Computer Not Going To Sleep

[jackieofalltrades]

I'm running an old PC with Windows Vista (I hated 8.1/10 and too cheap to buy 7). For the most part it does all I need it to, but for a couple of months now I've found it will not go into Sleep mode after a defined period of time unless I specifically click on a button telling it to.

I've done numerous Google searches to no joy in solving the issues. The standard responses I've seen such as multimedia player or network adapter preventing the computer from going to Sleep I've tried. But I still get the same issue of it never entering sleep mode.

I'm hoping some of the collective wisdom in pprune could offer some other insight to assist me?

[TowerDog]

Running updates or some other back ground programs?
Had the same going on and ended up cleaning the start menu, too much stuff was involved.
Mostly junk.
Will see what the experts say, perhaps an easy solution, not sure.

[lomapaseo]

Spilled too much coffee in keyboard?

[jackieofalltrades]

Running updates or some other back ground programs?

I had thought about that too. I can't find any updates running. I'm wondering if there's an easy way to find which program is stopping the computer entering the sleep mode?

[andytug]

Could be a program or a service, Task Manager will show what's currently running and if it's using cpu power, those would be the most likely ones.
Also in Vista try turning off disk indexing, it speeds it up no end (Start>run>services.msc,run it then scroll down to Windows Indexing Service, right click, properties, stop and then select "disabled")
Free programs like Cleaner also have an easy to use way of disabling programs/services that run at start-up and you don't need/want.

[Biggles78]

Have you tried singing it a lullaby? :)


Go to System Restore and have a look back through the Restore Points and see if there was anything installed a couple of months ago that may have changed the Sleep setting. I don't have access to Vista at this point in time but you can drill down into the power settings and micro manage them.


Another thing to try is at the Command Prompt (run as Administrator), run sfc /scannow and see if that fixes anything that may have been changed. That won't change the settings but it will fix any corrupted or missing files that are associated with Sleep mode. [NOTE that there is a space between the c and the /forward slash].


In Windows 7, you go into (it should be similar to Vista):
Control Panel
Power Options
Change when computer goes to sleep
Change advanced power settings
[there is a Sleep setting and under that a Hybrid sleep setting. These may need to be changed. Make sure you write down or take screen shot of the settings so you know what they were before changing. ALT + PRTSCN will capture the active windows so you don't get the whole of the Desktop in the image. The Active windows is the one that has the dark blue Title Bar]


See if this helps (http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-vista/configuring-windows-vista%E2%80%99s-advanced-power-settings/).

[jackieofalltrades]

As a follow up to the earlier posts in this thread...

I tried the various suggestions, with thanks. Unfortunately none of them would clear what ever it was preventing my computer from going to sleep. However, a couple of days ago I had a whole bunch of updates from Windows which I duly installed. Ever since then, the computer goes to sleep as instructed. Just like it used to many months ago before the problem started.

I have no idea which update altered the problem, but it now works.
Thanks again to those that provided ideas.

[david1300]

I was going to suggest that you turn off the light, but it seems you have solved the problem :ok::ok:

[jimjim1]

Always good to hear about a result, positive or negative.

A couple of small things from the thread

1. The powercfg command has some sleep troubleshooting tools. Never user them so I won't try to comment further.

2. If sfc /scannow reports unfixable errors

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

followed by another sfc /scannow

usually seems to fix the integrity of the OS files.

You need to be online for the dism bit.