Having problems where Microsoft Windows 10 won’t go into sleep mode? This tutorial will help you figure out the problem.
Fix 1 – Power Options
- Select the “Start” button, then select “Settings” (gear icon).
- Select “System“.
- Select “Power & sleep“.
- Ensure the “Sleep” setting is set to a desired value.
- Select “Additional power settings” in the right pane.
- Select “Change Plan Settings” next to the option that you have selected.
- Select “Change advanced power settings“.
- On the “Power Options” screen, you want to expand each setting and ensure that they allow the computer to go to sleep mode. In my case, the setting under “Multimedia settings” > “When sharing media” was set to “Prevent idling to sleep“. I had to set this to “Allow the computer to sleep“. If you’re feeling lazy, just hit the “Restore plan defaults” button and that should toggle all items to where sleeping is allowed in Windows 10.
Fix 2 – Sensitive Mouse
If you have a sensitive mouse, any vibration near your PC could be keeping your machine awake. Try these steps to prevent the mouse from waking your machine.
- Select the “Start” button, then type “device“.
- Open “Device Manager“.
- Expand the “Mice and other pointing devices” section.
- Right-click on the mouse you are using, then choose “Properties“.
- Select the “Power Management” tab.
- Uncheck the “Allow this device to wake the computer” box, then select “OK“.
Fix 3 – Network Adapters
These steps are the same as Fix 2, only you’re checking under “Network adapters”.
- Select the “Start” button, then type “device“.
- Open “Device Manager“.
- Expand the “Network adapters” section.
- Check under each of the options by right-clicking and selecting “Properties“.
- Uncheck the “Allow this device to wake the computer” box, then select “OK” for each network card.
If you still have problems with your Windows 10 computer sleeping, there may be a program that is constantly running on your PC that keeps it awake, or even worse, a virus. Use my Bible For Making Your Windows Computer Run Faster to gain control over what’s running on your PC.
Jarrod Shumaker says
July 1, 2019 at 9:14 amI found this issue to be tied to Steam (the cloud PC gaming platform). After doing some reading and testing it has to do with the homepage and it’s potential to load audio and video. The recommendation and successful test I performed was to change steam to the library page versus the home. After doing this my monitor successfully went to sleep.
Worth a shot for anyone using Steam and experiencing this issue.
Florence Mills says
June 28, 2019 at 11:07 pmAll of the answers did not help me. I still can’t get my old sleep button, have to pull the plug every night and sign in the next morning
TWiStErRob says
June 22, 2019 at 5:46 amAfter trying Fix 1 and finding that Fix 2 and 3 are not something I want to disable and they didn’t help anyway.
I found there’s one more really important Fix 0 everyone should do!
1. Open Start Menu
2. Type cmd
3. Right click Command prompt > Run as Administrator
4. C:\WINDOWS\system32>cd %USERPROFILE%/Desktop
5. C:\Users\you\Desktop>powercfg /energy
Enabling tracing for 60 seconds…
Observing system behavior…
!! at this point it’ll stop for 60 seconds with a blinking cursor
!! put your computer to sleep (which shouldn’t work)
Analyzing trace data…
Analysis complete.
Energy efficiency problems were found.
2 Errors
See C:\Users\you\Desktop\energy-report.html for more details.
6. Open the above HTML file in a browser.
I had 2 errors there which told me what the problem is:
System Availability Requests: System Required Request
The program has made a request to prevent the system from automatically entering sleep.
Requesting Process \Device\HarddiskVolume0\…\some\progam.exe
System Availability Requests:Away Mode Request
The program has made a request to enable Away Mode.
Requesting Process \Device\HarddiskVolume0\…\some\progam.exe
Exit the program and sleep well!
Abdallah says
May 10, 2019 at 8:15 amThank you very much, Fix 1 and 2 did it for me, I hope your friend gets better
Mayank Singh says
May 2, 2019 at 10:52 amTHE FIRST FIX WORKED THANKS 👍
Chuds says
April 21, 2019 at 6:05 amCheck what mouse you are using. My old mouse had a sleep facility but eventually died. My laptop mouse which had an on/off switch was then used and voila , my PC started sleeping again after inactivity. It was something that simple.
AP says
April 20, 2019 at 9:12 pmI usually don’t shut down my PC and manually put it to sleep from the Start menu, when I’m about to go to bed or go out of the house.
Recently, I encountered a strange problem: I would try to wake up the PC, only to find out it has already been shut down (powered off). Previously, tapping a keyboard key twice would instantly wake up the PC.
GaryT says
March 28, 2019 at 8:31 amI tried all of these and other suggestions and none of them worked. In the end my solution was to go back to the power management tab in the network card settings (in device manager) and put a tick in “Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer”. It also went to sleep with a tick in all three boxes but I haven’t left it for more than a minute to see if it wakes itself up (which it used to do) but at least it now goes to sleep,
Kevin says
March 19, 2019 at 4:23 pmI tried everything on this list and it didn’t work. If that happens to you, consider replacing your mouse. Even though it wasn’t moving, mine was constantly “on” and scanning the mouse pad. As soon as I replaced my mouse, everything started working as it’s supposed to. My old mouse was a Razer Ouroborus; new one is a Razer Mamba.
Eric Luczynski says
February 27, 2019 at 7:43 pmThank you. Like most others in the list I was frustrated by on-all-the-time monitors even with the sleep time set to 15 minutes. Changing the multimedia setting worked.
Oliver says
February 21, 2019 at 1:07 pmThanks that helped me very much! But i still got a problem, when i start the computer again after it has been in sleep mode the fans are running at high speed but then a few seconds later they are back at normal speed. It is not that big of a deal but any help is appreciated :)
Jin says
January 30, 2019 at 8:33 pmThanks a lot for the tip! That saves me from troubles.
Bill says
January 29, 2019 at 5:07 pmMS support people should know these. I called them twice and both times it was a default to “re-install windows”.
Cosmin says
January 27, 2019 at 6:12 pmGod bless you man :)). Fix 1 did the thing for me. I was desperate already :)). Many thanks
ed says
January 24, 2019 at 11:18 pmMy computer hasn’t been falling to sleep or activiting the screen saver for some time now. Step 8 solved my problem. I would never have figured that out! Thanks!!
wiseson says
January 6, 2019 at 9:34 pmYour Fix 3 – Network Adapters resolved (now my desktop goes to hibernate/sleep!) my issue (i.e. desktop not going to hibernate/sleep).
From another site I learned to run CMD in Superuser mode: powercfg /lastwake
which revealed that my Network adapters (i.e. Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
was causing the wake!
Thank you.
Mahdi says
December 29, 2018 at 3:47 amYou have no idea how much hassle you have saved me after months, years even of this pesky little problem. I was on the verge of begining to start editing system files based on trial and error from thousands of theories on the internet. Thank you, kind stranger.
Julz says
December 5, 2018 at 8:09 pmOMG…this was a life saver!!! I often need my pc to sleep not hibernate or shut down, so when I started popping back on when I put it to sleep I thought I was gonna pull my hair out and scream. Your instructions were ssoooooo easy to understand & follow for a totally non-technical Grandma. I appreciate your help, thank you very much.