Phil Gilmer wrote:


Phil Gilmer wrote:


I have a Dell GX-280 that my daughter uses for a video server. It
connects to my LAN via Netgear wireless NIC. She accesses it from
anywhere in the house and sometimes has to transfer very large files
back and forth from her laptop. GX-280 goes into sllep/hybernate mode
regardless of Windows XP SP3 power settings. Power management cannot
be disabled in the BIOS (A08, the latest)--you have only the choice
between S1 and S3. This is a problem with Dell machines in general--I
have seen many models of the Optiplex systems with the issue. We can
force the machine to remain active by playing an mpeg file in an
endless loop, but despite the nominal 2.8 gHz rating the machine is
pokey as crap and I hate wasting the CPU (yes, the machine is scanned
and is malware free--it's just a dog).

Has anyone ever found a way to actually disable power management?

Thanks,
Phil Gilmer

Thanks for all the responses. I will respond to the questions asked.

The power scheme selected is "Always On". I read a suggestion that the
powersave GUI might be at fault. I have modified power options from the
CLI with no difference.

There are no Dell Quickset programs loaded, nor am I using any
"auxiliary" programs, e.g. mouse enhancement programs.

The user is authorized to make the change.

It makes no difference whether any user (authorized or not) is logged in
or not.

I have seen this behavior with Windows XP loaded on Dell GX150, GX240,
GX270, GX260. and GX270 machines. The GX150 A01 BIOS allowed you to
disable power management altogether, which would eliminate the problem,
but subsequent versions of the BIOS allowed only the S1/S3 selection.

There is one other interesting item. This model has accepts USB keyboard
and mouse only--no PS/2 ports at all. When the system emerges from sleep
mode after pressing the on switch, it will not respond to the keyboard
when you try to enter your password. It _will_ respond to a double
Ctl-Alt-Del and pop up the traditional login, when you can then type in
login ID and password. I have only seen one other machine do this.

I don't and never did think that this might be a hardware problem. It
has, however, been reported by many users at the site where I originally
encountered the problem. The problem was reported to Dell at the time,
who was unable to resolve the problem.

Again, thanks for the input.

I thought I would follow-up on this and let everyone know what I have
uncovered in testing.

The simple solution to the problem is for the user to change the power
setting to "Always On" and to turn off the screen saver. This works for
a couple of reasons. Firstly, _any_ user can change power settings (or
at least "Power Users" can, which is what I have set up), not just
administrative users, and those settings go into effect when that user
logs in. Secondly, disabling screen saver insures that the user logged
in remains in control. More below.

I did not want the monitor on all the time, nor did I want the machine
to sit unlocked for extended periods of time, so I configured it to turn
on the screen saver _and_ to require the user to enter the password on
resume. This latter fact was actually the real problem.

The system would have remained on if the screen-save had been activated
without having the user reenter a password. However, requiring a
password caused the Administrator account to assume control of the
system and so the system used its settings and put the machine to sleep.
Logging in to the Administrator account and chaning its power setting to
"Always On" solved the problem.

Thanks to all of you who responded. It's nice to have this one out of
the way.
--
Regards,
Phil Gilmer