phreak0ut
The Thread Killer >:)
[I have edited this tutorial so that people who are not comfortable with rasdial can do try this method, but ultimately its doing the same job.]
Hi guys,
how many times have you wondered, "Why am I getting up so early???" "Aren't there any methods to start my downloads automatically at a specified time and stop it?????" I'll tell you, YES, THERE ARE METHODS TO START YOUR DOWNLOADS AT THE SPECIFIED TIME!!!!!!!!! Well by now, many of you who know how to schedule tasks would have started to yawn and would have started to curse me in their sleepy mood. WAIT!!!!!! Most of you know how to schedule tasks with the help of task managers. But there is a slight problem with task managers. They run only when your system is switched on and up and running. So, to kick start your system, you wake up with dark circles under your eyes and grope around for that power button and then probably if your task scheduler is scheduled right, it will start off with its work and then you hit the bed.
So guys, I'm offering a very nice solution to avoid all this. I mean to say, you dont even have to wake up to switch on your computer. Your mean machine wakes up from its slumber to do YOUR job and goes to sleep when YOU tell it to. So, now you feeling more like a master rather than ITS slave?? Thats the thing which all of us are looking out for.
But before I can start off with the tutorial, I need to tell you guys the bad news first. This method does not work for all the computers. Sorry to say this, but its really not under my control. You will soon find out why you should not be cursing me so early, but your antique machine(if it is). So, take a deep breath, have a cup of coffee handy and read on.
Here are the steps to make your sleep more peaceful and last much longer!
First make sure you know how to use task scheduler. If not, I suggest that you learn now. There are numerous third-party task schedulers, but I am comfortable using the task scheduler in Windows XP Professional. I'll give a small tutorial on this for those n00bs as to how to use the Windows task scheduler before I move on to the main topic.
How to schedule tasks with Windows Task Scheduler:
Go to Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Scheduled Tasks. Once the task scheduler starts, click on Add Scheduled Tasks. Click on Next. In the next screen, you will be shown with a huge of list of programs installed on your computer. Choose the one you want to start at a specified time. If it is not listed, click on the Browse button and then choose the file you want to schedule. In the next window, you will be asked when the task should start. Select as needed. Follow the on screen instructions and you are done(that was the last step anyway).
The first thing to make sure before you the above small tutorial is, to check which BIOS you have and if it is the latest version AND even though if your BIOS is the latest, is your motherboard capable of doing the task, which we will be learning. The 3 BIOSes which I will be talking about are Award, AMI and Phoenix. So, if you have just realised that your motherboard is old and/or your BIOS, then it is better to cool down once more and continue to read with a possible solution.
Ok, I think I've built enough suspense and you guys are crazy to learn how to boot up your computer automatically. The next steps are for the slightly advanced users. I'll be continuing the tutorial to explain to the n00bs as to how to schedule their computers for the download.
Well here you go. We all know (atleast most of us) that there is an option called Power Management in the BIOS to manage the power settings to your computer. This is where the secret lies. I'll be giving details of each BIOS and how to set it.
AMI BIOS
Power on the computer, press < DEL > key to enter CMOS Setup. The Main Menu will appear on the screen. Select the Power Management Features and press <Enter> to enter the sub-menu. Select the Set Wake Up Events and press <Enter> and the following sub-menu appears. Select Resume By Alarm , and set it to Enabled , the system will automatically resume (boot up) on a specific date/hour/minute/second specified in these fields.
Alarm Date: 01-31, Every Day
Alarm Hour: 00-23
Alarm Minute: 00-59
Alarm Second: 00-59
Note: After Enable this function, you must reboot the system until it enters the operating system and then power off the system. By doing so, the Resume By Alarm will come into effect next time when you power on the system.
AWARD BIOS
Power on the computer, press < DEL > key to enter CMOS Setup. The Main Menu will appear on the screen. Use arrow keys to move among the items, select the PowerManagement Setup and press <Enter> to enter the sub-menu. Select the PM Wake Up Events and press <Enter> and the following sub-menu appears. Select Resume By Alarm , and set it to Enabled , the system will automatically resume (boot up) on a specific date/hour/minute/second specified in these fields.
Month Alarm: You can choose which month the system will boot up.
Day of Month Alarm: You can choose which day of the preset month the system will boot up. Set to 0, to boot every day.
Time (hh:mm:ss) Alarm: You can choose what hour, minute and second the system will boot up.
Note: After Enable this function, you must reboot the system until it enters the operating system and then power off the system. By doing so, the Resume By Alarm will come into effect next time when you power on the system.
Phoenix BIOS
Power on the computer, press < F2 > key to enter CMOS Setup. The Main Menu will appear on the screen. Use arrow keys to move among the items, select the Power to enter the Power menu. Select Resume On Time , and set it to Enabled , the system will automatically resume (boot up) on a specific time that you specified in the following fields.
Note: After Enable this function, you must reboot the system until it enters the operating system and then power off the system. By doing so, the Resume On Time will come into effect next time when you power on the system.
Source: Accurate Solutions
By now I can see a lot of gleeful faces and few long faces. The long faces because their motherboard/BIOS doesn't support this feature. Well, before I move on with my tutorial I would like to mention that I got the above tutorial(BIOS settings part) from a source which is mentioned. The rest of the tutorial is completely by me.
This part of the tutorial is a bit detail for the n00bs. The advanced users can go through this or skip it if they like. But, I would like to get feedback for my tutorial from everyone.
Before the actual download begins, I would like to mention few things for the new users who are into only night downloading using BSNL Dataone. BSNL has not mentioned anything regarding billing where mixed usage is considered billable, i.e., you are using from 1.30AM and continue to use it till 8AM, the whole period is considered billable and you end up with a hefty bill(just like me
) Even if you switch off your computer and switch it on, the download consider as the above example is considered billable. So, you need to reboot your modem at 2.10AM(its better after 10 mins) so that the actual free download is considered. Since rebooting involves 2 ways. 1)Switching it off and then switching it back on 2)Reboot it from your computer.
You can automate even the reboot of the modem with this method which I found out recently from one of the users on *www.vinuthomas.com/ Thanks to him! He did help me out with this part.
Step 1. Create the script file with the following commands and name it reboot.txt
192.168.1.1
WAIT "Login"
SEND "admin\m"
WAIT "Password"
SEND "admin\m"
WAIT ">"
SEND "system restart\m"
WAIT ">"
SEND "User logout\m"
Step 2. Download the Telnet Scripting tool. You can download it from here: *www.freedownloadscenter.com/Network_and_Internet/Misc__Winsock_Tools/Telnet_Scripting_Tool.html
Step 3. Create a batch file with the following commands and name it reboot.bat
@echo off
echo Router Restart Program
echo ------------------------------
echo Executing Scheduled Restart at
time /t
date /t
echo ------------------------------
echo Restarting ...
TST10.exe /r:reboot.txt
echo Congratulations !!! The Router has been successfully restarted !
Step 4 Copy all the above three files to a folder. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT
Step 5. Use the Windows "Scheduled Tasks" Wizard to run "reboot.bat" daily at 2:10 am and 7:55 am to restart ur modem/router. You can adjust the time of the second reboot even for exactly 8.00AM, but better be safe than sorry.
Step 6. Use the Windows "Scheduled Tasks" Wizard to automatically start ur download managers, torrent download managers or P2P clients. Or u can have them running and use their inbuilt schedulers
Well, after you finish with the above mentioned settings, set your application, which can be a download manager or a P2P software to run at a scheduled task as I have mentioned above. Most of the download managers have in built schedulers and a queue system to start or stop the file download at a specific time. You can choose the number of files to be downloaded, the time to start, etc. You need to go through the settings of your download manager to know if it supports scheduling. Different download managers use different ways of scheduling. So, I do not mention how to setup the settings. You need to learn that by yourselves guys.
Well, after this, you need to set up your computer to shutdown at a particular time to prevent additional downloads(or anything else for that matter AND if you wish). You can even set the Windows task scheduler to shut down the system or use third-party tools for this. Few third-party tools offer options like logging off, restart and hibernate, apart from the shutdown option. Even Windows shut down can be modified to do this. We will see that in a sec.
