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I just did a massive upgrade of my rig to Windows 7 Pro 64-bit w/ AMD 8-core processor. Previously, I was using Vista Home 64-bit. After being pleasantly surprised by how painless the install process was, I've just discovered my first huge gripe with this operating system.

Under Windows Vista 64, I would set my fractal rendering program to render a fractal and then go to bed. I had the OS configured to sleep after 2 hours of inactivity, and would let Fractal Extreme render until it finished. A few times, the fractal renders could take days and I would have to leave for university, but Vista sat patiently waited until the job was done, then it would sleep/hibernate the computer two hours after the fractal was finished. When I returned home, I would wake up the computer, and I was able to view the completed fractal.

Well, enter Windows 7. I swap out the motherboard/CPU combo, add a second hard drive, and put Windows 7 on it. I happened to be working on a render that would take an estimated 37 days to complete. It was 55% before I saved it and swapped motherboards. I installed Fractal Extreme on my new Windows 7 installation and get to work. The FX-8150's stock clock is 3.6Ghz, but each and every core has been fully tested by AMD to 4.2Ghz, so I go into BIOS and change the CPU ratio. Thermal design requirements be damned! :fiery: I resume the render job at 55% and go to bed. I wake up and couldn't hear the fans running, so I went to check on it, thinking the CPU may have glitched or reset. The system was out cold, so I hit the power switch and expected the worst. Up pops my Windows 7 logon screen, almost instantly.

Turns out, Windows was configured to sleep after 30 minutes, then it entered sleep mode, despite the Fractal Extreme application burning 100% CPU cycles on all 8 cores! Stupid Windows... You're not supposed to sleep when you've got a job to do! I did a quick Google search and discovered that many people had problems with Windows 7 going to sleep, with "disable power management" as the usual solution. XP and Vista did a decent job monitoring HDD activity and CPU usage, but it seems the only thing Windows 7 checks for is mouse/keyboard input. Grrr...

I'm seriously considering setting up a dual boot scenario and booting off my old Vista installation whenever I want to render fractals, if I can't find a way to make Windows 7 behave. I accidentally booted into Vista when I first attempted to install Windows 7, and I was quite surprised that Vista didn't seem throw up any activation warnings, though the display settings were effed up due to the lack of drivers.

If anyone has some tips on how to prevent Windows 7 from "sleeping on the job" without entirely disabling power management, please let me know, thanks...

i encountered the same probs ater upgrading from xp to 7pro 64. i formerly used a third party solution called "dshutdown" under xp, as it is much more flexible than windows on-board means. but it seems not to work under 7 either. with the hybrid sleep mode it is definitely incompatible and i was testing hibernation (hybrid mode turned off) a few days ago - without succsess.  :hmh:
normally i configure dshutdown to go to hibernation after cpu activity falls below 50% for ten minutes (on a six core amd). under win 7 still nothing happens though, after a rendering job is done.  :fiery:
but watching a task manager, showed me that win 7 produces cpu peaks almost every minute, even when the system is inactive. so the cpu never falls below 50% for ten minutes in a row. for now i guess it is the sidebar with its gadgets, that make windows producing that kind of "spikes", but i can't tell for sure.
so i'd be pleased too, if someone can tell me how to prevent cpu peaks or at least know an alternative to dshutdown, that works under win 7 properly.

I just did another Google search and fetched this from Microsoft's website:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744587(WS.10).aspx

Thanks a lot, Microsoft! :banginghead: I swear, every time Microsoft finally gets something right, they get ten other things wrong. Now more people will simply have no choice but to disable idle sleep mode and waste more electricity in the process, due to Microsoft's efforts at being "green". And it's not just people who do fractal rendering, ray-tracing, video encoding, etc who are affected. There's a billion reasons why someone would want to let their computer perform a task, then leave the PC unattended for long periods of time, and have it automatically shut down / sleep / hibernate when done. Not all software programs have an option to place the computer into a low-power state when finished with a task. And if you're running multiple jobs simultaneously, you wouldn't want that option checked, or only the fastest job would get finished. For the mean time, I have disabled sleep on idle.

