Overview
The Powerdown Screensaver performs the useful function of automatically turning off your PC at the end of the day should you inadvertently leave it on.
When you come back into work the next morning and power up your computer, your data is restored as you left it - so if you were in the middle of something, such as a word processing document, spreadsheet or email, you will not lose your work.
The screensaver also attempts to save you energy during the day, by including two new powersaving features. The first is called "Disk Spindown" mode, which will put your hard disk into standby mode when you are not loading or saving files for a while. The second is the "Monitor Standby" feature, which will turn your monitor to standby mode after a predefined time period of inactivity. So if you step out of the office for lunch, a meeting or even to make some coffee, your hard disk will go into standby mode and your monitor will turn off as they are not being used, thereby saving energy and money. Typically, savings of between 40 Watts (modern LCD screens + hard disk) and 100 Watts (older Cathode Ray monitors + hard disk) can be had when both of these functions are active.
In the evening, if you are working on your computer the system will not activate until you finish the work you are doing - thus not getting in your way during busy periods. The Powerdown Screensaver works either in a stand alone mode or can be linked up to Enistic Energy Manager for centralised control.
Benefits over and above functions built into Windows
Some of the functions that are bult into the Powerdown Screeensaver are also available from the Windows operating system. The benefits over and above standard Windows functions are:
• Allows the hibernate function to operate just overnight and at the weekends, not annoying restarting of your PC during the day
• Allows IT maintenance during the night but turning on your PC at 2AM and off again at 4AM (configurable)
• Makes tuning your hard disk and monitor energy saving functions easier to use
Benefits specifically for large companies:
• Return on investment in under 6 months
• One consistent interface to manage multiple XP Home, XP Pro, Vista and Windows 7 platforms
• Centrally manage your desktop IT estate from the Enistic Energy Manager and collect management information from your entire estate automatically
• Affordable and simple to deploy automatically across large number of PCs using network management systems
Features
• Turns off your PC overnight if you accidentally leave it on
• Saves your work to disk so you don't lose any data
• Define your own working hours for shutdown
• Does not shut the PC down until you finish working
• Saves energy during the day by slowing down your hard disk when not being used, and turns off your monitor at the same time
• Simple to install - just like any other Windows Screensaver
Specifications
Functions
• Installs as a standard Windows XP or Vista screensaver
• Save energy during the day with Disk Spindown and Monitor Switch-off mode
• Set your "working hours" in the screensaver preferences (eg. 9:00 -> 5:30)
• PC can hibernate or shutdown at end of day
• Hibernate setting saves all your data to disk before turning off the power. Your programs and data reloads this data when you next turn it on.
• A warning time of 90 seconds (configurable) is given before the system is shut down. Cancel this to disable the screensaver shutdown
• Use your own company logo for the screensaver image bounce around
• Compatible with Microsoft Group Policies and Microsoft SMS network manager
Minimum requirements
• Windows XP or Vista
• 1GHz processor or better
• 5Mbyte hard disk space
• 256M RAM
• This program uses Microsoft .NET v2 which is built into Vista. If you do not have it installed already the program will prompt you and initiate a free download of this from the Microsoft website.
• CD ROM for CD ROM based installation or a network for network based installations
Recommended additions to Powerdown Screensaver:
• Powerdown strip (when used in conjunction with the Powerdown Strip you get a very powerful, stand-alone system that is affordable and has a very short return on investment)
• The Enistic Energy Manager
