This tutorial deals with the situation when you are faced with the problem of setting a Windows 7 based computer system to sleep.

THE PROBLEM

The problem in brief is that when you attempt to put your Windows 7 based computer to sleep, you may face the following issues

  • The computer immediately wakes up after setting it to Sleep mode.
  • The computer may randomly at any time wake up from the Sleep mode.
  • The computer does not even enter into Sleep mode. It just remains awake.

RESOLUTION OF PROBLEM

To fix this problem, there are 3 recommended methods, which are

  • Update your drivers to the latest version available.
  • Check the Power Option settings.
  • Prevent any of the device(s) connected to the computer from waking it up.

It is recommended that the above mentioned solutions be tried in the same manner in which they are presented. Given below are detailed explanations of each of the methods.

UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS TO THE LATEST VERSION AVAILABLE

It is suggested that users of Windows operating systems keep updating their drivers on a regular basis. The drivers which require regular updates are generally your video and sound card drivers. The latest drivers for Windows 7 will be automatically updated on your computer if you have Windows Update activated. You can even check for updates for your hardware drivers on the respective hardware manufacturer’s website.

CHECK THE POWER OPTION SETTINGS

To check your Power Option settings, simply follow these steps

  1. Click Start, type power sleep in the Start Search field box, and select the option Change when the computer sleeps.
  2. In the Put the computer to sleep box, enter a value of your choice. But make sure that you do not select Never. Then, select Change advanced power settings.
  3. Expand Sleep, expand Allow waker timers, and then select Disable. By doing so, programs are prevented from waking the computer out of sleep mode.
  4. Expand Multimedia settings, expand When sharing media, and then select Allow the computer to sleep. By doing so, you let your computer to go to sleep even if it shares media libraries with other computers on your home network.

PREVENT ANY DEVICE(S) CONNECTED TO THE COMPUTER FROM WAKING IT UP

For this final step, you have to disable the devices which are connected to your computer system that might wake it up from sleep mode. Follow these steps to disable them

  1. Open command prompt. To do this, click Start, type cmd into the Start Search field box, right-click cmd, and then select Run as administrator.
  2. To see the list of all devices capable of waking the computer, run the command Powercfg -devicequery wake_armed.
  3. To disable a specific device that can wake the computer, run the command Powercfg -devicedisablewake “devicename” (“devicename” refers to the name of the device you want to disable, which you have to type), or use Device Manager.
  4. If the issue still persists even after you disable a device, disable the devices in the list one by one until you can make out which device is the cause for the issue. If you want to re-enable a device to wake the computer, run the commandPowercfg -devicenablewake “devicename“.

Alternatively, you can use Device Manager to enable/disable a device to wake the computer. To do so, click Start, typeDevice Manager into the Start Search field box, and then select Device Manager. Locate and then double-click the device that you want to disable or to enable. On the Power Management tab, click to clear/select the Allow this device to wake the computer check box as required.