Need a tool to shut down the system (1 Viewer)

[John_Berger]

We have numerous computers throughout the house, but my wife is notorious for turning on one particular PC, using it for about 10 minuets, and then leaving it on - sometimes for days - without touching it again. (She then complains about the electricity bill. )

I have had nothing but bad luck with System Standby, so I have no intention of trying that anymore. (No matter what system I've tried, Standby never comes back when it's supposed to.) I've been looking for any utilities that will shut down the system completely after a specified period of idle time, but I can't seem to find one that serves this purpose.

All that I want is a tool that will completely shut the system down - power it off and everything - after a specified amount of idle time just as though I did Start -> Shut Down -> Shut Down manually.

I've looked for something to do this, but the only shutdown tools that I found are for shutting down specific windows or they shut the system down at a specific time. I'm looking for something to shut it down after x minutes of being idle. Is there anything out there to do this?

 

[Mark Giles]

Try

AutoShutdown 4.2

 

[John_Berger]

Cool! I'll check it out! Thanks!

 

[Lee L]

Or just load up some SETI or Folding clients and do a little work for your fellow man while that machine sits on and idle.

 

[John_Berger]

I already do that. It's a VIA 900 or 950 MHz chip (I don't remember which) but it's crap. Even with SETI@Home minimized, it takes over 26 hours to do one work unit. Hell, my 1.4 GHz Athlon does a work unit every 5-6 hours! There is something about the internal technology in the chip that is apparently not very fast. I suppose that it's possible that my motherboard settings are incorrect, but I'm pretty sure that all processor caches are enabled.

No biggie, really. I have two Windows systems and one UNIX system running SETI@Home. A system that generates one unit every day isn't going to make a difference.

 

[JamesHl]

I didn't know via made chips long enough to get up to 900mhz... I remember my friend had like a 400mhz Cyrix in high school, blah

 

[Ken Chan]

VIA has found a niche making low-power chips that are popular with Mini-ITX systems. They're running at 1GHz nowadays.

//Ken

 

[Cary_H]

John....one computer will have very little effect on your hydro bill.
I once checked the combined draw on a 15A circuit at work to put a stop to complaints of the circuit breaker tripping and crashing PCs in the middle of some sort of critical research number crunching. Four workstations running a total of 8 PCs, all with their own monitor and a number of task lights.
Total load?
Just shy of 10A with everything fired up.

Ok, gang, fess up. What's being plugged in that you're not admitting to?
Uh.....sometimes Joe Blow plugs a kettle in at his desk for his tea. Could that do it?

Uh, yeah....in fact, I'm surprised he can even find his way into work. And you trust him with your research?

 

[chris_everett]

If it's a VIA C3 it should have almost no effect on your power bill. They have a crappy floatingpoint unit, and that's why SETI sucks. Also, do give suspend a try on it, under XP it's very reilable and it resumes in about two seconds,with the right hard drive (a laptop one).

 

[John_Berger]

Also, do give suspend a try on it, under XP it's very reilable and it resumes in about two seconds,with the right hard drive (a laptop one).

Um ... when did I say that I use XP?

 

[chris_everett]

m ... when did I say that I use XP?

You didn't specify beyond it being windows, therefore I reserve the right to assume.

Seriously, I built a car PC with that platform, and it resumes to the point of playing an mp3 in winamp in, as I recall, 3 seconds. Reliably. I hated suspend before that too.