Windows switching off display when pressing power button while recording (1 Viewer)

[daniel_1980]

Hello,

I am sure this is more a windows issue, but I hope that someone here experienced a similar problem, and can give me ideas to get to an acceptable solution.

The situation is:
TV and AV-Receiver are off, but the HTPC is on because it is recording.
I want to use Mediaportal and start the corresponding action with the Harmony remote, which switches on the TV, the AV-Receiver and the HTPC.
As the HTPC is already switched on, it interprets the command from the Harmony remote as a command to switch off (because on/off is the same command), and stays on, because the shutdown is prevented by MePo.
So far so good.
The problem is that windows seems to go to another state of operation:
The VFD switches off, the display is switched off (TV complains about "no signal"). Sometimes windows is also muted.
Exactly the same happens when I press the hardware power button on the HTPC case while recording.

To get the machine back to normal state I have to move the mouse or press a key on the keyboard. Sometimes I have to unmute windows manually.

So my questions are:
Does anyone know more about this special state windows seems to be in?
Does anyone have a solution? The best solution would be to have the HTPC totally ignoring the "power" IR command / the power button on the case when MePo is preventing the shutdown.
I could also live with another IR command bringing back the normal state.

Windows version is 7 64bit with latest service pack and updates. MePo is latest 1.8.
Windows energy settings are configured to never switch off the display.

I hope someone can help me out!
Many thanks in advance!

 

[mrkaras]

media portal puts the PC in "away mode" where the monitor etc turns off but the machine keeps running (for recording).

 

[daniel_1980]

Thanks. Can I do something to prevent this "away mode"? Seems to me that I would rather have the PC either in "full" mode or in standby mode and nothing else.

 

[mrkaras]

I think there is an option somewhere in MP, have a look around the power areas, in the power scheduler plugin I think.

 

[CyberSimian]

TV and AV-Receiver are off, but the HTPC is on because it is recording. I want to use Mediaportal and start the corresponding action with the Harmony remote, which switches on the TV, the AV-Receiver and the HTPC. As the HTPC is already switched on, it interprets the command from the Harmony remote as a command to switch off (because on/off is the same command), and stays on, because the shutdown is prevented by MePo. ... The VFD switches off, the display is switched off (TV complains about "no signal"). Sometimes windows is also muted. Exactly the same happens when I press the hardware power button on the HTPC case while recording.

As MrKaras has mentioned, this sounds like "away mode". This is the mode of operation that HTPCs are supposed to use (but you can disable it if you want). However, the question is, does Windows implement away mode correctly? I use Vista, and Vista has never behaved correctly -- it implements only half the solution:

(1) If I press the power button when the HTPC is recording, the HTPC transitions from normal mode to away mode, and switches off the video and sound outputs. That part works correctly.

(2) When the HTPC wakes up to perform an unattended recording, Vista wakes up in normal mode, whereas it should be waking up in away mode. If it did the latter, when I pressed the power button on the remote control, the HTPC would transition from away mode to normal mode, and all would be well.

I was under the impression that Win7 had corrected this mistake in Vista's implementation of away mode, but your experience suggests otherwise.

Although I eventually arrived at a "one button" solution for turning the HTPC/TV/amplifier on and off, it is incredibly convoluted, and I would not recommend it to anyone other than the truly determined (you need to buy extra hardware). Instead I would suggest a solution that I used prior to my eventual solution, namely on your remote control use a separate power-toggle button for each device.

You dispense with the activity buttons offered by your Harmony remote control, and instead define one button as the TV power toggle, another button as the amplifier power toggle, and a third button as the HTPC power toggle. If you have other devices (blue-ray player, games console), do the same for them. With this solution you can control the power state of each device individually. However, other members of the household (wife/children) may make this solution undesirable.

I will be interested to see if anyone can suggest an alternative (and better!) solution.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK