PowerEdge T30 enable sleep mode

Hi,

Please send a private message with your service tag to ensure we have all appropriate information on your system.

 Thank you,

Thank you for the service tag.

Here is an article on setting up sleep mode in Windows 10. 

https://support.microsoft.com/help/13770/windows-shut-down-sleep-hibernate-your-pc

Let me know how it goes.

There is no option to Sleep. I believe the OS relies on BIOS/hardware to make Sleep available.

Hi,

Windows 10 is an unsupported OS on the T30 and it appears we may be getting some unexpected results. By nature, sleep mode on a server isn't intended to be used. 

Check in the BIOS and make sure C states are enabled.  

C-States Control       Allows you to enable or disable the additional processor sleep states. By default, C-States                                       Control is set to C states.

Page 30 http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-t30_owner's%20manual_en-us.pdf

I'm in the same situation with Debian Stretch....both hibernate and suspend-hybrid pop back on after a few seconds, and trying to just suspend it via command line has no effect at all. C-states are enabled, latest bios.

"I hope to presume that since your reply of 2/28/18 there have been massive changes to the architecture and BIOS of this machine that would nullify your response?"

I don't think that is a reasonable presumption. Even if Dell can be convinced to customize a factory configuration for end-user deployment to include a generally unsupported and unintended OS, I'd be surprised if part of the agreement includes a lack of support for part or all of its configuration. I don't think sleep mode will ever be a design consideration for a server, be it an ultra-low-end server (like the T30) or the highest-end server. Maybe a machine would have that included - quite incidentally included in the chipset/board purchased for the model - but it is not something that would ever be planned for integration for a server model, and it definitely would not be a feature (designed and rigorously tested) added via BIOS update.

I'm curious:

Why Windows 10?

Why is "sleep" needed?

I know the last post is a year old, but just in case anyone is still following....

Why Windows 10: I own a PowerEdge T30 as well. I had been using Windows Home Server 2011 and wanted to upgrade since support for Server 2008 (upon which WHS 2011 was based) has ended. I need a low cost OS to facilitate file sharing, backups, and in-home streaming.Windows Server Essentials 2016 and 2019 are WAY out of my price range and are built to do lots of things I don't want or need. For better or worse, I don't want to deal with the Linux learning curve. So Windows 10 Pro is the best fit. There are numerous articles and books available that explain building a simple server using Windows 10 Pro, so it must be relatively popular.

Why sleep: It's a home server for crying out loud. I don't want or need it to run 24/7; mostly just evenings and weekends (although with COVID I'm working from home for the time being). I use a combo of wake timers and software that uses WOL to do backups etc. I'm REALLY disappointed designers assume a very narrowly defined use for the equipment, especially given what I learned below. 

Solution: Anyway, I never found a solution for my T30 machine as-is. I tried installing an old BIOS but no joy. Windows 10 still did not display a sleep option. After searching around, I learned the Dell Precision 3620 motherboard is identical to the PowerEdge T30 motherboard, has wider CPU support, wider SSD support, AND sleep is enabled. So I bought a used one off ebay, switched my memory, CPU, and drives to the 3620 and "Presto," after the BIOS registered the CPU change it booted right up into Windows 10 Pro (that I had previously loaded onto a SSD with the T30 motherboard) with no authentication issue. Now the sleep option is present and after a few days I have no driver or other issues that I can detect. Since it's identical, it fits the T30 case perfectly with all the same connections for the front panel, etc. Anybody looking for a used T30 motherboard????

Comment: I'm disappointed with Dell for purposely downgrading hardware capability based on what "they" think the customer wants or needs. Why not let the customer decide which hardware features to use and which to turn off? I'll be very wary of that when I go to upgrade my hardware some day.

I'm also very disappointed that my T140 can't use sleep mode, reading that this used to be part of BIOS is very frustrating, for home use I fully intended to setup WOL and timeout sleep capabilities. I'd like to ask that Dell consider re-adding this to a future BIOS build

Hello,

Unfortunately, there is no sleep mode suitable for the intended use of devices at the server operating system level and enterprise server products. It is one of the differences between consumer products.

Im bit sad of this, but its easy to understand.

but! im sure there is some other options that I dont know and its not mentioned here? (not just sleep)

I was planning to build rendering farm with old r620 and r610 machines and idea was just make them sleep if cpu usage is <10% and then some 'wake on lan' if rendering starts.

How this kind of behavior is done in big server companies, I assume* they don't keep all machines running 24/7 and waiting for if someone wants to buy some CPU time and then just restarting machines and waiting 5-10 min for it to boot? ( or are they?)

Hi,

you could check out our Precision(client product) rack workstations maybe they fit better for you.

Did you have any other questions?

Regards Martin

@dhochmuth​ Thanks for the post.  Just what I needed!