Sleep HTPC when monitor is off

Question

I would like my pc to automatically sleep when I turn the tv off. How can this be accomplished? I would also like the htpc to power on when the tv is turned on as well if possible

Computer- Windows 8.1 Gigabyte B85 GTX 650

Answer 1

Expanding on Keltari's comment, the following VBScript loops and every second reports whether or not the screen is on.

Do
    WScript.Sleep 1000
    WScript.Echo "Screen is on = " & ScreenOn
Loop

Function ScreenOn()

    Dim objWMIService, colItems, objItem

    On Error Resume Next

    Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\cimv2")
    Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_DesktopMonitor",,48)
    ScreenOn = False

    For Each objItem in colItems
        If objItem.Availability = 3 Then
            ScreenOn = True
            Exit For
        End If
    Next

    On Error Goto 0

End Function

You should save it (eg. as screenstatus.vbs) and run it from the command line using cscript screenstatus.vbs).

If all goes well, then "True" will be displayed every second and when you turn off the screen then it'll flip to "False". You'll obviously need to turn on the screen to double check this!

Assuming this goes well, then you can change the loop at the top to something like:

If ScreenOn() = False Then
    ' Call command here to sleep computer
End If

and then schedule the script to run on a regular basis (eg. every 15 minutes).

Your machine won't go to sleep immediately, but will turn off the next time the script is run (which, in the example I provided, will be within 15 minutes).

Answer 2

This actually should be possible with some scripting or coding.

There is a WMI Win32_DesktopMonitor class that has an property called "Availability."

The availability property lists 17 possible states the monitor can be in. You will probably want want to check for the value of 0x03 (Running or Full Power). However, you would have to play with the returning values from your TV to see what is best.

A script or program can be written to run at a frequency you choose, detect the state of the TV, then send a sleep command to the OS if it detects the TV is off.