Power Management Software Recommendations?

[RobStA]

Hi all,

 

Can anyone recommend a good bit of software for Power Management across a network?

 

We are currently trialling Impero but it is a bit buggy and doesn't give quite as much control as we'd like (e.g. Shutdown this PC unless someone is logged on) without a lot of workarounds. I've also looked at SpiceWorks but this has even less control (not that it's bad for a free bit of software!)

 

Any advise on what other people use and what your experience is would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks

[gshaw]

We're going for PowerMAN from Data Synergy - easily configurable via GPO with good reporting. Tech support during our trial was excellent as well

 

PowerMAN PC Power Management Software

 

The idle shutdown at logon screen should pay for the software on its own

[russdev]

Hi all,

 

Can anyone recommend a good bit of software for Power Management across a network?

 

We are currently trialling Impero but it is a bit buggy and doesn't give quite as much control as we'd like (e.g. Shutdown this PC unless someone is logged on) without a lot of workarounds. I've also looked at SpiceWorks but this has even less control (not that it's bad for a free bit of software!)

 

Any advise on what other people use and what your experience is would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks

 

 

If want to shut-down machines with no one logged in just create a group using the no user logged in membership critera. Then have a group with all machines not logged in and set schedule against that machine.

 

Russell

[Mbax]

If want to shut-down machines with no one logged in just create a group using the no user logged in membership critera. Then have a group with all machines not logged in and set schedule against that machine.

 

Russell

 

This is what was suggested to me by their support however it does not entirely work (on V4.0.3). This is because you must specify "Shutdown idle users after X minutes". For some reason, the schedule does not function with shutting down idle computers with no users logged on very well.

 

With a 'Shutdown idle users after 5 minutes' management policy set, and the schedule set to 'Set All', it will shut down an idle computer after 5 minutes, but if there is a user logged on and conducting their work for < 5 minutes and they 'log off', the machine will immediately shut down.

 

With the same management policy set, if the schedule is set to a certain time (for us, it was 4:30, Mon-Fri), it would not shut down idle computers at all. It's as if the policy cannot cooperate with the configuration of a shutting down an 'idle user' on what is actually an 'idle computer' and therefore the schedule does not apply accordingly.

 

Apologies if my post appears convoluted, I struggled to word this as it's a peculiar issue. It makes sense in the brainbox!

[russdev]

No that is useful info will get one of my team to have look at it.

[Mbax]

Glad I could help Russ! Thanks for taking a look.

[Edu-IT]

This is what was suggested to me by their support however it does not entirely work (on V4.0.3). This is because you must specify "Shutdown idle users after X minutes". For some reason, the schedule does not function with shutting down idle computers with no users logged on very well.

 

With a 'Shutdown idle users after 5 minutes' management policy set, and the schedule set to 'Set All', it will shut down an idle computer after 5 minutes, but if there is a user logged on and conducting their work for < 5 minutes and they 'log off', the machine will immediately shut down.

 

With the same management policy set, if the schedule is set to a certain time (for us, it was 4:30, Mon-Fri), it would not shut down idle computers at all. It's as if the policy cannot cooperate with the configuration of a shutting down an 'idle user' on what is actually an 'idle computer' and therefore the schedule does not apply accordingly.

 

Apologies if my post appears convoluted, I struggled to word this as it's a peculiar issue. It makes sense in the brainbox!

 

Not sure I follow. Are you saying if you shut down idle computers in a policy, the scheduled shutdown doesn't work?

[howartp]

With the same management policy set, if the schedule is set to a certain time (for us, it was 4:30, Mon-Fri), it would not shut down idle computers at all. It's as if the policy cannot cooperate with the configuration of a shutting down an 'idle user' on what is actually an 'idle computer' and therefore the schedule does not apply accordingly.

We don't use this option for shutting down PCs (we use PSShutdown on a schedule at the moment) but I just want to check you are understanding the schedule correctly.

 

If you have just ticked 16:30 in the schedule, then this is the only timeslot the schedule will be active for - which if you've fine-tuned it will be a 5 minute timeslot. It isn't a scheduled task which occurs once at 16:30.

 

I suspect you don't have your PCs set to shutdown after 5 minutes idle time? I'll assume for the purposes of this post that you have them set to 10 minutes.

 

Therefore between 16:30 and 16:35, you're policy is saying 'if anything has been inactive for more than 10 minutes, shut it down'. But as the inactivity timer only starts running at 16:30, it is impossible for anything to have been idle for 10 minutes by the time you get to 16:35. The schedule then switches off at 16:35 and nothing has happened.

 

You would need to have your schedule active from 16:30 to at least 16:40, but more likely 07:00 or some suitable time in the morning; then any PC which has been idle for 10 minutes at any stage overnight will shutdown.

 

Is this how you've understood it?

 

Peter

Edited June 20, 2014 by howartp

[dpskinner]

We've had the same issue.

 

If we schedule the power options within Impero to be active from 4:00pm - 6:00am and ask Impero to shutdown the machines after 5 minutes of inactivity, we get the following conditions: If a machine is not in use at the point the schedule is active the machine will shutdown after 5 minutes, as expected. If a user is logged in to OR if a user logs in during that 5 minute 'idle' period the machine will immediately shutdown when they log off instead of waiting for another 5 minutes of inactivity.

[Mbax]

I am in the same boat as dpskinner. My apologies for poorly explaining it before.