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nospam
Guest
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 Posted:
Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:47 pm Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
It does, but it takes more than 2 seconds (takes perhaps 30 seconds on
this laptop). ...longer to restore. There is more to hibernation than
copying RAM to disk.
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I wish I had disk drives which could restore 1GB of ram in 2 seconds.
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John Larkin
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 1:25 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:47:41 +0000, nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>
wrote:
| Quote: | Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
It does, but it takes more than 2 seconds (takes perhaps 30 seconds on
this laptop). ...longer to restore. There is more to hibernation than
copying RAM to disk.
I wish I had disk drives which could restore 1GB of ram in 2 seconds.
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I wish I has an OS that didn't need a gig of ram.
John |
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nospam
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 1:37 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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John Larkin <jjlarkin@highSNIPlandTHIStechPLEASEnology.com> wrote:
| Quote: | On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:47:41 +0000, nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid
wrote:
Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
It does, but it takes more than 2 seconds (takes perhaps 30 seconds on
this laptop). ...longer to restore. There is more to hibernation than
copying RAM to disk.
I wish I had disk drives which could restore 1GB of ram in 2 seconds.
I wish I has an OS that didn't need a gig of ram.
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Most of the time 3/4 of it is used to speed up the disk drives.
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Michael Black
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:04 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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John Larkin (jjlarkin@highSNIPlandTHIStechPLEASEnology.com) writes:
| Quote: | On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:47:41 +0000, nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid
wrote:
Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
It does, but it takes more than 2 seconds (takes perhaps 30 seconds on
this laptop). ...longer to restore. There is more to hibernation than
copying RAM to disk.
I wish I had disk drives which could restore 1GB of ram in 2 seconds.
I wish I has an OS that didn't need a gig of ram.
John
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I think the issue is that the computer freezes right at the point where
you left off. So you need to save everything in RAM, variables, stack,
and the programs as they exist in memory. Starting it up, you are
merely filling the RAM. A reboot goes through all kinds of stages,
and does things like decompress applications before they can be run.
Michael |
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Joel Kolstad
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:35 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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"Michael Black" <et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:cugi9b$qfo$1@theodyn.ncf.ca...
| Quote: | I think the issue is that the computer freezes right at the point where
you left off. So you need to save everything in RAM, variables, stack,
and the programs as they exist in memory. Starting it up, you are
merely filling the RAM.
|
It's significantly more complicated than that. Every single piece of
hardware in the PC has to have its 'state' initialized to whatever it was
before the PC was put into standby, or at least initialized to some
'reasonable' values. I.e., your graphics cards, network card, USB
peripherals, etc. Windows 'walks' the device driver stack and tells them
that the system is about to go to standby; the drivers then save their
device's state to memory, the registry, etc.
What Windows actually does is to ask drivers if they're ready to go into
standby or not. If they say 'yes,' Windows will then say, 'OK, let's do
standby!' at which point the driver MUST shut down _even if new operations
were started inbetween the time when Windows queried the device and when the
standby command actually happens_. This makes for some rather tricky
programming at times...
This is all especially fun if your device is one that supports waking up the
system, such as a USB modem.
---Joel |
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Andreas Hadler
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:11 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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John Larkin <jjSNIPlarkin@highTHISlandPLEASEtechnology.XXX> wrote:
| Quote: | Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
|
How do you plan to restart the actual state of the hardware?
You'll need a lot of driver intelligence to restore all register
settings - some settings even could make no sense on a different time.
Andreas
--
It's not the things you don't know what gets you into trouble. It's
the things you do know that just ain't so.
- Will Rogers |
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Winfield Hill
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:11 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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John Larkin wrote...
| Quote: |
Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
|
It does. It's called hibernate mode, and the problem is that much
of the RAM contents have to be written to disk. For example, I have
1G of ram, and when I command a hibernate it usually has to save
several hundred MB of memory to the hard drive, perhaps even 500MB
or so, and this takes time. And it has to restore this at wakeup.
