Windows Insomnia

[Corona688]

A surprising number of Windows computers are prone to waking from Sleep Mode without being told to. Windows being Windows, there's a huge and growing list of ways that can happen. I haven't seen all these reasons in one place, and think I've worked through nearly all of them in fixing this stupid computer and perhaps found a new one, so for future googlers, here goes:

1. Your ethernet card. This is the most common issue by far. If your computer sleeps fine when you unplug it, that's what it is. Things to fix:
   • In ethernet adaptor properties, under "Power" tab, uncheck "Allow this device to wake the computer".
   • In ethernet adaptor properties, under "Advanced" tab, under "Wake on Magic Packet", select "Disabled".
   • In ethernet adaptor properties, under "Wake on Pattern Match", select "Disabled".
   You must to disable all three because some network drivers or bioses don't respect the "allow this device" setting. More on that later.
2. Your mouse. Is your mouse or trackpad prone to creeping around on its own? That can wake your computer. Find your mouse in device manager, power tab, uncheck "allow this device to wake your computer".
3. Windows Update. It might be scheduled to wake up your computer at 3am to install updates. Check its settings.
4. Windows Task Scheduler. Sometimes Windows Update leaves the wake-up task around when it shouldn't be. Sometimes other programs have left updaters or loggers of their own. A piece of malware might have left something here too.
5. Power Options. You can stop task scheduler from waking up your computer globally, under Power options, Advanced settings, Sleep -> Allow Wake Timers.

There's a lot more it could be. Almost any other device could wake it. The powercfg utility may take some of the trial-and-error out of finding it. Run it in an elevated command prompt window.

• powercfg -lastwake Lists the last event that woke the computer.
• powercfg -devicequery wake_armed List any devices that Windows will allow to wake it.

Sometimes, though, powercfg will have no idea what woke your computer. You can dig into Windows' system event messages, which probably won't know either. If neither know, then it's being woken by hardware not under Windows' control -- leaving one place to go, the BIOS power settings. You access these before Windows loads, often by pressing the DEL key. On Windows 10 computers, they may be particularly hard to get to, since Windows is apt to bypass the BIOS loading screen to show its own. If you can find your way in:

• Wake On LAN/Keyboard/Mouse. These BIOS settings might be overriding the Windows ones.
• Wake on PCIE. Your video card or something might be chattering while your computer's asleep, which will cause your computer to wake with no idea what woke it. You can turn that off here.
• Wake After Power Outage. At least one glitchy BIOS will mistake 'going to sleep' for 'power outage' and wake your computer immediately back up.

That very last one was the culprit. Took two days to pin down.

[Crumb]

I was having this issue with my computer when I first put it together. I think it was the mouse that was doing it. So now I just can't wake up the computer with my mouse. Last night my computer did it again though... If this becomes a regular problem again your list will come in handy.