Need advice concerning laptop as HTPC.

[Scotty99]

Hello there fellas, my mother just recently purchased a HDTV for herself and it made me wonder if she would prefer using her laptop to connect to that TV instead of using the laptops screen. Its not going to be an HTPC in the sense that she will stream netflix on it, but she would simply use the TV as a monitor, but i have a few questions!

I have figured out how to turn the laptops screen off and just use the HDMI output (f4 key).
I am planning on putting her laptop in the cabinet the TV resides on and she will do her email etc from the couch using a wireless keyboard that has a mousepad on it, but here are where my questions come in:

1. How should i set up the power management options? The laptop will be in an area where she will not be able to easily turn the PC on so i want to make it shut off everything when the touchpad is inactive (after a certain amount of time). Do i make it also turn off the hard drive after a certain period of time? I have heard that this is bad to use sleep and hibernate modes and just shut your PC down each night, but in this scenario that is not really going to be an option for her, id rather it just went to sleep and when she touches the mousepad on her keyboard it wakes up and she can log into windows.

I guess thats pretty much the only question i have, is how to set the power management options up proper for a laptop being used as an HTPC (but really, its just gonna be a web browser for her).

Any info from anyone who has gone about doing this would be appreciated!

 

[Scotty99]

I have been also browsing the internet for "turn on PC with remote" and stumbled across bios options that allows your computer to be shut down at night and then wake up with mere keyboard or mouse movement, is this correct at all?

Ideally id like for her to shut the PC down every night, but having to get up, move the laptop, open the screen, and hit the power button every day would be tedious!

 

[Scotty99]

After a bunch of reading i have decided to set the power button action as hibernate, this apparently fully shuts the PC down after writing the memory files to hard disk and still allows the PC to wake up with a mouse movement.

Someone correct me if im wrong, i cant check right now! (or, if there is still a better way to do this).

Thanks.

 

[jsrudd]

Yes, you can wake it with a mouse movement. It shouldn't require any special setting as its the default behavior.

 

[Scotty99]

Ok, i am still sort of confused on whether sleep or hibernate is better. She is using windows 7 on a new HP laptop. She is also going to forget (sometimes) to hit sleep (or hibernate, whichever you guys recommend) so is there a way for the PC to go to sleep after a set amount of time of no key presses/mouse movement?

 

[unksol]

it can be set to sleep or hibernate after a certain amount of time. hibernate takes forever to boot up but uses less power and protects data in the event of power loss, and sleep is instant boot up, but data can be lost if power goes out and uses a tiny bit of power.

I prefer sleep (or hybrid sleep) for an always plugged in system. all this can be set in the power options

 

[jsrudd]

Hibernate takes less power, take longer to wake from sleep, and will persist even if the power goes out (RAM is copied to Hard drive).

Sleep uses more power, but will wake faster from sleep. If the power goes out you lose your session though.

 

[rwpritchett]

Here's a very handy program that I use on my HTPC's to control when it goes to sleep and when it wakes up:

MCE Standby Tool