program running in the background, so that the SDC would be able to instruct the computer whether it was supposed to standby or hibernate. then it could put the computer into standby, wait 20 minutes, then boot it back up by pressing the power button, wait a few minutes for it to finish resuming, and then send a message to hibernate.

That's one of the things I hope to implement someday with my SDC design, but I don't think it would be possible sticking strictly to the M2-ATX that you have. It would probably require some custom addon hardware (at least a simple microcontroller circuit) and software.

**akula169** · 09-06-2006, 02:53 PM

ok, cool. That's kinda what I thought.

Thanks for the informative reply

**SFiorito** · 09-06-2006, 04:48 PM

you could do this in software.

here's one utility you could use to bring your system out of standby and make it hibernate for instance.

http://www.dennisbabkin.com/php/download.php?what=wosb

**akula169** · 09-07-2006, 05:25 AM

Originally Posted by SFiorito

you could do this in software.

here's one utility you could use to bring your system out of standby and make it hibernate for instance.

http://www.dennisbabkin.com/php/download.php?what=wosb

Wow.... here's hoping this works...

/me crosses fingers

EDIT: yes, I suppose that the existence of such software proves that it is possible... although, and alas, the software you have pointed out is not applicable to my situation. ah. I thought I was so close.

Reason: it will wake up from Stand by at a *specific* clock time ( i.e. 18:13:42 pm). There are no settings to say "turn the system to hibernate 20 minutes after I turned the system to stand by"

sigh.

I now have a bit of a glimmer of more hope, at least.

Thanks for the post

**akula169** · 09-07-2006, 05:57 AM

update:

I wrote the author of the program. I figure if he/she can tug at the strings of XP enough to wake up at a specific time, that it isn't too far off to tell the code to wait X number of minutes during sleep until turning the system over to the hibernate function.

I'm sure if enough people express interest - maybe via email, maybe via bounty - that it isn't too far from reality for all of us....

Just a thought

**AllThingsEnd** · 09-07-2006, 06:24 AM

ok just so no one thinks i was crazy after i post this. it is possible to go from standby straight to hibernate. i set my power options like this:
Standby: 1min
Hibernate: 5min
the system went into standby after the minute of inactivity. then at 5 min, the system came almost out of standby, but didnt display anything on the screen. it probably came up just to write everything to the hdd. then to make sure it actually went into hibernate i unplugged it, then plugged it back in. powered it up, the system said resuming windows and this thread was still opened. so yes you can go straight from standby to hibernate but im guessing its dependant on your mobo.