So after I added the SSD to the HTPC and moved my hard disk into the NAS drive, I began to notice the machine no longer automatically goes to sleep. If I hit the power button (set to sleep) or run it from the command line (%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Standby) the machine goes to sleep just fine, but won’t do so automatically.
Mucking with powercfg (which is a very interesting program BTW. Run powercfg /? if you’re not familiar with it) I found the following:
powercfg -requests
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\medianas\Photos\blah\blah\blah\IMG_9088.jpg] Process ID: [4456]
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\medianas\Photos\blah\blah\SANY0014.jpg] Process ID: [4456]
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\medianas\Photos\blah\blah\blah\IMG_9160.jpg] Process ID: [4456]
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\medianas\Photos\blah\blah\SANY0118.jpg] Process ID: [4456]
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\medianas\Photos\blah\blah\IMG_0053.jpg] Process ID: [4456]
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\medianas\Photos\blah\blah\PC060102.jpg] Process ID: [4456]
….
So basically, the Media Center Screen saver is actually preventing the system from going to sleep because it has all these photo files open across the network. I really like the screen saver, and I don’t want to suck up space on the SSD with photos. What to do?
It turns out, there’s a hidden setting in powercfg which will allow to enable sleep when files are open over the network. I assume the option is hidden by default because most folks wouldn’t understand what “remote opens” were. There’s a very helpful blog post here which explains a number of hidden power/sleep settings in gory detail. Low and behold after importing the registry file (run regedit as administrator):
Still need to do a little more testing but I figure this should do the trick. Just a couple more handy commands for my own reference:
Put the computer to sleep from the command line
%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Standby
What was the last reason the PC woke up from sleep
powercfg -lastwake
List all the requests from processes to prevent the computer from sleeping:
powercfg -requests
Analyze any power usage issues the system might have
powercfg -energy
See “powercfg /?” for more info.