Solution: Wake-Up for Mainboard PCCHIPS M811LU

[tom_frey]

Hi all,

I own a PCChips M811LU mainboard. So far, I was not able to make Mediaportal wake my system from S4 / S5 for scheduled recordings. I believe that this is not a MP specific problem, but a problem ... somewhere between Windows and that motherboard's BIOS / ACPI implementation.

Anyway, before I installed Mediaportal on my system I tried VDR under Linux and there, wakeup did work with a program called nvram-wakeup. Through some research I found out, that CMOSTimer is the equivalent program under Windows. But unfortunately, the M811LU has a southbridge that is not yet supported in CMOSTimer.

So I dug a bit into the linux program and found, that it is actually not too difficult to write the settings to the CMOS RAM. Next, I downloaded the free VB.net Express Edition from Microsoft, brushed up on my programming skills and wrote a command line application that immitates the CMOSTimer.

Since the M811LU does not need a re-boot after setting the timer, I only implemented the parameters /wakeup and /off. But these are exactly the parameters that PVR-Scheduler uses with the "external wakeup" option. So now I can wake my board through PVR-Scheduler.

I have to say that PVR-Scheduler is not really my cup of tea. It is too powerful for my purposes. I would much prefer an "external wakeup" option in the power-scheduler plug-in for Mediaportal. But that is a different matter...


Installation:

M811Timer does not use any registry or other settings. Since it was written for one specific board there are no settings. Just copy the exe to a directory of your choice. For I/O-port access I am using a library called inpout32.dll from Embedded System, Digital Signal Processing and Parallel Port Interfacing. Copy this dll to the same directory. Then change the settings of PVR-Scheduler accordingly (i.e. under Settings -> General -> External Wakeup enter the path to M811Timer and tick the activate box). That's it.


Usage:

Since the program is usually only invoked by PVR-Scheduler, there is not much to be said. For troubleshooting purposes, you could invoke it from a command line prompt. There are only two parameters (with the same format as in CMOSTimer):

/wakeup=dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm
Sets the timer and activates it

OR

/off
Deactivates the wake-up function in the bios.


Revision History:

Rev. 01 (19. May 2008)
* Initial version


Please note: This software was written for the M811LU mainboard and will most likely not work with any other board. On other systems it might corrupt your CMOS settings. I have only tested it under firmware 20-10-2005, so cannot guarantee that it works for other firmware versions.

Any feedback is welcome!

Tom