Power On

[LunarMist]

How can I time the computer to turn on before I arrive home from work? Thanks.

 

[MaxBurn]

Many computers have a power on timer, like an alarm clock, in the BIOS. Otherwise you could possibly enable the wake on LAN and rig up one of those internet sites you can go to that will turn on the computer remotely. I have never used either...

 

[LunarMist]

I would not use the LAN. In fact I want to turn off the internet as well, except when the computer is on. Are the BIOS settings adjustable in Windows with a funky utility of some sort?

 

[time]

In fact I want to turn off the internet as well, except when the computer is on.

Why?

Are the BIOS settings adjustable in Windows with a funky utility of some sort?

No. Enter the BIOS setup when the PC starts up.

If you don't have wakeup alarm functionality (look under Power Management/Options), buy a $5 electrical timer and use that ...

 

[ddrueding]

Does your computer really take that long to power up? I think your two options are the BIOS "Wake on time" setting, or setting the BIOS "power restore" mode to "always on"/"full on" and getting a separate timer.

 

[LunarMist]

OK, thanks. I give up on the idea. It takes about 3 minutes to boot and everything.

 

[ddrueding]

Mine takes on the order of 10 minutes to start, due mainly to the 2 different RAID controllers I have initializing.

Do what I do, leave it on

 

[LunarMist]

Well I prefer to reduce power consumption and especially heating of the area in the summertime.

 

[e_dawg]

I hate having to wait for my PC to boot up as well, which is why I leave it on 24x7 and have it folding away. If I don't have it folding, I just leave it on standby, where everything shuts down with just enough electricity being used to keep the contents in memory. I also have the video and hard drive set to power down after 20-30 min. Uses minimal power and the PC wakes up and is usable again in 10 sec.

Not sure if I'm correct, but I think your LAN card will be asleep too, so there are no Internet connections active when your PC is asleep. Even if that's not true, if you have a firewall and have your file sharing turned off, it should not be a problem.

Setting your PC to hibernate is also an option, with the contents of your RAM being written out to disk before hibernation. It takes longer to wake up (still less than a minute) and uses even less power than standby.

 

[e_dawg]

Not sure if I'm correct, but I think your LAN card will be asleep too, so there are no Internet connections active when your PC is asleep.

If you want to manually disable your LAN card before you go into standby, you can always set the Local Area Connection that connects to the Internet and always have it show in the Taskbar. Then you can right-click and disable / enable before / after you standby.

 

[ddrueding]

Then you can right-click and disable / enable before / after you standby.

As soon as you disable the NIC, it will dissappear from the taskbar.