Any links to freeware utilities to monitor user activity, CPU, and network usage, which can hibernate or sleep the PC, and are compatible with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, please feel free to post....

i found "Auto Shutdown Manager" on the net http://download.cnet.com/Auto-Shutdown-Manager/3000-2084_4-10717816.html (http://download.cnet.com/Auto-Shutdown-Manager/3000-2084_4-10717816.html) it works 45 days as unlimited full version and then mutates to a light edition.
didn't find the actual limitations of the light version, but read, that it provides enough functionality for most cases of use...  :hmh:
think i'll give it a try

<edit>
here the link to function matrix (german/enlish)
http://www.enviprot.de/en/auto-shutdown-manager-product-details/feature-matrix.html (http://www.enviprot.de/en/auto-shutdown-manager-product-details/feature-matrix.html)

seems that cpu utilisation is operational in light version

Auto Shutdown Manager just works fine on win 7. feels a bit like using a modern gaming pc, just to play pong, but it does, what it is expected to do - hibernate when rendering is done.

Does auto shutdown manager still work with basic functionality after the 45 day trial expires? Trial software has a tendency to do that. I remember back in the old days, I used to have to rewind my system clock to a set date to run certain trial apps, and it was annoying as heck.

Is there any settings or adjustments (registry edits, etc) I can make to make Windows 7 Power Management behave like Vista did and not sleep when the CPU is utilized? You'd think with as many useless options windows provides, that a simple check box to disable hybernate/sleep during periods of CPU or network utilization could be provided.

If I had a simple app that could just put the computer to hibernate or hybrid sleep mode after 30 minutes of  < 25% CPU activity and no mouse or keyboard input, that would be great. It would also offer some insurance against power going out after the render was complete (I still have to manually hit the save button in FX).

believing the website http://www.enviprot.de/en/auto-shutdown-manager-product-details/feature-matrix.html (http://www.enviprot.de/en/auto-shutdown-manager-product-details/feature-matrix.html) it does, but i can't promise, that it doesn't become some sort of "nagware" then (adverts all the way).

i do not really feel cofortable with this program. it's a mighty client / server solution, that is able to control an entire network - with dozens of options. (the package contains more than 15 megs!)

my task manager speaks annother language. the cpu load was completely below 1% even when avctivated. 3% when starting.

besides that i found two other tools, unforunately they are both in german (found no option for a language pack)

ShutItDown
http://shutdownmanager.co.de/ (http://shutdownmanager.co.de/)
and
TS-Shutdown-Manager Plus
http://www.tyrann-studios.de/ (http://www.tyrann-studios.de/)

both are freeware and executable like a portable app (from any directory)

a general hint: i found those german progs while searching big (german) download portals for auto shutdown manager. they were shown as progs that might interest me. maybe cnet or zdnet make similar suggestions in english...

good luck!  :beer:

I did some browsing on cNET I think I've found a freeware app called "AMP Winoff" that looks like it might be gold. I haven't thoroughly tested it yet, but the interface looks good. It minimizes to the taskbar as well so it gets out of your way. :dink:

http://www.ampsoft.net/utilities/WinOFF.php

The screenshot, I took from my WinXP laptop that I use for school. If the title bar at the top of the window looks funny, it's because I modded my XP install to allow unsigned themes.

Unfortunatly WinOFF does not work with Windows 7 x64 either.

According to what i read in the thread below, even though Windows 7 no longer actively monitors CPU usage (EPIC FAIL), there still seems to be a way to let windows know if the software is still active.

http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/185644-how-do-i-prevent-going-sleep-processes-active.html (http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/185644-how-do-i-prevent-going-sleep-processes-active.html)

fortunately others do!

Yes, Amp WinOff does work. I know because I have been using it on my Win7 Pro x64 PC. I set it to sleep after one minute once to test it and my computer went strait into hybrid sleep mode. Also, the memory thumbprint for this program is incredibly small (the installer is less than 1Mb), so it stays out of the way mostly. I'm using v5.0.1. I'm not saying you are wrong, but you might have been using an outdated version or something. It works on mine and I am happy with it.