To automatically start your computer up at a specific time of day, you'll actually need to edit your BIOS settings. To do this:
Boot up your computer and enter your BIOS setup. Usually this involves pressing the Delete key as your computer boots
(your computer should say 'Press DEL to Enter Setup' or something similar as you turn it on).
Navigate to the Power Options. If your BIOS supports it, there should be a function for automatically starting up your computer at a certain time of day. Mine was called "Resume by Alarm", but yours might be called something different.
Enable that setting and set the time you want your computer to start every day. Save and Exit the BIOS, and your computer should follow that schedule from now on.
You probably shut down your computer when you're done using it at the end of the day, but if not, you can set it to shut itself down on a schedule. This is easy to do with Windows Task Scheduler:
- Hit the Start menu and type in "task scheduler". Open up Task
Scheduler from your results.
- In the right pane, hit Create Task. Give it a name, and under the
General tab, check "Run with highest privileges". Also check "Run
whether user is logged on or not", if you ever leave your computer
logged out.
- Head to the Settings tab and check "Stop the task if it runs
longer than" and set it to "1 hour". This won't stop your computer
from sleeping, but will stop your computer from thinking a task is
still running.
- Head to the Actions tab, hit New, and choose
"Start a Program" as your action. Set the Program to
shutdown and
the arguments to -s
- Lastly, head to the Triggers tab and click New. Change the schedule to fit whatever you want (say, Daily at 12:00AM), and hit
OK. Hit OK again at the next window and your task should be saved in
Task Scheduler.
