Delayed Re-Boot?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I have an IP cam hanging on a Windows 7 box about 80 miles from home.

Every so often, the cam goes brain-dead and the only way to get it back
is to cut power to the cam and then restore power - causing the cam to
do a cold start.

I thought I had it licked when I put in one of those power strips that
senses how much the PC is drawing and cuts power to everything else
plugged in to it when it senses that the PC is no longer drawing power
above a certain level.

The plan was to just TeamViewer into the PC and issue a manual re-boot
if/when the cam went South.

But that does not work. I am guessing that a re-boot does not reduce
the power consumption long enough to trip the power strip.

What I would like to do is somehow have the PC shut itself down and then
re-start at least 30 seconds later. The timing does not have to be
that exact... just so it actually powers off and stays that way for at
least a few seconds.... At 0200 in the morning, nobody's going to care
as long as the sys is back up by sunrise.

Can anybody point to a way to accomplish this without spending a lot of
money on something like a remote-controlled power strip?

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

I have an IP cam hanging on a Windows 7 box about 80 miles from home.

Every so often, the cam goes brain-dead and the only way to get it back
is to cut power to the cam and then restore power - causing the cam to
do a cold start.

I thought I had it licked when I put in one of those power strips that
senses how much the PC is drawing and cuts power to everything else
plugged in to it when it senses that the PC is no longer drawing power
above a certain level.

The plan was to just TeamViewer into the PC and issue a manual re-boot
if/when the cam went South.

But that does not work. I am guessing that a re-boot does not reduce
the power consumption long enough to trip the power strip.

What I would like to do is somehow have the PC shut itself down and then
re-start at least 30 seconds later. The timing does not have to be
that exact... just so it actually powers off and stays that way for at
least a few seconds.... At 0200 in the morning, nobody's going to care
as long as the sys is back up by sunrise.

Can anybody point to a way to accomplish this without spending a lot of
money on something like a remote-controlled power strip?

Timer? I have one of those old motor driven ones that
can turn something off then back on 15 minutes later.
Electronic versions have their own clock in case the
power goes off for a while.

 

[Paul]

I have an IP cam hanging on a Windows 7 box about 80 miles from home.

Every so often, the cam goes brain-dead and the only way to get it back
is to cut power to the cam and then restore power - causing the cam to
do a cold start.

I thought I had it licked when I put in one of those power strips that
senses how much the PC is drawing and cuts power to everything else
plugged in to it when it senses that the PC is no longer drawing power
above a certain level.

The plan was to just TeamViewer into the PC and issue a manual re-boot
if/when the cam went South.

But that does not work. I am guessing that a re-boot does not reduce
the power consumption long enough to trip the power strip.

What I would like to do is somehow have the PC shut itself down and then
re-start at least 30 seconds later. The timing does not have to be
that exact... just so it actually powers off and stays that way for at
least a few seconds.... At 0200 in the morning, nobody's going to care
as long as the sys is back up by sunrise.

Can anybody point to a way to accomplish this without spending a lot of
money on something like a remote-controlled power strip?

How is the IP cam powered ?
Is it POE ?
A 12V adapter of some sort ?

What is the make and model number of the IP cam ?

Paul

 

[Bob I]

31 bucks too expensive?

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Single-Outlet-Network-Controller/dp/B004L7NDVQ/ref=pd_sim_misc_1

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I have an IP cam hanging on a Windows 7 box about 80 miles from home.

Every so often, the cam goes brain-dead and the only way to get it back
is to cut power to the cam and then restore power - causing the cam to
do a cold start.

I thought I had it licked when I put in one of those power strips that
senses how much the PC is drawing and cuts power to everything else
plugged in to it when it senses that the PC is no longer drawing power
above a certain level.

The plan was to just TeamViewer into the PC and issue a manual re-boot
if/when the cam went South.

But that does not work. I am guessing that a re-boot does not reduce
the power consumption long enough to trip the power strip.