A shortcut can be made in Windows to shutdown the computer when you double-click that. You can do that in this way. Right-click on your desktop and choose a new shortcut. In the location field, type the following "C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe" without the quotes(duh!) and click on Finish. Now you have a shortcut to shutdown your system merely by double-clicking on it. You can use this shortcut to be executed by the task scheduler to shutdown your system. Follow the procedures as mentioned above in choosing the application, but choose the shortcut icon to be executed at a particular time from the advanced option which is offered just before you get the Finish dialog box to set the time to be executed. But I prefer a third-party software like DShutdown and Auto Shutdown. I'm using Auto Shutdown and its quite wonderful.
After all this 'circus', there seems to be one 'drawback' to the scheduling. Most of use a bandwidth monitoring tool to check how much of our limit has been used. We might shut this down so that the free time slot is not counted. I've come up with an alternative method for this so that the bandwidth monitoring tool is shutdown the time when your system starts at the unearthly hour. I feel this is one way for getting the job done, if you have a better idea, please feel free to post it in this thread. Go to Start-> Run and type msconfig. In that choose the Startup tab. Uncheck the bandwidth monitoring tool. Click on apply and click on Ok. Use this method only when you switch off your computer for the day. So, when the system starts at the time specified, the monitoring tool will not load and it can be enabled once you restart your system for regular use by again checking the download tool in the Startup tab.
Well, that's it for this tutorial. Was it easy?? I hope so. I hope all the broadband users, especially the BSNL broadband users get the most of this tutorial as the free download is offered at an unusual time slot.
I would like to mention one thing to all the members of this forum. Once you have learnt this tutorial, please suggest all your family and friends to sign up to this forum and check out this and the other tutorial. Also, members please please dont sign up only because you need a quick solution to your computer woes and you knew that this forum was offering solutions. Try to come up with innovative tutorials and browse through posts in other topics as well and help out people. Dont be selfish and keep your knowledge to yourself.
Knowledge is power. Share it and utilise it.
To digit and all the people who have taken the pain to write tutorials. Cheers!!!!
P.S-Suggestions and healthy criticism are welcoming only if you have the capability to write properly so that others can understand and the language is not vulgar.
Hope this tutorial gets published in Digit.
Hi guys,
how many times have you wondered, "Why am I getting up so early???" "Aren't there any methods to start my downloads automatically at a specified time and stop it?????" I'll tell you, YES, THERE ARE METHODS TO START YOUR DOWNLOADS AT THE SPECIFIED TIME!!!!!!!!! Well by now, many of you who know how to schedule tasks would have started to yawn and would have started to curse me in their sleepy mood. WAIT!!!!!! Most of you know how to schedule tasks with the help of task managers. But there is a slight problem with task managers. They run only when your system is switched on and up and running. So, to kick start your system, you wake up with dark circles under your eyes and grope around for that power button and then probably if your task scheduler is scheduled right, it will start off with its work and then you hit the bed.
So guys, I'm offering a very nice solution to avoid all this. I mean to say, you dont even have to wake up to switch on your computer. Your mean machine wakes up from its slumber to do YOUR job and goes to sleep when YOU tell it to. So, now you feeling more like a master rather than ITS slave?? Thats the thing which all of us are looking out for.
But before I can start off with the tutorial, I need to tell you guys the bad news first. This method does not work for all the computers. Sorry to say this, but its really not under my control. You will soon find out why you should not be cursing me so early, but your antique machine(if it is). So, take a deep breath, have a cup of coffee handy and read on.
Here are the steps to make your sleep more peaceful and last much longer!
First make sure you know how to use task scheduler. If not, I suggest that you learn now. There are numerous third-party task schedulers, but I am comfortable using the task scheduler in Windows XP Professional. I'll give a small tutorial on this for those n00bs as to how to use the Windows task scheduler before I move on to the main topic.
How to schedule tasks with Windows Task Scheduler:
Go to Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Scheduled Tasks. Once the task scheduler starts, click on Add Scheduled Tasks. Click on Next. In the next screen, you will be shown with a huge of list of programs installed on your computer. Choose the one you want to start at a specified time. If it is not listed, click on the Browse button and then choose the file you want to schedule. In the next window, you will be asked when the task should start. Select as needed. Follow the on screen instructions and you are done(that was the last step anyway).
