I have had a DMA2100 media center extender for a couple of months now.
After configuring the extender and connecting it the the PC the first time, I was not able to get the PC to sleep again.

I figured out that by changing a setting in power options allowing the computer to sleep during media sharing re-enabled the possibility of getting the PC to sleep.

The next problem that occurred was that the extender was not able to wake up the PC.
I found a solution to that problem, which I will try to describe here. It is not the best solution to the problem, but it works for me and maybe someone else could find it useful.

I installed an additional network adapter in my PC.
I connected th extender directly to the onboard network adapter (using a crossover cable) and enabled wake-on-link, i.e. whenever the link LED on the back of the extender turns on, the PC wakes up.

/Peter

Many network cards/mobos support wake-on-lan with any data packet not just a magic packet. This can usually be enabled in the BIOS. With that setting turned on, a simple ping or other connection attempt will wake up the host. I've never tried it with an extender, but the host should wake up as soon as the extender tries to connect. I have my work PC configured that way, so that I can make a remote desktop connection to it even if it's asleep.

superswiss:

Many network cards/mobos support wake-on-lan with any data packet not just a magic packet. This can usually be enabled in the BIOS. With that setting turned on, a simple ping or other connection attempt will wake up the host. I've never tried it with an extender, but the host should wake up as soon as the extender tries to connect. I have my work PC configured that way, so that I can make a remote desktop connection to it even if it's asleep.

With Media Center, will it wake from sleep if it knows it needs to record a scheduled show?

-D

dravor:

With Media Center, will it wake from sleep if it knows it needs to record a scheduled show?

-D

Yes, and it will go back to sleep once the recording finishes. At least that's what the documentation claims and all components in your system play ball. I personally believe in treating media center like a server and leave it on 24x7. I've turned on all other power settings to reduce the footprint at idle as much as possible.