What I would like to do is somehow have the PC shut itself down and then
re-start at least 30 seconds later. The timing does not have to be
that exact... just so it actually powers off and stays that way for at
least a few seconds.... At 0200 in the morning, nobody's going to care
as long as the sys is back up by sunrise.

Can anybody point to a way to accomplish this without spending a lot of
money on something like a remote-controlled power strip?

I don't know how to do this:

Power the camera through a device that the computer can shut down.

My idea is like a relay that is controlled by a signal over USB. For
safety, it could control the 5V (or is it 12V) side of the camera's
power, rather than the 120V side.

I say this because it seems clear that you are already controlling the
computer from afar...

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

31 bucks too expensive?

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Single-Outlet-Network-Controller/dp/B004L7NDVQ/ref=pd_sim_misc_1

You sure did a great job of making my post redundant

Talk about timing...

I good a good laugh out of your reply - and you make me wish I had a
need for one of those! Maybe I'll just order one and hope I come up with
a plan...

 

[Rob]

I have an IP cam hanging on a Windows 7 box about 80 miles from home.

Every so often, the cam goes brain-dead and the only way to get it back
is to cut power to the cam and then restore power - causing the cam to
do a cold start.

I thought I had it licked when I put in one of those power strips that
senses how much the PC is drawing and cuts power to everything else
plugged in to it when it senses that the PC is no longer drawing power
above a certain level.

The plan was to just TeamViewer into the PC and issue a manual re-boot
if/when the cam went South.

But that does not work. I am guessing that a re-boot does not reduce
the power consumption long enough to trip the power strip.

What I would like to do is somehow have the PC shut itself down and then
re-start at least 30 seconds later. The timing does not have to be
that exact... just so it actually powers off and stays that way for at
least a few seconds.... At 0200 in the morning, nobody's going to care
as long as the sys is back up by sunrise.

Can anybody point to a way to accomplish this without spending a lot of
money on something like a remote-controlled power strip?

If you can get Wake on Lan (WOL) working over your remote link, just
remotely shutdown the PC (which will trigger the type of power strip
you already have) then issue the WOL magic packet from afar to wake
the PC of from the 'off' condition (note this is true 'off', not
'sleep'.)
This may be easier said than done, but this will help:
http://windows7-issues.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/wake-on-lan-wol-for-windows-7-made-easy.html
I use this method on all of the PCs on my LAN, but it will be a
bit trickier over the internet as you have to enable port-forwarding
on some ports of your routers.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I have an IP cam hanging on a Windows 7 box about 80 miles from home.

Every so often, the cam goes brain-dead and the only way to get it back
is to cut power to the cam and then restore power - causing the cam to
do a cold start.

I'm thinking your choice would be to put the PC into a hibernate state,
and then reawaken it with Wake-On-LAN command? The hibernate is nearly
identical to a power-off.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Bert]

I'm thinking your choice would be to put the PC into a hibernate state,
and then reawaken it with Wake-On-LAN command? The hibernate is nearly
identical to a power-off.

Then he might just as well do a full shutdown of the PC.

He'd trade the small additional time it takes to boot compared to recovery
from hibernation with the advantage of cleaning out the cobwebs that
accumulate in a machine that's been running too long without being
rebooted. Maybe Windows 7 doesn't suffer from this the way XP did, but I
wouldn't bet on it.

On the other hand, from the description I'd bet that this requires "Wake On
WAN" rather than "Wake on LAN," since the PC sounds like it's probably on
another network segment from the poster's other PCs. The process for Wake
on WAN is slightly different from Wake On LAN.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Paul in Houston TX:

Timer? I have one of those old motor driven ones that
can turn something off then back on 15 minutes later.
Electronic versions have their own clock in case the
power goes off for a while.

That was going to be my fallback position: timer that cycles power once
every 24 hours. But this thing is in somebody's home office and all
the timers I've used make some noise... so I was avoiding it. ALso,
the brass ring is to be able to do it on command - although that's
probably far from necessary.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Paul:

How is the IP cam powered ?
Is it POE ?
A 12V adapter of some sort ?

