The idea of ​​setting up a computer so that it automatically turns on at a given time comes to mind for many people. Some want to use their PC as an alarm clock, others need to start downloading torrents at the most advantageous time according to the tariff plan, others want to schedule the installation of updates, virus scanning or other similar tasks. How these desires can be realized will be discussed further.

There are several ways you can configure your computer to turn on automatically. This can be done using the tools available in the computer hardware, methods provided in the operating system, or special programs from third-party manufacturers. Let's look at these methods in more detail.

Method 1: BIOS and UEFI

Probably everyone who is at least a little familiar with the principles of computer operation has heard about the existence of BIOS (Basic Input-Output System). It is responsible for testing and regularly turning on all PC hardware components, and then transfers control of them to the operating system. The BIOS contains many different settings, including the ability to turn on the computer in automatic mode. Let’s make a reservation right away that this function is not present in all BIOS, but only in more or less modern versions of it.

To schedule your PC to start automatically via BIOS, you need to do the following:

Currently, the BIOS interface is considered outdated. In modern computers it has been replaced by UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). Its main purpose is the same as that of the BIOS, but the possibilities are much wider. It is much easier for the user to work with UEFI thanks to mouse support and Russian language in the interface.

Configuring your computer to turn on automatically using UEFI is as follows:

Setting automatic startup using BIOS or UEFI is the only way that allows you to perform this operation on a completely turned off computer. In all other cases, we are not talking about turning on, but about waking up the PC from hibernation or sleep mode.

It goes without saying that in order for auto-on to work, the computer's power cord must remain plugged into the outlet or UPS.

Method 2: Task Scheduler

You can also configure your computer to turn on automatically using Windows system tools. A task scheduler is used for this. Let's look at how this is done using Windows 7 as an example.

First, you need to allow the system to automatically turn on/off the computer. To do this, you need to open the section in the control panel "System and safety" and in the section "Power supply" follow the link "Setting sleep mode".


Then in the window that opens, follow the link "Change advanced power settings".


After that, find in the list of additional parameters "Dream" and there set the permission for wakeup timers to the state "Turn on".

Now you can configure a schedule for automatically turning on your computer. To do this you need to do the following:

1. Open your planner. The easiest way to do this is through the menu "Start", where there is a special field for searching for programs and files.
   
   Start typing the word “scheduler” in this field so that a link to open the utility appears in the top line.
   
   To open the scheduler, just left-click on it. It can also be launched via the menu “Start” - “Standard” - “Service”, or through the window “Run” (Win+R) by entering the taskschd.msc command there.
2. In the scheduler window, go to the section "Task Scheduler Library".
   
   
3. On the right side of the window, select "Create task".
   
   
4. Come up with a name and description for the new task, for example, “Turn on your computer automatically.” In the same window, you can configure the parameters with which the computer will wake up: the user under whom you will log in and the level of his rights. As a third step, be sure to specify the operating system to which the action of this task will be applied, in other words, the version of your Windows.
   
   
5. Go to the tab "Triggers" and click on the button "Create".
   
   
6. Set the frequency and time for the computer to automatically turn on, for example, every day at 7.30 am.
   
   
7. Go to the tab "Actions" and create a new action similar to the previous paragraph. Here you can configure what should happen when the task is completed. Let's make sure that some message is displayed on the screen.
   
   If desired, you can configure another action, for example, playing an audio file, launching a torrent or another program.
8. Go to the tab "Conditions" and check the checkbox "Wake up the computer to perform a task". Add other marks if necessary.
   
   
   This point is key when creating our task.
9. Complete the process by pressing the key "OK". If the general settings specified logging in as a specific user, the scheduler will ask you to specify his name and password.
   
   

This completes setting up the computer to automatically turn on using the scheduler. Evidence of the correctness of the actions taken will be the appearance of a new task in the scheduler task list.


The result of its execution will be to wake up the computer every day at 7.30 am and display the message “Good morning!” on the screen.

Method 3: Third Party Programs

You can also create a computer operating schedule using programs created by third-party developers. To some extent, they all duplicate the functions of the system task scheduler. Some have significantly reduced functionality in comparison with it, but compensate for this with ease of setup and a more convenient interface. However, there are not many software products that can wake a computer from sleep mode. Let's look at some of them in more detail.

A small free program with nothing superfluous. After installation, it minimizes to tray. By calling it from there, you can set up a schedule for turning on/off your computer.

Thus, turning on/off the computer will be scheduled regardless of the date.

Auto Power-on & Shut-down

Another program with which you can turn on your computer automatically. The program does not have a Russian-language interface by default, but you can find a localizer for it on the Internet. The program is paid, a 30-day trial version is offered for review.

WakeMeUp!

The interface of this program has functionality typical of all alarm clocks and reminders. The program is paid, the trial version is provided for 15 days. Its disadvantages include the long absence of updates. In Windows 7 it was possible to run it only in Windows 2000 compatibility mode with administrative rights.