The first thing to make sure before you the above small tutorial is, to check which BIOS you have and if it is the latest version AND even though if your BIOS is the latest, is your motherboard capable of doing the task, which we will be learning. The 3 BIOSes which I will be talking about are Award, AMI and Phoenix. So, if you have just realised that your motherboard is old and/or your BIOS, then it is better to cool down once more and continue to read with a possible solution.
Ok, I think I've built enough suspense and you guys are crazy to learn how to boot up your computer automatically. The next steps are for the slightly advanced users. I'll be continuing the tutorial to explain to the n00bs as to how to schedule their computers for the download.
Well here you go. We all know (atleast most of us) that there is an option called Power Management in the BIOS to manage the power settings to your computer. This is where the secret lies. I'll be giving details of each BIOS and how to set it.
AMI BIOS
Power on the computer, press < DEL > key to enter CMOS Setup. The Main Menu will appear on the screen. Select the Power Management Features and press <Enter> to enter the sub-menu. Select the Set Wake Up Events and press <Enter> and the following sub-menu appears. Select Resume By Alarm , and set it to Enabled , the system will automatically resume (boot up) on a specific date/hour/minute/second specified in these fields.
Alarm Date: 01-31, Every Day
Alarm Hour: 00-23
Alarm Minute: 00-59
Alarm Second: 00-59
Note: After Enable this function, you must reboot the system until it enters the operating system and then power off the system. By doing so, the Resume By Alarm will come into effect next time when you power on the system.
AWARD BIOS
Power on the computer, press < DEL > key to enter CMOS Setup. The Main Menu will appear on the screen. Use arrow keys to move among the items, select the PowerManagement Setup and press <Enter> to enter the sub-menu. Select the PM Wake Up Events and press <Enter> and the following sub-menu appears. Select Resume By Alarm , and set it to Enabled , the system will automatically resume (boot up) on a specific date/hour/minute/second specified in these fields.
Month Alarm: You can choose which month the system will boot up.
Day of Month Alarm: You can choose which day of the preset month the system will boot up. Set to 0, to boot every day.
Time (hh:mm:ss) Alarm: You can choose what hour, minute and second the system will boot up.
Note: After Enable this function, you must reboot the system until it enters the operating system and then power off the system. By doing so, the Resume By Alarm will come into effect next time when you power on the system.
Phoenix BIOS
Power on the computer, press < F2 > key to enter CMOS Setup. The Main Menu will appear on the screen. Use arrow keys to move among the items, select the Power to enter the Power menu. Select Resume On Time , and set it to Enabled , the system will automatically resume (boot up) on a specific time that you specified in the following fields.
Note: After Enable this function, you must reboot the system until it enters the operating system and then power off the system. By doing so, the Resume On Time will come into effect next time when you power on the system.
Source: Accurate Solutions
By now I can see a lot of gleeful faces and few long faces. The long faces because their motherboard/BIOS doesn't support this feature. Well, before I move on with my tutorial I would like to mention that I got the above tutorial(BIOS settings part) from a source which is mentioned. The rest of the tutorial is completely by me.
This part of the tutorial is a bit detail for the n00bs. The advanced users can go through this or skip it if they like. But, I would like to get feedback for my tutorial from everyone.
Before the actual download begins, I would like to mention few things for the new users who are into only night downloading using BSNL Dataone. BSNL has not mentioned anything regarding billing where mixed usage is considered billable, i.e., you are using from 1.30AM and continue to use it till 8AM, the whole period is considered billable and you end up with a hefty bill(just like me
) Even if you switch off your computer and switch it on, the download consider as the above example is considered billable. So, you need to reboot your modem at 2.10AM(its better after 10 mins) so that the actual free download is considered. Since rebooting involves 2 ways. 1)Switching it off and then switching it back on 2)Reboot it from your computer. You can automate even the reboot of the modem with this method which I found out recently from one of the users on *www.vinuthomas.com/ Thanks to him! He did help me out with this part.
