Jul 14, 2014

Save Power: Windows Scheduled Sleep and Scheduled Wake Up

I have got two laptops, and I plan their roles as: one in the office and the other at home, and I can remote desktop to each other using a great tool called TeamViewer. But here comes a problem that I don't want these two laptops to be always running because I think this would affect laptop's health and in another way this is not necessary during some time frame for example when I sleep this laptop should be turned off to save power.

Image result for HP Z15                                Image result for HP 8470p
HP ZBook 15  Workstation                  HP EliteBook 8470p

In short, I want to make the laptop to automatically sleep and automatically wake up at my configured time.

Part I: Scheduled Sleep
Solution: Windows Scheduled Task

1. Run taskschd.msc or click Scheduled Task in program files.

  • Give it a name for example 'Scheduled Sleep' here, 
  • Select Run whether user is logged on or not, so that when first time reboot it can still run
  • Check Run with highest privileges if you want


2. In Triggers tap, configured the schedule

  • Here I make it run daily


3. The action Tap, configure the command

  • Rundll32.exe Powrprof.dll, SetSuspendState Sleep


4. In conditions tab, configure it as run only is plugged with AC power

5. Last but not least, when you run it, it will popup a dialog and please type your NT password and save.



Part II: Scheduled Wake up
Scheduled wake up is very challenge. I have searched a lot of posts and tried to configure through scheduled task but it didn't work. Luckily I found a tool which is simpler but very useful.

This is a freeware, WakeUpOnStandBy which you can download from here http://www.dennisbabkin.com/wosb/

The configuration is very straightforward.

  • Configure the wake up time
  • Check Turn screen on
  • Select every day so that it will run every day
  • Click Start to make all the configuration take effect


The last step is that to make sure the wakeuponstandby application is running when you login windows by drag the shortcut of this application under Startup.


All set. Test Passed. Happy World!


If you find this blog is useful, please kindly click the ads on this page to help. Thank you very much.