Free Download SmartPower v 1.3

SmartPower 1.3 || File Size : 256.00 KB.

SmartPower is a Windows application that saves energy (and money) by hibernating and resuming your PC according to configurable rules.

SmartPower is particularly suited to servers, torrent/download boxes, home theatre PCs and office PCs.

How does it work?

SmartPower's "goal" is to hibernate (or suspend, or shutdown) your PC. The SmartPower configuration utility lets you create rules that prevent this happening. When SmartPower sees that no rules currently apply it will initiate hibernate (or suspend, or shutdown). The potential rules are:

One or more schedules are active – A schedule is a period of time during which the PC must stay on. By defaultSmartPower will wake-up your PC in order to honour a schedule.
There has been recent user activity – User activity means that one or more users have been using the mouse or keyboard.
One or more devices are online – A device is anything on your network that will respond to a ping.
Network traffic on one or more network interfaces is above a configurable threshold.
CPU usage is above a configurable threshold.
One or more processes are running - A process is a Windows process.

How do I install it?

Download the zipped installer using the link at the top of this page.
Open the zip file and run the installer.
When the installer has finished, click Start, click Programs, click SmartPower, click SmartPower Configuration.
Configure SmartPower as required and click Save. You changes will take effect immediately.
Disable hibernate/suspend on system idle in your power saving settings. SmartPower cannot (currently) wake-up your PC if Windows has hibernated/suspended it.

N.B. The default configuration includes a 24/7 schedule. This effectively disables SmartPower until you have a chance to choose your own settings.

How do I upgrade to the latest version?

Download the zipped installer using the link at the top of this page.
Stop the SmartPower service using the Services MMC snap-in, or by typing net stop smartpower in a command prompt.
Open the zip file and run the installer.

In the unlikely event that the installer displays the following error: "The specified service already exists" – uninstall the previous version of SmartPower, then run the new installer. You can uninstall/reinstall SmartPower without losing your settings.

Example usage

Here's how I use SmartPower on my Windows Home Server:

I have a single schedule that applies to every day of the week and runs from 10am to midnight. That means that my WHS turns on at 10am every day and is guaranteed to be on until midnight.
I list 3 other PCs on my network as devices. That means that my WHS will never turn off if 1 or more of those PCs are turned on (even if it's past midnight).
I have network traffic monitoring enabled and the threshold set to 15KB/sec. That means that if my WHS is busy downloading something after midnight it won't turn off until the download has finished.

Troubleshooting

Here are some common problems and how to solve them:

My PC doesn't wake-up.

Reliable hibernate/suspend and wake-up is dependent on various Windows settings as well as the presence of a compatible motherboard. Most modern computers running Windows 7/Vista will support SmartPower by default. However, if you are having problems you can try the following:

Check that the SmartPower service is running and that its startup type is set to "Automatic".
Check that SmartPower is enabled. Open the configuration utility and look at the checkbox at the bottom left of the UI.
Check that your schedule has "wake-up" enabled. Open the configuration utility and view the schedule properties on the schedules tab.
Check that your target power state is not set to Shutdown. SmartPower cannot wake-up a PC that has been shutdown.
Windows 7/Vista only - Check that Allow wake timers is set to Enable. Click the Start button and type "power saving settings", click Change power-saving settings, click Change plan settings against the currently selected plan, click Change advanced power settings, expand Sleep, expand Allow wake timers, ensure that the setting is set to Enable.
Check that your Windows power saving settings do not hibernate/suspend your PC when it's idle. SmartPower will not (currently) wake-up a PC that has been hibernated/suspended by Windows.

When I run the SmartPower configuration utility I see a message that says "SmartPower could not load the list of network interfaces" – what's going on?

SmartPower uses a feature of Windows called "Performance Counters" to measure network and CPU activity. Occasionally the Performance Counters become corrupted and need to be rebuilt. (The corruption is not caused by SmartPower). SmartPower cannot operate while the Performance Counters are corrupt.

To rebuild the Performance Counters please follow these steps:

Open a command prompt window.
Type c:\windows\system32\lodctr /R
Press Enter.

You can find more information about this issue in this Microsoft Support article: How to manually rebuild Performance Counter Library values.

When I run the SmartPower configuration utility it always crashes and I see the following text in the exception details: "System.FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format. "

This is caused by the Performance Counter issue described above. In later versions of SmartPower (1.2.4 onwards) this error is handled properly.

I don't have Hibernate or Suspend in my list of target power states.

SmartPower only shows the power states that are supported by your operating system. If Hibernate or Suspend are not visible then you will need to enable those power states. For help with hibernation try this Microsoft Support article: How to disable and re-enable hibernation.

SmartPower used to work but now it doesn't do anything. My PC never turns off.

SmartPower may be in fail-safe mode. Fail-safe mode is activated if you disable a power state that SmartPower is using (ie. you disable hibernation but the SmartPower target power state is set to Hibernate), or you change your network hardware. You will need to reconfigure SmartPower with the SmartPower configuration utility.

Network throughput monitoring isn't working. My PC turns off even though the network adaptor is in use.

Check that the correct network adaptor is selected in the SmartPower configuration utility. Most PCs have 3 or 4 adaptors listed, however only 1 of these will represent the PC's physical network card.

Change history

1.2.5 to 1.3.0

Added "user activity" feature.
Various UI enhancements in configuration utility.

1.2.4 to 1.2.5

Fixed UI bug related to new network interface list.
Removed "isatap" and "Teredo" psuedo-interfaces from network interface list.

1.2.3 to 1.2.4

Add support for multiple network interfaces.
Improved handling of corrupt Performance Counters.

1.2.2 to 1.2.3

Updated EULA.

1.1.2 to 1.2.2

Fixed bug where SmartPower could not shutdown some computers.
Fixed bug where SmartPower would not wake computer if there was only 1 schedule that contained only 1 day.
Fixed rare bug where SmartPower service would error as Windows was starting up. This could cause network adapters to take longer to initialise.
Added licensing tab.

1.0.1 to 1.1.2

Added "Run after resume" option to Advanced settings.
Added additional support for 3rd party applications that modify the SmartPower configuration file.
UI spelling fixes.

1.0.0 to 1.0.1

Minimum grace time is now 3 minutes, to help prevent endless reboots. Default grace time of 5 minutes for new installs.
Event log entries use different event ids depending on the event type.
Optional automatic reloading of settings now available.
Minor UI and usability enhancements.