Step 1. Create the script file with the following commands and name it reboot.txt
192.168.1.1
WAIT "Login"
SEND "admin\m"
WAIT "Password"
SEND "admin\m"
WAIT ">"
SEND "system restart\m"
WAIT ">"
SEND "User logout\m"
Step 2. Download the Telnet Scripting tool. You can download it from here: *www.freedownloadscenter.com/Network_and_Internet/Misc__Winsock_Tools/Telnet_Scripting_Tool.html
Step 3. Create a batch file with the following commands and name it reboot.bat
@echo off
echo Router Restart Program
echo ------------------------------
echo Executing Scheduled Restart at
time /t
date /t
echo ------------------------------
echo Restarting ...
TST10.exe /r:reboot.txt
echo Congratulations !!! The Router has been successfully restarted !
Step 4 Copy all the above three files to a folder. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT
Step 5. Use the Windows "Scheduled Tasks" Wizard to run "reboot.bat" daily at 2:10 am and 7:55 am to restart ur modem/router. You can adjust the time of the second reboot even for exactly 8.00AM, but better be safe than sorry.
Step 6. Use the Windows "Scheduled Tasks" Wizard to automatically start ur download managers, torrent download managers or P2P clients. Or u can have them running and use their inbuilt schedulers
Well, after you finish with the above mentioned settings, set your application, which can be a download manager or a P2P software to run at a scheduled task as I have mentioned above. Most of the download managers have in built schedulers and a queue system to start or stop the file download at a specific time. You can choose the number of files to be downloaded, the time to start, etc. You need to go through the settings of your download manager to know if it supports scheduling. Different download managers use different ways of scheduling. So, I do not mention how to setup the settings. You need to learn that by yourselves guys.
Well, after this, you need to set up your computer to shutdown at a particular time to prevent additional downloads(or anything else for that matter AND if you wish). You can even set the Windows task scheduler to shut down the system or use third-party tools for this. Few third-party tools offer options like logging off, restart and hibernate, apart from the shutdown option. Even Windows shut down can be modified to do this. We will see that in a sec.
A shortcut can be made in Windows to shutdown the computer when you double-click that. You can do that in this way. Right-click on your desktop and choose a new shortcut. In the location field, type the following "C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe" without the quotes(duh!) and click on Finish. Now you have a shortcut to shutdown your system merely by double-clicking on it. You can use this shortcut to be executed by the task scheduler to shutdown your system. Follow the procedures as mentioned above in choosing the application, but choose the shortcut icon to be executed at a particular time from the advanced option which is offered just before you get the Finish dialog box to set the time to be executed. But I prefer a third-party software like DShutdown and Auto Shutdown. I'm using Auto Shutdown and its quite wonderful.
After all this 'circus', there seems to be one 'drawback' to the scheduling. Most of use a bandwidth monitoring tool to check how much of our limit has been used. We might shut this down so that the free time slot is not counted. I've come up with an alternative method for this so that the bandwidth monitoring tool is shutdown the time when your system starts at the unearthly hour. I feel this is one way for getting the job done, if you have a better idea, please feel free to post it in this thread. Go to Start-> Run and type msconfig. In that choose the Startup tab. Uncheck the bandwidth monitoring tool. Click on apply and click on Ok. Use this method only when you switch off your computer for the day. So, when the system starts at the time specified, the monitoring tool will not load and it can be enabled once you restart your system for regular use by again checking the download tool in the Startup tab.
Well, that's it for this tutorial. Was it easy?? I hope so. I hope all the broadband users, especially the BSNL broadband users get the most of this tutorial as the free download is offered at an unusual time slot.
I would like to mention one thing to all the members of this forum. Once you have learnt this tutorial, please suggest all your family and friends to sign up to this forum and check out this and the other tutorial. Also, members please please dont sign up only because you need a quick solution to your computer woes and you knew that this forum was offering solutions. Try to come up with innovative tutorials and browse through posts in other topics as well and help out people. Dont be selfish and keep your knowledge to yourself.
Knowledge is power. Share it and utilise it.
To digit and all the people who have taken the pain to write tutorials. Cheers!!!!
P.S-Suggestions and healthy criticism are welcoming only if you have the capability to write properly so that others can understand and the language is not vulgar.
Hope this tutorial gets published in Digit.
Last edited:
