# Ask Dbs Talk:inactivity Mode?



## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

What exactly does the inactivity mode do when activated on the 921. I know on my 721 it will produce a screensaver if left on pause for an extended period. This does not happen on my 921. I paused it for over an hour and nothing happened. Also the hard drive does not spin down overnight. So what does it do?


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

When I saw this, it led me to believe that if you just left it without hitting any remote control functions (i.e. as if you just turned off the TV and went to bed without putting the receiver into standby) that it would automatically put the receiver into standby after 4 hours.

Having said that, I enabled this, but it doesn't appear to be happening. Oh well.

...Lance


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## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

Any answers out there on this?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I have no idea...but I'll try to find out.


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## Allen Noland (Apr 23, 2002)

If you leave the 921 on for an extended period it will go to the dish log screen saver. I think it only works over night. I haven't tried it in a while. If I get a chance I'll try to narrow down the function this weekend.


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## ntexasdude (Jan 23, 2005)

I never knew there was an inactivity setting. Maybe I saw it but didn't pay attention to it. Is there a menu sequence to activate it?

I rarely EVER turn mine off unless we go out of town or something. I've never seen any sort of screensaver or logo.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

When enabled, inactivity mode is supposed to put the 921 into standby mode if the remote or front panel hasn't been touched in 4 hours. I'm testing now to see if it works or not.


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## Scott Greczkowski (Mar 21, 2002)

Mark testing that feature out gives new meaning to the phrase "Don't touch that dial!" 

Sorry couldn't resist.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Ain't that the truth...you can't send even a single IR code to it, even one that does nothing (like Discrete ON when it's already on) because that resets the 4 hour countdown.


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## ntexasdude (Jan 23, 2005)

Take the batteries out of the remote???


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

My impressions

It seems to be working overnight from what I can tell. What they did not do was make it so that if you go into activity timeout, after the 2am boot window that it reboots the box. This needs to happen because I go to bed at 11 pm and always miss that window. 

More later.. but have to get back to work.


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

not what it does but it changes the lights on the front panel. The blue (HD mode) goes out. I thought the box crashed or something, but as soon as i switched back from my 510 to the 921 the unit was ready to go. on the 510 when it goes into inactvity, i have to wait for the hard drive. It has icons and it loads up freezes the image for a split second and then the 510 is ready to go. The 921 just is just ready from what i can tell......dont recall if there was a screen saver, sure the blue light(or was it the green light) went out, but not sure about anything else.

Jon


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Also the Turn both on when you press the TV on seems to be somewhat related to the inactivity timeout, but I am not sure. I have seen where the TV on turns both on at times and at others does not. Need more time with it.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Alright, so last night I left my 921 on, and this morning the inactivity mode had activated. The green power light was the only light that was on on the front panel. The television screen showed a Dish logo moving across the screen. A remote button press caused the blue HD light to come back on, and the 921 tuned to the previously tuned HD channel.


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

But the hard drive isnt spinning down, right?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Certainly didn't look that way.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

I think it just put the 921 into the standby mode so it can do the reboot and EPG update. Wouldn't it be more logical to have it automatically go to standby in one to two hours instead of four?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

4 hours is what the 501/508/510 series receivers use for inactivity time out as well.


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

yeah, but the 5XX have the hard drive spin down as well...maybe next update they can have the drive spin down.

Jon


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

boylehome said:


> I think it just put the 921 into the standby mode so it can do the reboot and EPG update. Wouldn't it be more logical to have it automatically go to standby in one to two hours instead of four?


I was hoping this was selectable. However, my guess on this is that if you made it one or two hours.. Think about it. You are sitting there, flipped it onto a movie.. You have inactivity set to an hour, and after and hower your unit goes into standbye.  I believe that is the reason for the longe window.

If they are going to keep the auto-reboot feature in the 921, I think they need to tidy up some of the edge conditions like when the inactivity timeout runs over the auto-shutodown window.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Ron Barry said:


> I was hoping this was selectable. However, my guess on this is that if you made it one or two hours.. Think about it. You are sitting there, flipped it onto a movie.. You have inactivity set to an hour, and after and hower your unit goes into standbye.  I believe that is the reason for the longe window.
> 
> If they are going to keep the auto-reboot feature in the 921, I think they need to tidy up some of the edge conditions like when the inactivity timeout runs over the auto-shutodown window.


I have to agree that if nothing is disturbing the 921 they could go into the sleep mode after the predetermined time. However, I noticed that both of my 921's do not sleep when either is driving my monitor. The 921 seems to sense the monitor when it is set to the corresponding input. Any monitor input switching will cause my 921's to wake if I select the the 921's input via the monitor. I don't know if all monitor/TV's interact with the 921 as does my Sammy.

One 921 is DVI the other is Component. Both work identically the same with the Inactivity Mode feature. When the 921 goes into the sleep mode, only the SD/HD light powers off. I'm discovering that the Inactiviy Mode is a pretty cool feature.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

j5races said:


> yeah, but the 5XX have the hard drive spin down as well...maybe next update they can have the drive spin down.
> 
> Jon


The 921 will never have a drive that spins down. I asked this question about six or eight months ago during one of those Chalie chats or Tech chats and was told that because the 921 is based on a UNIX machine, it will never spin down. I don't understand the reasoning so much because I don't work with UNIX. So don't expect that one to ever happen.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Hmmm.... Maybe having the TV on disables the inactivity timeout. Could be and in that case having an adjustable timeout would be a nice thing. Still feel a feature to set a time to place your 921 into standbye would be nice so that we could set it to put it into standby ever night when each person wanted to.


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