This concludes our consideration of ways to automatically turn on a computer on a schedule. The information provided is sufficient to orient the reader to the possibilities for solving this problem. And which method to choose is up to him to decide.

Hello dear RuNet users, today we will talk to you about how to configure automatic shutdown of your computer. In this article I will tell you how to turn off your computer using standard Windows commands or using a special program.

Automatic shutdown of the computer is one of the useful functions for every user. There are many situations when it will definitely come in handy.

For example, you need to download a large file in the evening and you realize that it is already late and you want to sleep, but the file will download for a very long time. You will want to download something, but it’s not at all convenient to urgently leave for a couple of hours.

You can give many more examples when you need to turn off the computer after a certain period of time, but for some reason you will not be able to do this. That's what this function is for.

shutdown command

To launch the command line, press the key combination “Win” + “R”, enter “cmd” and click “OK”.

Or “Start - Accessories - Command Prompt”.

A command prompt window will open. To see what parameters there are for the “shutdown” command, enter “shutdown /?” and press “Enter”.

To work with this command we need to know 3 parameters:

• s– shutdown the computer;
• t– time after which the work will be completed;
• a– canceling system shutdown.

Please note that time is measured in seconds!

To turn off the computer after 1 hour, enter the command with the parameters “ shutdown -s -t 3600" and press "Enter". A window will appear in which you will see a countdown of the time when the computer will automatically turn off.

If you are a Windows 7 user, then no windows will appear. Windows will inform you through the system tray.

If you need to deactivate the time countdown, then just enter “shutdown –a” in the command line and press “Enter”. After pressing “Enter”, the “System Shutdown” window will close and the countdown for turning off the computer will be deactivated.

Program to automatically shut down your computer

There are many programs with different settings in order to automatically shut down the computer. But I will give an example of a program that will be intuitively understandable to the user.

This program is called OFFTimer, you can download it from the blog. It does not need to be installed; it works without installation.

In the right part of the window, select the time to turn off the computer and click on the “Enable timer” button. To ensure that the program does not disturb you, minimize it to tray by clicking on the “Collapse” button.

If you change your mind about automatically turning off the computer, then click on the “Enable timer” button again.

See you soon!

Jan 28

How to configure automatic shutdown of the computer on Windows 7?!

Hello, friends! After reading this article to the end, you will learn how to configure automatic computer shutdown, after a specified time. I think something has happened to everyone when they needed to leave their workplace, but some task was being performed on the computer. In this case, the computer had to be turned off after it was completed. It’s good if the program itself allows you to turn off the computer. Well, what if, for example, you are downloading a file, and you know how long it will take for the download to complete, but you urgently need to go somewhere? What can be done in this case? The answer is simple, you need to use the shutdown utility.

Setting up automatic computer shutdown

1) First, let's run it in command line mode to see all the functions of this utility. I will show using Windows 7 as an example, but don’t be alarmed, in XP the process is almost the same. Go to the menu "Start" --> "All programs" 2) Next, select "Standard" --> "Command Line" 3) The command line appears in front of us. Enter the command shutdown/? and press Enter. 4) Now we see all the parameters of this utility. But we don’t need all of them, but only 3, I highlighted them in the screenshot:

• /s – shutdown the computer;
• /t – time after which the work will be completed, in seconds ;
• /a – cancels system shutdown.

5) Therefore, in order for the computer to automatically shut down after an hour, you need to enter the command shutdown -s -t 3600.

If you want to cancel this process for some reason, then enter the command shutdown -a

Conclusion

Well, that’s basically all I wanted to tell you in this article. Now you know how to configure automatic shutdown of your computer running Windows 7. As you can see, this is not so difficult. In order not to forget the necessary commands, I advise you to add this page to your browser bookmarks (asterisk in url input line) Sincerely, Alexander Sidorenko!

There are many situations when you need to leave your computer unattended. For example, this may be the need to download a large file at night. At the same time, having completed what was planned, the system must shut down its work to avoid downtime. And here you can’t do without special tools that allow you to turn off your PC depending on the time. This article will discuss system methods, as well as third-party solutions for auto-shutdown of a PC.

You can set the auto-shutdown timer in Windows using external utilities, a system tool "Shutdown" And "Command line". There are now many programs that independently shut down the system. Basically, they perform only those actions for which they were invented. But some have even greater capabilities.

Method 1: PowerOff

Let's start getting acquainted with timers with a fairly functional program PowerOff, which, in addition to turning off the computer, can block it, put the system into sleep mode, reboot and force it to perform certain actions, including turning off the Internet connection and creating a restore point. The built-in scheduler allows you to create an event schedule for at least every day of the week for all computers connected to the network.

