When my SPV is off, is it really off??

[Guest weejinky]

I was wondering if someone could answer me a question. If I switch my phone (SPV) off does it really go off? Now this may sound like a daft question, but when I switch my PC off the damm thing still sucks power for the motherboard. Now with crappy battery lifetimes on the SPV am I really saving the battery by switching it off. I do realise that the power levels used would be less but are they zero??

[Guest midnight]

your pc still uses power after you switch it off????

anyhoo, no, the spv does not use any power after it has been switched off, i know this cosi had the low battery warning when i was away for a few days, switched the phone off, two days later turned it back on and still got the low battery warning, but managed to last a few hours still.

[Guest weejinky]

Ok, cool.

If you have a newish PC it will still be using power after you switch it off. Well as long as you leave it plugged in and the mains switch is left on. The reason I know is one of the computers in my lab is switched off at night and when the thing is still plugged in the LAN lights on the back of it flash, but when the plug is removed the lights stop. I have to admit that I dont like see the wee LAN lights flashing like that.

[Guest Hax]

This is probably a motherboard that supports the wake-on-lan functionality which allows a pc to be "woken" up by certain lan activity (I believe) thereby meaning that this part of the circuitry needs to be powered

Hax

[Guest benjymous]

No, it's the way all modern ATX motherboards work.

The power switch on the front isn't a physical power switch, it just sends a "turn on" signal to the motherboard

The real power switch, that totally turns it off is the rocker switch at the back on the PSU

[Guest ajb3000]

Yup, my mouse light even stays on when the PC is switched of!

One question midnight, is what you said actually true? When my SPV gives the low battery warning and I turn it off, I can't turn it on again until I plug it in, even if it has power left!

[Guest benjymous]

I think stuff like that depends on the state of the battery (i.e. how flat it really is)

It's normal in all kinds of batteries for them to be able to "recover" slightly and work again for a bit longer if you leave them unused for a while

[Guest Coolboy1982]

the spv must use some minimal amount of power even when

switched off for the clock, but that is unlikely to run your battery

flat even in weeks, especially as some sort of reserve power for this is

probably saved through a transistor or small battery inside!

[Guest Hax]

I *think* that the power supply does go off on some atx motherboards - I assume that there is a relay switch used for supplying power to the boards and that this is normally "held on" by the m/b chipset when alive and released to turn the PC off. Certainly, my m/b makes a fiarly loud sort of clunking sound when the power goes off which I assumed to be a relay going off!

As for your mouse glowing, it's also possible to configure (some) pc's to wake up on a keypress which would require powering the ps2 circuitry to the keyboard (and therefore probably the ps2 mouse too!)

I'm not saying that I'm right, but from the noises my pc makes, it certainly does sound like there is a relay in there somewhere - oh and I don't have a "switch" on the back of the power supply

Hax

[Guest fraser]

If the PC is newish, then it will be drawing power even when off. The power switch under APM is now a low voltage circuit that can also be controlled via software, e.g. when you shut Windows/Linux down, the PC powers off.

For this to power the PC back on again, there must be some power being drawn from the supply to run this low voltage circuit and detect the user pushing the button. So it will be using some. How much depends on the design of the motherboard.

The same applies to the SPV and any other device that doesn't have an old-skool power "clicky" switch that runs on the source voltage. Much like putting your TV on standby.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Coolboy: from the pictures of the SPV/Tanager insides it seems to have an on-board battery (like the CMOS battery on a normal motherboard).

As for ATX power supplies, the motherboard controls the relay in the PSU for powering on and off (hence the fact it still needs some current running through it), and i would assume "off" is a low power state. If you take a look at an old AT PSU there is a second lead coming from it that goes straight to the switch on the front of the case, whereas modern ATX PSU plug directly into the motherboard. ATX is nice as it allows for "soft touch" power buttons which an operating system can interpret to do clever things, in Windows case Shutdown/Reboot/Hibernate/Standby etc.

It isnt drawing masses of power and for all purposes it is "off". The memory is purged, harddrives and expension cards are deactived and powered down The small current simpley allows features such as WOL/WOM/WOK to work.

#Hope that makes sense :lol:

[Guest Dave.Burn]

also gives the cool function (on some boards) to turn the pc off by pressing a button on the keyboard, and on again by typing a password.

[Guest midnight]

yup, the spv has an internal battery, hence the reason it doesnt reset the clock after you take the battery off the back

[Guest Dave.Burn]

bet the alarm function doesn't work like my old nokia, never mind much better phone.

[Guest vadonald]

Previous phones (Nokia and Sony) had alarms on clock which would work even if phone was switched off. They simply alarmed, then gave option to power up the phone, just tried this with the SPV and it doesn't appear to do the same. However, as with modern PC's the circuit to turn the phone on may draw some current albeit very little. My old Sony (now used as a PAYG) showed no drop in battery storage even after being on shelf for 4-5 weeks.

With regard to PC power being on even when switched off, I can charge my SPV via the USB when the PC is off but with mains still applied.

Vince