If you have a fast 10MB/sec drive, it takes 50s to restore 500MB.
It might even need 100s when writing, for a read-after-write check?
There may also be performance hits from disk fragmentation issues.
I'm not sure, but it seems Windows also wastes more time attempting
to optimize the amount of RAM stored by requesting program action.
There appear to be some timeouts while it waits for responses that
don't come. And there are similar excess delays upon resume.
--
Thanks,
- Win |
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Lasse Langwadt Christense
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:11 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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Alan Liefting <ALiefting@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<420ABCDC.4070309@ihug.co.nz>...
| Quote: | I am mystified as to why the ATX PSU was designed so that it draws
standby current even while the PC is off. I am a bit of an
environmentalist and I find it rather lax of govt agencies to allow this
blatent waste of what collectively is a whole stack of CO2 emssions.
The only advantage of the current (!!) ATX power supply design is the
wake on LAN feature.
Alan Liefting
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If you live in a place that needs heating most of the year, does
it really matter? ;)
-Lasse |
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Pooh Bear
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 12:36 pm Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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Alan Liefting wrote:
| Quote: | I am mystified as to why the ATX PSU was designed so that it draws
standby current even while the PC is off. I am a bit of an
environmentalist and I find it rather lax of govt agencies to allow this
blatent waste of what collectively is a whole stack of CO2 emssions.
The only advantage of the current (!!) ATX power supply design is the
wake on LAN feature.
|
It also works the on/off switch too such as may be found on the front panel
or even the keyboard and various other 'wake-on' features. Most monitors
also go into auto-standby when the PC is switched off too now as well.
No different to switching off your VCR / DVD / TV / some audio gear etc etc
using the remote control.
There are regulations that set maximum power draw limits in this sleep mode.
Graham |
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Ian Stirling
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:05 pm Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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Lasse Langwadt Christensen <langwadt@ieee.org> wrote:
| Quote: | Alan Liefting <ALiefting@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<420ABCDC.4070309@ihug.co.nz>...
I am mystified as to why the ATX PSU was designed so that it draws
standby current even while the PC is off. I am a bit of an
environmentalist and I find it rather lax of govt agencies to allow this
blatent waste of what collectively is a whole stack of CO2 emssions.
The only advantage of the current (!!) ATX power supply design is the
wake on LAN feature.
If you live in a place that needs heating most of the year, does
it really matter? ;)
|
Gas is often a third of the price of electricity.
So, it can be an expense. ( |
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Keith Williams
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 7:54 pm Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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In article <af7n01tk81ktjmdupem6vm56o8et8i8mda@4ax.com>,
nospam@nospam.invalid says...
| Quote: | Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
It does, but it takes more than 2 seconds (takes perhaps 30 seconds on
this laptop). ...longer to restore. There is more to hibernation than
copying RAM to disk.
I wish I had disk drives which could restore 1GB of ram in 2 seconds.
|
Particularly a laptop drive. ;-)
It's not two seconds. I timed it yesterday. While in a meeting I had
to change batteries, so did a hibernate instead of powering down. It
was close to 45 seconds to hibernate and a bit over a minute to come
back. The laptop has 512MB.
--
Keith |
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nospam
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:10 pm Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | In article <af7n01tk81ktjmdupem6vm56o8et8i8mda@4ax.com>,
nospam@nospam.invalid says...
Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
It does, but it takes more than 2 seconds (takes perhaps 30 seconds on
this laptop). ...longer to restore. There is more to hibernation than
copying RAM to disk.
I wish I had disk drives which could restore 1GB of ram in 2 seconds.