The program monitors the processor load - sets its minimum load and the time it is recorded, and also keeps statistics on work on the Internet. Conveniences available: diary and settings "hot keys". There is another option - managing the Winamp media player, which consists of shutting it down after playing a certain number of tracks or after the last one from the list. A dubious advantage at the moment, but at the time when the timer was created it was very useful. To activate the standard timer you must:

Method 2: Aitetyc Switch Off

To turn off the PC using a timer, the user has a choice. Standard OS tools make it easy to set the computer shutdown time. The functional continuity of different versions of Windows is also evident in relation to such tools. In the entire line of this OS, setting the timer parameters is approximately similar and differs only due to the features of the interface. However, such tools do not contain many useful functions, for example, setting a specific time to turn off the PC. Third-party solutions do not have such shortcomings. And if the user often has to resort to auto-completion, then it is recommended to use any of the third-party programs with advanced settings.

Users often encounter the auto-shutdown problem. It occurs when you need to download large files at night, when it is profitable to do this, since providers provide unlimited traffic at this time. If the download ends at three in the morning, then the computer is uselessly idle until the morning.

You may also need to turn off your computer when you are at work, for example at 11 pm or later. It may well be that you want to watch a movie in the evening, but it needs to be converted to another format. This task may take time. Then, before leaving for work, you launch the converter and a program that somehow instructs the computer to turn off after a certain time.

Some programs that run for a long time have a function to shut down the computer, but unfortunately, not all. Here we will look at how to solve this problem, first using the operating system itself. It's very simple.

How to set a sleep timer using Windows

Windows 10 has a shutdown utility that can be launched from the command line. This program is included in the system out of the box; you don’t need to search for or install it. You can use this method at any time if you have administrator rights, and for any home user this is always the case. The command itself in this case looks like this:

shutdown -s -t 3600

shutdown /s /t 3600

and means the computer turns off after an hour (the time is indicated in seconds. To make it clearer, let’s look at a practical example of shutting down using shutdown. You don’t have to rack your brains, it’s all very simple.

Let's say that in the evening you gave your computer the task of downloading large files. Knowing the size of the files and the speed of your network, you confidently expect that everything will be ready at three in the morning. Someone needs to turn off the computer. But at this time you will be sleeping and do not want to be disturbed. Then you need to do the following.

Look at the clock:

Since the shutdown utility requires time in seconds, there is a slight inconvenience. We need to solve a small arithmetic problem. It's a quarter past ten, or twenty-two fifteen in military style. It's four full hours and another forty-five minutes until three o'clock in the morning. You need to calculate the number of minutes and convert it to seconds:

We set the shutdown after the calculated number of seconds. To do this, in the Start menu, find the command processor cmd.exe and run this program. A command line window will appear and we are ready to start the timer. Let's enter the command name and specify the keys. The /s switch (or -s as in Unix) tells the computer to shut down. If you want to put it into hibernation mode while saving the session, then just use h (from the word hibernate) instead of s.

The /t (time) switch indicates the delay time, in our case it is 17100 seconds. If we hesitate a little, the computer will turn off a little later, but this does not matter in this case.

It must be said that the same thing could be done using the Windows Task Scheduler by adding a new task to its schedule. But this way is unlikely to be better, even if it saves us from counting time. You will have to click the mouse several times more, and in the end, everything will come down to calling the same shutdown -s, only without specifying the time (it is already known to the scheduler).

Another way to solve the problem on the command line:

at 3:00 shutdown -s

The task will appear in the scheduler. What could be simpler? Unfortunately, the at command is not considered safe because it can be used to schedule unexpected actions. But a home user has nothing to worry about if his system is protected by a firewall and antivirus software.

How to disable auto shutdown

If for some reason you decide to do without auto shutdown, then this is also very easy to do. We cancel the existing task with the command:

shutdown -a

shutdown/a

We proceed similarly to the previous section, launch cmd.exe and issue the appropriate command in its window. The task is canceled and the computer will not turn off, but will continue to work as if nothing had happened.

Review of programs for auto-shutdown of the computer

Surprisingly, many users still have some kind of superstitious fear of the command line. For them, software developers create windowed applications that do the same thing, but from a graphical interface. Such utilities can also have a number of conveniences, for example, not just setting the number of seconds, but indicating the time, which, of course, is noticeably more convenient for users.

Ultimately, they also need to be configured to turn off the PC in the desired manner and at the right time. The PowerOff program is quite popular, but not among those who like simplicity. This program has many functions, but also a rather confusing interface with seven tabs.

If your task is only to turn off the computer at a given time, then you can easily do this using uSleepTimer. This very simple program requires you to specify the time AFTER which you need to turn off the computer. Another inconvenience.

The OffTimer program is very simple and requires you to specify the time at which the computer should be turned off. It is very comfortable. Unfortunately, it shuts down the machine without saving application data. But it is better for the user to decide for himself. If he is confident that his task will be solved by the specified time, then he can be calm.

The SM Timer utility does the same as the previous one, but allows you to choose between IN and THROUGH. The time can be set using the sliders or by clicking on the “up” or “down” buttons. This and the two previous utilities do not require installation due to their simplicity. There are a lot of similar programs on the Internet. They help users who want to use computers but are not at all interested in them and want to get solutions to their problems in the simplest ways.