So playing around with Windows 7 has been fun, but there are a few quirks. For example, on one of my laptops, Windows 7 does not go to Sleep mode. It looks like it is about to go to sleep, but instead wakes up immediately.
Other times it sleeps, but wakes up randomly even though I didn’t open the computer. And sometimes, just to be difficult, it doesn’t go to sleep at all! If you are having sleep mode problems with Windows 7, you’re not alone.
There are a few ways you can try to solve this unable to sleep problem in Windows 7. I’ll go through all the steps below.
Method 1 – Update Drivers
The very first thing you want to do if Windows 7 is not going to sleep is to update all the drivers, especially for your video card. You can either run Windows update or go to the website for your hardware manufacturer and download them there. I would recommend the latter.
Method 2 – Configure Power Option Settings
If that didn’t work for you, the next thing to do is to make sure your Power settings are configured properly.
First, click Start, then type power sleep in the search box and click on Change when the computer sleeps.
Now, change the value of Put the computer to sleep to something new like 15 minutes or 30 minutes, but do NOT set it to Never.
Next click on the Change advanced power settings link at the bottom. Go ahead and expand Sleep and then expand Allow waker timers. Make sure this is set to Disable.
Scroll more and expand Multimedia settings, then expand When sharing media, and select Allow the computer to sleep.
Method 3 – Disable wake up computer devices
If the first two methods didn’t work, your issue might be caused by devices that automatically wake up your computer. You can try disabling the devices that might be waking your computer.
Click on Start, type CMD and then right-click on CMD and choose Run as administrator.
Now type the following command which will list out all the devices that can wake up your Windows 7 computer.
Powercfg -devicequery wake_armed
Now you can disable a device by typing in the following command and replacing devicename with the name of the device listed previously:
Powercfg -devicedisablewake “devicename“
Image Source: Microsoft
You can also prevent the devices from waking a Windows 7 computer using Device Manager. Go to the Control Panel, click on Hardware and Sound and then click on Device Manager.
Expand the device you want to disable and right-click on it and choose Properties.
Click on the Power Management tab and uncheck the Allow this device to wake the computer box.
Hopefully, if you’ve been having this problem in Windows 7, these solutions will fix it! If not, post a comment and I will try to help! Enjoy!
I tried all the above solutions for Windows 7 but it has still not solved the sleeping problem. Could you please provide with more assistance.