Quieting Windows 7 down....

JimLewandowski said:

I was poking around in Admin tools -> Performance monitor (the big applet, not the one from Task Manager). Under EVENT TRACE SESSIONS I have a bunch of them enabled/running by default (I didn't change anything). IOW, all that are listed are "running".

NTFSLOG is one that's running. However, the directory that it stores these "logs" is empty so maybe it's not really running. I'm tempted to turn NTFSLOG and see if my $MFT and $LOGFILE writes stop.

Will research more tomorrow when I'm awake.

Interesting I'll have to poke around in there myself... However, my system will now go into standby even with NTFS updates going on. It sleeps as soon as the current one finishes (usually less than 2 minutes delay).

It was the "lastalive1.dat" and "lastalive0.dat" that were keeping it awake... these use file mode access to the disk which I assume was resetting the sleep timer.

I'm attaching a zip with some of what I've come up with... There are a couple of documents and a .REG file... take a careful look at the REG file before you integrate it... edit out the stuff you don't want. On my machines --and YMMV!-- there was a noticeable improvement.

CarlTR6 said:

Thanks for the info. I have saved it for future reference. My 'puter is sleeping properly with out the registry change. I just have the blinking LED's and I can live with that.

I think I've decided I'm stuck with it too. But at least now I know it's harmless.

The desktop machine (ASUS) is still flashing once a second but it sleeps and spins down correctly since I put in the timestamp tweak. I just slid it a bit further under the desk where I don't see it...

The ASRock also stopped flashing when I put in the "timestampinterval = 0" tweak. The drive spins down but it's not going into standby as it once did... But maybe as everyone is saying, that will settle down with time.

The Acer Aspire is back on XP and seems pretty much ok with that... it goes into standby every 10 minutes, regular as clockwork.

So.... Hey, thanks for all your help and patience on this. I was getting PLENTY frustrated for a bit there...

CarlTR6 said:

Glad to hear it is functioning properly for you - aside from the light show.

Well, there is a trick for this....

On the pin header where all the wires from the front panel hook to the motherboard are 2 plugs, one for the power LED the other for the Drive LED... I just cut the positive lead in each case, spliced in a 1000 ohm resistor... a couple of drops of solder and some heat shrinkable tubing and no more glaring blinky lights... just a very soft glow you actually have to look to see. Total cost 5 cents per LED.

CarlTR6 said:

A very easy and inexpensive fix!

Yep... I can usually aford 10 cents and 20 minutes to make the rest of my day better... Got a good install on the desktop now, doing backups before I go after the HTPC with it's final install... And, my Excedrin bill is way down...

Windows 7 includes a number of power saving features. Go to Start > Run > CMD
Type the following

powercfg -energy -output -C:\powercheck.html

This will run a test for 60 seconds, when it has completed you can open C:\powercheck.html to see which devices are not entering suspend etc.

comtecho said:

Windows 7 includes a number of power saving features. Go to Start > Run > CMD
Type the following

powercfg -energy -output -C:\powercheck.html

This will run a test for 60 seconds, when it has completed you can open C:\powercheck.html to see which devices are not entering suspend etc.

I have it working now... Thanks.

For some reason the system was writing "keep alives" to my hard disk. If you read back a few posts you'll find the registry tweak I used to stop it.

The flashing drive led thing is about early SATA interfaces not managing the drive led properly... that I fixed simply by dimming the lamp.

It wasn't a device that was stuck... it was the system keeping the hard disk spun up for some reason that I don't fully understand... something to do with reliability testing.