What is the make and model number of the IP cam ?

ACTi KCM-5311. POE. Great cam so far. No night vision to speak of,
but we only use it during the day. 32x zoom gets used continually.

ExtremeSurfCam.DynDNS.org:8080

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Bob I:

31 bucks too expensive?

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Single-Outlet-Network-Controller/dp/B004L7NDVQ/ref=pd_sim_misc_1

I think we may have a winner!!

Thanks.

 

[Bob I]

Per Bob I:


I think we may have a winner!!

Thanks.

Welcome!

 

[Bob I]

You sure did a great job of making my post redundant

Talk about timing...

I good a good laugh out of your reply - and you make me wish I had a
need for one of those! Maybe I'll just order one and hope I come up with
a plan...

These are more fun but overkill for Pete, but maybe what you could use.

http://www.x10.com/products/x10_ck11a.htm

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

Per Paul in Houston TX:

That was going to be my fallback position: timer that cycles power once
every 24 hours. But this thing is in somebody's home office and all
the timers I've used make some noise... so I was avoiding it. ALso,
the brass ring is to be able to do it on command - although that's
probably far from necessary.

The digital electronic ones should be silent unless they
have a relay. I don't have one so can't verify.
We use cheap plug in timers in some of the computer equipment that
locks up during lightning storms to reboot them every 24 hours.

 

[Paul]

Per Paul:

ACTi KCM-5311. POE. Great cam so far. No night vision to speak of,
but we only use it during the day. 32x zoom gets used continually.

ExtremeSurfCam.DynDNS.org:8080

Is there such a thing as "managed POE" ?

If so, you might be able to turn POE on and off on an
individual port of the switch.

But that would cost a fortune.

The USB to AC outlet switch is likely cheaper.

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Then he might just as well do a full shutdown of the PC.

But WoL doesn't work when you do a full shutdown.

He'd trade the small additional time it takes to boot compared to recovery
from hibernation with the advantage of cleaning out the cobwebs that
accumulate in a machine that's been running too long without being
rebooted. Maybe Windows 7 doesn't suffer from this the way XP did, but I
wouldn't bet on it.

Windows 7 is far and away superior to XP in this respect, I've got a W7
laptop that does mostly standby's and hibernates, but only does full
reboots after patch updates. Of course, there are patch updates at least
once every month, so it gets rebooted at least once a month, so I
haven't really tested its reliability over longer periods. But a machine
that doesn't get rebooted for a month is nothing to sneeze at,
especially a Windows machine.

But besides, this is irrelevant the OP specified right from the
beginning that the standard reboot doesn't work because the power
doesn't get cut-off from the webcam for long enough to reset it. A full
shutdown cannot be gotten out of except by physical presence at the
console of the machine itself.

On the other hand, from the description I'd bet that this requires "Wake On
WAN" rather than "Wake on LAN," since the PC sounds like it's probably on
another network segment from the poster's other PCs. The process for Wake
on WAN is slightly different from Wake On LAN.

Well, yes, Wake on WAN is just a specialized form of Wake on LAN.

Yousuf Khan

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Paul:

Is there such a thing as "managed POE" ?

If so, you might be able to turn POE on and off on an
individual port of the switch.

But that would cost a fortune.

The USB to AC outlet switch is likely cheaper.

100% agreement on all 3 points.

 

[Bert]

In Yousuf Khan

But WoL doesn't work when you do a full shutdown.

Sure does. I use it every day.

My PC is completely shut down after the nightly backup and I use an app
on my iPad to turn it on in the morning so it's ready after I've had my
coffee and stumble down stairs.

 

[Rob]

In Yousuf Khan


Sure does. I use it every day.

My PC is completely shut down after the nightly backup and I use an app
on my iPad to turn it on in the morning so it's ready after I've had my
coffee and stumble down stairs.

Same here. Works great. In fact, I find it more difficult to
configure some PCs to WOL from sleep or hibernate mode than from
full off, which is reliable once it it set up properly.