Question:
Hey everyone...
Having recently been stung with a huge leccy bill I've been frantically trying to make the most of my economy 7 and have succesfully managed to move all my washing, dishwashing, ironing and tumble drying to the middle of the night when it's cheap!
The last thing I'm still doing that uses any substantial amount of electricity on day rate is leaving my PC running 4 or 5 nights a week to download TV programmes from the states.
At the moment I'm switching the PC on when I go to bed at 9 and leaving it to download overnight, however, that still makes about 4 and a half hours where the PC is running on the day rate - and to cap it all off my ISP is also throttling badly between 6pm and midnight so it's a complete waste all round.
Is there any way under the sun that I can set some kind of timer on the PC so that it turns itself on at a specific time and starts running programmes that I predefine? I'm guessing probably not, but it's worth a shot!
Cheers
James
Answers:
(this link doesn't seem to work anymore without registering.. but it was an in depth look into PC based electricity consumption)
Do you turn the screen off, and turn the PC off at the mains when not in use.
PS.. If you boil a full 2 litre kettle (8 average mugs), on a normal tariff (9p/kwh), it costs about 2p, 1 litre (4 cups) 1p, 2 mugs 0.5p.. So if you always fill the kettle up, instead of just doing 2 cups at a time it wastes 1.5p per boil, 6 boils/day, = £33+/year.
Answers:
Thanks Albert...
I'll have a read of the thread you linked to - and yes I probably do fill my kettle right up too, although I only boil it once a day but yes, I should definitely not do it!
(hmmm, Albertross - sounds like a good heckle...?!)
Nice Burning Rope quote in your sig!
James (aka LivingForever)
Answers:
Can't believe I didn't know there was a simple task scheduler as part of Windows XP - LOL!
So, the way I see it then, I can set a physical timer switch on my router so that it only comes on at 1.30am, thereby restoring internet connection just in time, and then set Task scheduler to run my torrent program at 1.31am (selecting the option to wake up the PC if it's switched off), so when I get up in the morning I'll have had a good few hours of downloading on Night rate.
Genius!
Previously I was leaving 2 computers, router, speakers, monitors, printers, etc on 24/7 - literally for months at a time, no wonder I got a huge bill...
I also left my TV, DVD recorder, VCR, Sky Digibox and Nintendo on standby 24/7, left lights running all day and all night 'for the dogs', left my dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer working when I went to work, and also ran one empty fridge and one empty freezer in my cellar for no good reason.
(It's nice to see the error of your ways I must admit...!)
James
Answers:
There is another thread somewhere on the same topic, but having trouble finding it ATM, must be the way I walk, and you've obviously been downloading too many live bootlegs from 1980, which is why your leccy bill is so high.
Answers:
There is another thread somewhere on the same topic, but having trouble finding it ATM, must be the way I walk, and you've obviously been downloading too many live bootlegs from 1980, which is why your leccy bill is so high.
LOL... you got me!
1980, 1977, 1976, 1975... I could go on... ;-)
Trouble is, once you start... well, you probably know!
James
Answers:
Right been testing and Task Scheduler will not turn on my PC from a complete switch off...
Any ideas?!
James
Answers:
some bioses can turn the PC on at a specified time.
Answers:
You could wire your power switch in place of the buzzer in an alarm clock, then set it to go off at the time you want your computer to turn on.
As long as you wire it before the piece of equipment that pulses the buzzer on and off, that is.
Answers:
Hi
When I download files at night, I use free download manager, with one click you can set it to turn your pc off when the downloads have finished.
Answers:
The hard part is getting the pc to switch on automatically. You are using task manager to shut the machine down is a greta way to do it. The only way I can think would be a feature of some bios's where they can be set to restore their previous state either on or off if power is removed ie a powercut.
This has major drawbacks if the machine is shut down then its previous state was off so it wont work but what you could do would be to get a standard timer socket for the pc, it switches off at 7am or what ever time you want making the pc think it s a powercut when the timer trips the socket on the ps will wake and switch on for the night shift and you use task manager to run any programs once windows is up. your other option would be to add the programs to the startup folder save using task manager.
now the down sides just cutting power isnt a good idea it can cause drive failures or other components to fail and data errors.
The best thing would be some sort of timer to trip the power switch on the pc but that would require some bodging.
Answers:
I dont know about the switching on automatically of a machine, but I used to leave the pc running till 7 in the morning and then the line rental got expensive so I used a program called switch off, I can recommend it, you just set the timer and it does the rest.
The link is
however the link sometimes doesnt work so a google search might work better.
Answers:
Easiest and cleanest way to turn off the PC at a set time under Windows XP (and 2003 should anyone be running that) is
open notepad.
Enter the following
shutdown -s -t 0 -f
and then save the file as "bedtime.cmd". Windows might append ".txt" to the file so right click on it and check its name.
Put the file somewhere safe. Then add it to task scheduler to run at the time you want to shutdown. Any decent program will detect the proper Windows shutdown and die cleanly and you won't risk trashing your hard disk with a head crash.
As for starting the PC at a set time, it'll depend to some extent on your BIOS. Some can be set to "ON after power loss" which will start the machine on the application of power. Some BIOS' also have the ability to start the machine at a certain time. Indeed, I had a friend who's PC would switch on at 2:30 every morning for ages before I realised what was doing it.
Then just copy a shortcut to your app to your startup folder.
Answers:
As for starting the PC at a set time, it'll depend to some extent on your BIOS. Some can be set to "ON after power loss" which will start the machine on the application of power. Some BIOS' also have the ability to start the machine at a certain time. Indeed, I had a friend who's PC would switch on at 2:30 every morning for ages before I realised what was doing it.
Then just copy a shortcut to your app to your startup folder.
Thank you all for your continued devotion to saving me money!!!
Okay, so the issue is turning the PC on at a given time from being completely shut down - I can shut it down when I get up in the morning at 6 so that's fine but I want it to come on automatically at abut 1.30am every day.
Sounds to me like it's going to be a BIOS thing- I've never touched my PC's BIOS in my life so I will tread very carefully. Any pointers?!
Cheers
James
Answers:
First thing. Get a pad and pen and make a note of anything and everything you change just in case
First job is to get into the BIOS. It depends what make of PC motherboard you have. When you boot your PC up you should see a message on screen really early in the boot sequence saying press "XX" to enter setup or similar. "XX" can be, depending on make, F1, F2, F10, DEL, CTRL+A or something else altogether. If it doesn't say what it is, try 'em all, one at a time.
You'll be presented with a menu screen and the settings we're looking for are invariably under the power options and are usually fairly self explanatory. You're looking for status on power restore or status after power cut type setting and also a possible start at certain time type setting. That's not so common though it would be the cleanest option.
Best thing if you're still struggling is to make a note of the various options and post them here and I/we can advise which ones to pick.