Particularly a laptop drive. ;-)
It's not two seconds. I timed it yesterday. While in a meeting I had
to change batteries, so did a hibernate instead of powering down. It
was close to 45 seconds to hibernate and a bit over a minute to come
back. The laptop has 512MB.
|
A modern laptop drive should be capable of 15-20MB/s my desktop drives
manage 40-50MB/s. I think the disk I/O for hibernation has to be done in
the BIOS so performance is probably less than optimal. |
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Joel Kolstad
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:32 pm Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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"Ian Stirling" <root@mauve.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:420c9f71$0$29411$ed2e19e4@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net...
| Quote: | Gas is often a third of the price of electricity.
So, it can be an expense. (
|
If you have the option. In many places in the US apartment complexes are
built with electric heat because it's cheaper for the bulider and more
reliable (or at least cheaper to fix). :-( |
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Carl D. Smith
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:09 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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On 10 Feb 2005 16:54:15 -0800, langwadt@ieee.org (Lasse Langwadt
Christensen) wrote:
| Quote: | Alan Liefting <ALiefting@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<420ABCDC.4070309@ihug.co.nz>...
I am mystified as to why the ATX PSU was designed so that it draws
standby current even while the PC is off. I am a bit of an
environmentalist and I find it rather lax of govt agencies to allow this
blatent waste of what collectively is a whole stack of CO2 emssions.
The only advantage of the current (!!) ATX power supply design is the
wake on LAN feature.
Alan Liefting
If you live in a place that needs heating most of the year, does
it really matter? ;)
-Lasse
|
Well, I live in an apartment where I don't pay for the heat. But
the heat seldom ever runs with all the computers I have heating
the place...
I am currently transitioning to a new computer and haven't got
all my stuff off the old one yet, so I have two systems at my
desk. Then I have a Media Center PC on each of my two TVs, so I
have 4 systems running most of the time...
At one point when I was building a couple systems for other
people I had 6 systems going all at once, and I had to open my
windows a bit and let cold 10 degree air from outside in just to
keep the temperature below 80 inside. :-( |
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Carl D. Smith
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:24 am Post subject:
Re: Why is the ATX PSU designed to standby current? |
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On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:26:42 -0800, John Larkin
<jjSNIPlarkin@highTHISlandPLEASEtechnology.XXX> wrote:
| Quote: | Unfortunately, not all OSs handle this properly. Windows, for example.
|
Any system built in the last 3 years or so should handle it just
fine, at least in the configuration as shipped from the factory.
If you system has one of those "Designed for Microsoft Windows"
stickers on it, the manufacturer is required to support suspend
to ram and suspend to disk (although suspend to disk may not be
turned on by default). They also have to meet specific boot
times and resume times from suspend to ram.
However, it is not unheard of for suspend modes to break when new
hardware with drivers that aren't properly designed are
installed. But I haven't seen that recently either.
| Quote: | Why doesn't Windows suspend to disk? Just copy all of ram to disk and
*fully* shut down, zero power. Restart would take about 2 seconds;
spin up the disk, restore RAM, run.
|
Like other people have already said, it does. But it may not be
turned on. In XP go to control panel, power options, click the
hibernate tab, and click the "enable hibernation" check box. If
you use the welcome screen in XP when you hit start/turn off
computer you will see three buttons that standby, turn off,
restart. Standby will do a suspend to ram. But if you press
the shift key, it will change to hibernate.
On my new system with 2GB of ram, it takes longer to resume from
suspend mode than to just cold boot the system. But it has the
advantage that all your programs are still open where you left
them.
One think to be aware of is that if you use suspend to ram, and
there is a power outage, you will lose your unsaved work just
like if the power went off when you were using the computer. But
there is one trick that minimizes the chance of this happening.
You can go into the power options and set a time for the system
to go into suspend to ram (standby), and a longer time for it to
go into suspend to disk (hibernate). The system should go into
suspend to ram, then when the suspend to disk time happens, it
should automatically wake up, and then suspend to disk. You get
the advantage of a 5 second wakeup if you restart the system
soon, and have less chance of losing stuff if you forget the
system in suspend to ram for a long period of time. |
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