2012-02-02, 18:07
Which one shall I do for XBMC? is there a way to make it automatically suspend/hibernate after say an hour of inactivity?
2012-02-04, 04:44
It depends on how your machine works when it comes out of hibernation or sleep. If things don't work right when you resume from sleep, but they work fine when you resume from hibernation, I'd choose hibernation.
Personally I use sleep on both of my HTPCs and things work great. The only downside to sleep is if there's a power loss - you will have an uncommanded shutdown, so when your computer turns on again you'll see the "Windows shut down improperly" or a similar message, plus you run the risk of having files corrupted, etc.
I disable the auto sleep/hibernate settings in Windows, because I often leave things running for quite a while and I don't want the PC to shut off. I don't know if XBMC prevents sleep/hibernation, so I would just configure your Windows power settings to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity, then start XBMC, wait 5 minutes, and see what happens.
Personally I use sleep on both of my HTPCs and things work great. The only downside to sleep is if there's a power loss - you will have an uncommanded shutdown, so when your computer turns on again you'll see the "Windows shut down improperly" or a similar message, plus you run the risk of having files corrupted, etc.
I disable the auto sleep/hibernate settings in Windows, because I often leave things running for quite a while and I don't want the PC to shut off. I don't know if XBMC prevents sleep/hibernation, so I would just configure your Windows power settings to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity, then start XBMC, wait 5 minutes, and see what happens.
2012-02-04, 07:49
I know Media Center and iTunes allow automatic sleep when not playing anything. I think XBMC does but am not completely sure about that. Anyway, I configure my HTPC to sleep after one hour of inactivity, and it works great.
Concerning power outages, you can:
1. Use a UPS that will wake the PC from sleep during a power outage and make it hibernate, such as my Back-UPS BX1500G. That's what I do.
2. Use hybrid sleep, which saves a hibernation file every time you sleep so it doesn't matter if power is lost. Note that if you're using an SSD for boot drive, this is a great way to add possibly tens of GBs of writes each day to it, which is not recommended.
Concerning power outages, you can:
1. Use a UPS that will wake the PC from sleep during a power outage and make it hibernate, such as my Back-UPS BX1500G. That's what I do.
2. Use hybrid sleep, which saves a hibernation file every time you sleep so it doesn't matter if power is lost. Note that if you're using an SSD for boot drive, this is a great way to add possibly tens of GBs of writes each day to it, which is not recommended.
