What's the setup to make a desktop not go to sleep but to shut down?

I have a desktop that is more than a dozen years old but with current
Windows 10 on it which when it goes to sleep, it can't be woken up.

Can I tell Windows 10 to fully power down after an hour instead of the
power supply fans staying on but with no output going to the HDMI monitor?

Oscar Mayer <nobody@oscarmayer.com> wrote:

> What's the setup to make a desktop not go to sleep but to shut down?
>
> I have a desktop that is more than a dozen years old but with current
> Windows 10 on it which when it goes to sleep, it can't be woken up.
>
> Can I tell Windows 10 to fully power down after an hour instead of the
> power supply fans staying on but with no output going to the HDMI monitor?

Do you want to power down manually? Or after a period of idleness?

To power down manually, like when you're done with the computer, tap the
Start button in the taskbar, tap the power button at the bottom of the
left-side icon list, and select Shutdown.

You could also define a shortcut to do the shutdown by having it run:

shutdown.exe /p

Run "shutdown /?" to get more help. This like requires admin
permissions, to configure the shortcut to use elevated privileges.

If you want a shutdown to happen after a period of inactivity, use Task
Scheduler. Define a task (with elevated privileges) that runs the
shutdown program after the computer has been idle for a while. The task
will use the "Begin the task: On idle", and use the Conditions tab to
define how long is idle. The max for idle time is 1 hour, but you can
have the task wait for idle to start for up to 2 hours, so 3 hours
total.

Alternatively you can define a task to run at a preset time, like when
you would be asleep. Define the task to run, say, at 2 AM, which runs
the shutdown program with elevated privs, but wait for the computer to
be idle for a while. After defining the trigger for the task (run
shutdown), go to the Conditions tab to define how long the computer
waits to go idle and how long while idle before running the task.

On 10/16/2023 9:26 PM, Oscar Mayer wrote:
> What's the setup to make a desktop not go to sleep but to shut down?
>
> I have a desktop that is more than a dozen years old but with current Windows 10 on it which when it goes to sleep, it can't be woken up.
>
> Can I tell Windows 10 to fully power down after an hour instead of the power supply fans staying on but with no output going to the HDMI monitor?

This computer has Hibernation turned off. Only one sleep state is available,
and that is S3 sleep (session stored in RAM). This makes the table hard to
read, so just skip to the next section please.

powercfg /a

The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (S3)

The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S1)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

Standby (S2)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

Hibernate
Hibernation has not been enabled.

Standby (S0 Low Power Idle)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

Hybrid Sleep
Hibernation is not available.
The hypervisor does not support this standby state.

Fast Startup
Hibernation is not available.

This machine is fully enabled, and has C:\hiberfil.sys
caused by "powercfg /h on". In your Administrator Terminal, try:

powercfg /a

The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (S3) <=== S3 sleep
Hibernate <=== Not named but this is S4 (kernel+session to disk)
Hybrid Sleep <=== S3 Sleep but (kernel+session to disk, just in case)
Fast Startup <=== Not named but this is S4 (kernel to disk)

The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S1) <=== Maybe monitor off at least
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

Standby (S2) <=== ???
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

Standby (S0 Low Power Idle) <=== S0 is run state, where the real computing is done.
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

Missing from the table is S5 Soft Off, which corresponds to the
ACPI Object known as "Power Button". They are not exactly the same
thing, but they live in the same neighbourhood.

*******

You can shut down from the Start Menu. [Manual process]

You can right-click the desktop, press Alt-F4, [Manual process]
and a menu appears with a Shutdown option.

If you open a Terminal, you can issue a shutdown.exe command, [Manual process]
but there are some parameters that go with it to make it work
promptly.

shutdown /? # in a Command Prompt window (powershell + run cmd.exe)

On the fully enabled machine (everything works), there is a dialog
that looks like this: But you'll notice the automation refuses
to include S5 Soft Off.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/T2WDQqbx/win10-fully-enabled-ACPI-and-power-options.gif

*******

The machine does have automation :-) You'll like this.

1) If you kill LSASS in Task Manager (there are actually two processes
that work this way), the computer shuts off in 60 seconds. The first
time LSASS was exploited (WinXP?), the users had to implement their
malware fix, in 60 seconds :-) Good, wholesome fun.

2) The Windows Defender has a "jiggler", in that if heuristics spot
an unstoppable malware, Windows Defender can "turn off the power in 10 microseconds".
Of course, similar to the NVidia jiggler, this has NEVER been
observed in the field. But, we like these stories, because they
sound so powerful. Whereas (1), really works.

I would have discounted your story about wake failures, except
I've been seeing some tiny issues with my new computer, and I don't
know what is going on.

Note that "THE FRONT POWER BUTTON ALWAYS WORKS" to wake the machine.
Try it. If the machine refuses to respond to the Power Button as
a signal to arise, it's because the machine has crashed, and the
hardware state is no longer suited to doing anything. For example,
the +5VSB power circuit that runs your RAM, may not be providing
sufficient power to keep the RAM afloat. And then "it loses its mind".

Waking starts with +5VSB (check PSU label) based circuits.
The PSU is turned on, delivering high power to the machine.
It is at that point, when Power_Good is asserted by the PSU,
that the machine can vector to a service address and start
determining what to do about waking. If your power supply is
weak, the +5VSB is off, that can be a reason it won't wake.
Some machines have a flashing red LED, or a steady green LED
(on the motherboard), that tell you +5VSB is available.
That's what made the LEDs run.

Summary: To me, it looks like you need to hook something
to a shutdown.exe command. Now, how do you hook into the
"idle determination" ? Hmmm.

Paul

On 17.10.23 3:26, Oscar Mayer wrote:
> What's the setup to make a desktop not go to sleep but to shut down?
>
> I have a desktop that is more than a dozen years old but with current
> Windows 10 on it which when it goes to sleep, it can't be woken up.
>
> Can I tell Windows 10 to fully power down after an hour instead of the
> power supply fans staying on but with no output going to the HDMI monitor?
>
C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 04