Keeping Host Machine Awake

[tincansandtwine]

I use my Win7 HTPC to serve Subsonic. I keep it on S3 sleep to save on electric, and use WOL to wake it when I need to use it. It works perfectly, but the system goes to sleep after 30 minutes (as it's set to do), even if I'm streaming from it. Is there any way to have the Subsonic application keep the computer from sleeping if there is a client connected? Thanks in advance.

[Kirk]

Running a server on a PC that goes to sleep is ... not really something I'd ever think of doing. I don't doubt that your S3 sleep saves on power, but I'd love to see how much. I leave most of my stuff running all the time, even though I don't really have to in some cases. I don't think my electric bill is outrageously high.

If you're looking for a good compromise, have the computer turn off the hard disks after 20 minutes or something but don't ever put it to sleep. The hard drive can spin up relatively quickly when it's needed... but waking up from sleep takes way too long for a server in my opinion.

If you don't leave the screen on and you have the hard disks turn off, you should find that your computer uses less than 100w to stay on. My old Dell only takes 75 watts even when it's doing stuff.

Kirk

[tincansandtwine]

Running a server on a PC that goes to sleep is ... not really something I'd ever think of doing. I don't doubt that your S3 sleep saves on power, but I'd love to see how much. I leave most of my stuff running all the time, even though I don't really have to in some cases. I don't think my electric bill is outrageously high.

If you're looking for a good compromise, have the computer turn off the hard disks after 20 minutes or something but don't ever put it to sleep. The hard drive can spin up relatively quickly when it's needed... but waking up from sleep takes way too long for a server in my opinion.

If you don't leave the screen on and you have the hard disks turn off, you should find that your computer uses less than 100w to stay on. My old Dell only takes 75 watts even when it's doing stuff.

Kirk

I know...I had this conversation the other day with a buddy of mine. I see your side of the argument, but for me, as long as WOL is reliable enough, I see no reason to waste energy on having a server on all the time. Even with a dual core Atom, the difference between running and S3 is 35W running and 2W in S3. It's like turning off a light bulb when you're not using it. Since I'm the only one using it, I put it to sleep when I'm done. If I had a few more people who used it, or if were my dedicated Mythtv backend, I would probably leave it on all the time.

Anyway, I decided to go with the not so glamorous fix of extended the period of time before the machine goes to sleep. Before I had SubSonic running, 30 min worked fine, but since it seems that keeping it awake with the SS service isn't going to work, I just extended it to 3 hours.

[dcolemanca]

I would like to do exactly the same thing as tincansandtwine, here in california running something that uses 30W 24/7 really does add up.

The windows PC I have just installed subsonic on to experiment is already running a Squeezebox Server which does support keeping the server running when streaming and allows it to sleep when not. This feature works very well, made even better by the fact that the squeezebox devices send a WOL packet when you power them on so server can be woken up automatically.

The reason I am experimenting with subsonic is because Squeezebox does not have a streaming client for android or ipod. There are applications to be remote control but not to allow audio to be played on my HTC incredible nor ipod touch.

So it would be very cool to add both features to subsonic server, ie allow host server to sleep when not streaming and build in WOL capabilty to the subsonic android and IOS client.

[GJ51]

I use my Win7 HTPC to serve Subsonic. I keep it on S3 sleep to save on electric, and use WOL to wake it when I need to use it. It works perfectly, but the system goes to sleep after 30 minutes (as it's set to do), even if I'm streaming from it. Is there any way to have the Subsonic application keep the computer from sleeping if there is a client connected? Thanks in advance.

In the Win 7 power settings, click on Change plan settings, Change Advanced power settings, scroll to the bottom and expand the Multimedia settings. Set "when sharing media" to Prevent idiling to sleep.

If anyone uses WHS, get Lights Out if you want it to sleep when there is no activity. There are several ways to get the server to WOL available. There are internet sites that will send WOL via UDP 9 I think. My WHS has a setting in Lights out to WOL, then once my WHS is up, it can wake any hardwired system on the network.

As for power savings, just replace two light bulbs with the new curly cue types and you'll break even with leaving your computer on 24/7. My WHS box has a quad core AMD with 4GB of ram and 4 2TB hard drives, and only draws about 60W on a kill-a-watt meter during normal use. Even I can afford that, and I'm on a fixed income.