I wrote about how to fix the problem with Windows 7 does not go to sleep and Windows 8 does not go to sleepbut I haven’t talked about sleep problems in Windows 10. Due to the large number of machines and the variety of hardware that Windows can run on, any version of Windows will have problems going to sleep in some cases certain agreement.
Sometimes the problem is with the hardware, sometimes with the driver, and other times it’s something that’s not properly configured with the operating system. In this article, I will look at all the different solutions I could find to fix this problem in Windows 10.
Note that I will try not to repeat the solutions mentioned in the Windows 7 and Windows 8 articles, so read on if none of the solutions below work. Since Windows 10 is relatively new, it seems there are a lot of problems on specific machines, possibly because the drivers don’t have full support for Windows 10 yet.
The only real solution in those cases is to wait until the appropriate Windows 10 drivers are released. Method 1 is your best bet if you find that many people on the same machine as you are having trouble sleeping.
Table of Contents
Method 1 – Update Chipset Driver
The fastest way to possibly solve this problem is to download the latest drivers for your Windows 10 machine from the PC manufacturer’s website. For example, I have a dell computer and using Dell System Detect, it automatically scans my system and finds all the appropriate driver updates.
The most important drivers to update are chipset drivers, BIOS, and network card drivers. If you have a custom-built system, read my post on how to use third-party software to find and update drivers. I’ve also written in the past that it’s probably not a good idea to update your BIOS, except in some cases like this when you’re facing possibly hardware related issues. If you decide to update your BIOS, read my post on how to check if an update is available for your BIOS.
In addition to updating the driver, make sure you go to Setting – Update & Security and install all the latest updates for Windows 10 from Microsoft.
Method 2 – Check power requirements
Sometimes certain Windows programs send power requests to the system, which prevents the system from shutting down or going to sleep. Usually these cases have the effect that when you are playing a DVD and there is no interaction with the mouse and keyboard for several hours, the screen will remain lit.
The requests will automatically disappear when the program closes. However, there are cases where it can get stuck. You can check to see all power requirements by opening an elevated command prompt (Click Start, type cmdright click Command prompt and choose Run as administrator) and enter the following command:
powercfg -requests
Ideally you want all entries to say Not available, which means no power requirements currently exist. If you have something listed like SRVNETcheck out the Windows 8 article I mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Another effective use of the powercfg command is to see which devices on your system can wake the system. Usually this includes the mouse and keyboard, but sometimes other devices like network cards, graphics cards, etc., register themselves and can cause problems. Read my 3-Word Method Posts on Windows 7 to prevent devices from waking your computer.
I have also read that check Only one magic pack wakes up the computerthe box for your network adapter should also fix the sleep problem. Alternatively, to see the last device that woke up your computer, run the following command:
powercfg -lastwake
Method 3 – Run the troubleshooter
Windows 10 comes with some good troubleshooting apps that can fix many problems for you automatically. Go to Control Panel, click Resovle problem and then click View all at the top left.
The two you want to run are Power and System maintenance.
I’ve had some success running them on certain clients, so it’s worth a shot.
Method 4 – Disconnect the device
I have a customer whose computer is not in sleep mode and after hours of trying all sorts of fixes in Windows it ends up being the Logitech USB Joystick causing the problem! So, another possible solution is to remove any connected USB devices, restart your computer and see if Windows 10 goes to sleep.
This is especially true if you have any USB devices like tablets, joysticks, microphones, cameras, external hard drives, etc. connected to your computer. If you find that it’s one of your USB devices, try to find the latest driver for that device and install it.
Method 5 – Clean Boot
Apart from these problems, the only other reason is that some kind of startup program or service is preventing Windows from going to sleep. The only solution to this problem is to perform a clean boot. You can read instructions here on how perform a clean boot. Follow the instructions for Windows 8.1 as they will be similar to Windows 10.
In clean boot, you basically disable all startup items and then restart the computer. If you find that the computer is going to sleep, you now know the problem is in one of the startup programs. Then you turn on the startup programs one by one and restart the computer until the problem returns. At that point, you’ll know which program is the culprit. It’s a tedious process, but it works!
Before performing a clean boot, you can quickly check if it’s working by restarting Windows in safe mode. If the computer sleeps fine in safe mode, go ahead and perform a clean boot to find the program causing the sleep problem.
Method 6 – Restore Package Defaults
Another quick fix is to restore your power plan defaults. Go to Control Panel, click Energy optionsand then click Change plan settings next to the plan you selected.
Click Restore default settings for this plan and restart your computer.
Method 7 – Restore PC
This is obviously a last resort, but resetting your PC might be the only thing you can do if you’ve tried everything else. See my post on how to reset your Windows 10 PC. Note that you can choose to keep your data and files, so it’s not a complete wipe out of your system.
It’s basically reinstalling Windows 10 and that’s it. Lots of people have had success with this method, but it is more time consuming and risky. Make sure to back up your data before restoring your PC in case something goes wrong.
Other possible solutions
There are some one-time solutions that work for some people and no one really knows why. Anyway, I’ve compiled them here in case you happen to be one of those people!
- Some users have said that if they sign in to Windows 10 with a Microsoft account, the sleep/shutdown problem goes away when they change the password on their Microsoft account. This doesn’t make any sense, but it has worked for some people.
- If you have a Windows PC, you probably have a lot of Intel software installed like Intel Management Engine, Intel Rapid Storage Technology, Intel Security Assistant, Intel HD Graphics Driver, etc. You don’t really need all of this software. system works, so you can try uninstalling these programs and see if that fixes the problem.
- Disable or disable fast startup. This is a feature in Windows 8/10 that helps the computer to start up very quickly from the shutdown state (not restarting). Just Google it and see if it fixes your problem.
Hopefully, one of the solutions above will work for your computer. If not, post a comment and I’ll try to help. Interesting!
