GA-E7AUM-DS2H USB power stays on during sleep

[spritemv]

I recently built a HTPC and found that it gets very hot when crammed into its cubby in my TV stand. I decided to install a few USB-powered cabinet fans to move air through the TV stand and they work great. I figured USB-powered fans would be great since they should turn off when I put the computer into sleep mode. However, unlike my other two computers, my HTPC seems to power the USB ports even in sleep mode so the fans run nonstop.

The HTPC contains a Gigabye GA-e7AUM-DS2H mobo. I want the fans to turn off when I put my computer into sleep mode, but I still want to be able to wake the computer using my USB IR remote. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[masterjaw]

Unplug the fans to the USB port? or if it has a switch, turn it off?

Devices connected via USB ports are still powered up even in sleep mode.

 

[spritemv]

The fans are plugged into the rear USB ports so I would have to pull the HTPC all the way out of the cabinet to unplug them. They do not have off switches.

Neither my desktop (which has an ASUS P5Q mobo) nor my older Dell 8500 laptop power their USB ports during sleep. I was surprised that this Gigabyte board does...

 

[bilbat]

I'm not sure I can completely 'turn the key' here, but I think I can pick a couple tumblers for 'ya...

Go into Device Manager, open the USB controllers item, and, toward the bottom, double-click on the Root Hubs, one by one. Clicking on the Power tab will help ID who's plugged in where (some bogus hardware won't give you a lot to go on, but some will be unmistakeable), and you can use this to figure out which numbered hub corresponds to which MOBO connector:

Then, clicking on the Power Management tab:

will allow you to set the individual power characteristics for the pair. You may need to re-shuffle your connections a bit to get them grouped correctly, and set both the BIOS and system power management options to support these selections, but I think you'll be able to figure it out from there...

Good luck - let me know how it turns out, I have a couple HTPCs 'on the docket' myself...

Bill

 

[jsc]

Thanks Bill.

I always thought the USB ports were powered from the always on standby power supply, so I never bothered to poke around and look for a way to turn them off.

 

[masterjaw]

Wow, so that's possible. Never thought about that. Kudos!

 

[spritemv]

Thanks for the advice! I tried enabling "allow the computer to turn off the device to save power" for all my USB root hubs, but this didn't do the trick. My HTPC remote was also still able to wake the PC from sleep despite the fact that the IR receiver connects via one of these USB hubs. This means that this did not cut the power to any of the USB hubs.

I then tried delving into the Vista Power Options. The only one that seemed somewhat applicable was to enable "USB selective suspend setting." This didn't help either.

I browsed through the BIOS and didn't see anything too promising. It is possible that I overlooked something although I looked over all the options twice.

Am I missing something?

 

[bilbat]

lemme dig around a bit more - my main disability here is that I don't 'sleep' machines yet (I want my dev system 'balls to the wall', and when I'm not using it, I turn it off), so haven't actually experimented with this stuff - but I need to, as I mentioned, cobble together some HTPCs; pretty much, I'm waiting on these people:
http://www.cetoncorp.com/ProductsWMC.php
to 'get their act together'!

 

[spritemv]

If I purchased a PCI to USB expansion card, would this lose power during sleep mode as I'd like it to?

 

[spritemv]

I emailed Gigabyte tech support and they replied stating that the USB ports on the board can't be disabled during sleep.

However, the PCI to USB expansion card solved my problem. The two ports on it turn off during sleep and shutdown.

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[bilbat]

Thanks for reporting back! Few people do, which kind of 'disconnects' the feedback loop that helps this whole thing (the boards) work for everyone...