Self Sleeping

Hello,

There are actually two sleep issues, or so it seems.

Often, when making the computer sleep or when the programmed time to sleep comes up, the computer prepares itself to sleep, starts sleeping (the light flickers once) and awakes back immediately. This is often because it happens about half ot the times.

The other issue is very strange. When I am using it with either the mouse or the keyboard or just looking, it goes into sleep by itself, and just as in the case above it can stay asleep or awake right back.

I have not changed any power settings for months, but the second issue started a little over one week ago and has become every day more frequent. It can be normal for hours, or repeat the cycle every few minutes. When this happens it is impossible to do anything.

Can someone help here, please?

For your 1st issue, you can use the lastwake command to see what last woke the PC

Lastwake Command

The second issue will be harder. I would suggest noting your current power settings, then changing your power plan, reboot an set it back to the former settings. It's worth trying anyway.

Power Plan Settings - Change

A Guy

Thank you Guy. I searched on Event Viewer according to your instructions. I didn't care about specific results for the first issue, because as I said, the way it awakes is the same.

I found three events that are always the same:
Power Button
USB Root Hub
USB Composite Device

No need to look for the first event, because it is when I wake it up myself. However I can't know what originates the other two, which must be the real issue origin. There are many, many, so I can see sometimes one is more frequent, some other times is the other one. There is only one "Unknown" result among lots and lots of the other ones, so maybe we can skip it.
The problem to be sure about the source is that my computer has two USB Composite Devices and seven USB Root Hubs. That is probably why there are many more issues from second.

In the command prompt I found the Instance Path for one of the USB Composite Devices. From there I found which one, but that is all, and I can't go any further. USB Root Hubs do not have an Instance Path.

Then I followed your suggestion. I changed power settings from my Custom to Power saver, living the original settings untouched. I rebooted and the same story again (no changes, no need to repeat). The, I changed back to my Custom plan, which is based on Power saver, only with shorter times, respecting the necessary delays between each and rebooted again. Nothing changed.

On USB I have a Bluetooth receiver for phone synchronization (model Trust 15542-02) plus the mouse receiver, as per my system specs below, that's all. I unplugged the Bluetooth receiver, but nothing changed. In Device Manager, the USB Root Hubs are not allowed to wake up the computer in their Power Management tabs.

What can I do to correct the issue, please? And there is also the USB Root Hub without an Instance Path.

I'd look into the power button settings.

Power Button - Start Menu

See if it is set to Sleep. If so, change it to shut down, and see if the problem changes. If not, I'd try connecting a PS/2 mouse if possible, and leave all USB devices unplugged. This sleep while in use issue is unusual to be sure. I'll point others to this thread and see if they have any ideas as well. A Guy

Hi Guy. Yes, I set it back to sleep just as it was before, after I did what you recommended, as on my second post. I can read the start wake events on the log, the problem is that I can't find any go into sleep events. However, while making many searches to find a solution, I found the following entry in a forum thread (I searched so many that I can't recall where), proving that id must be recorded somewhere. But where?

I can also see a windows event log saying:
The system is entering sleep.
Sleep Reason: Application API

How and where can I get this information, please? The powercfg command has lots of switches, but I couldn't find one to answer my question. The PC can stay many hours without self sleeping, but it has repeated cycles where it goes back to sleep by itself just a couple of minutes or a few seconds right after awaking, and cycle again about four to eight times without human intervention. Crazy.

Here is a summary of what I have done while waiting for an answer. I used the command powercfg -devicequery wake_from_any to find what could send the computer to sleep and checked that all device where off. There was only the keyboard, but Iturned it off, too. After this it did not wake again by itself. Instead of the keyboard to awake it, I passed to use the power buton on the computer case. More than one day later, I re-allowed the keyboard to wake it up as before, and it continued without awaking by itself. I can't know how or why, but I am glad it stayed without waking up by itself. However, nothing changed about returning to its self sleep cycles.

Presently, the command powercfg -devicequery wake_armed returns this:
Standard PS/2 Keyboard
Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller

sfc /scannow reults in Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.


Hi F5ing. I wouldn't be surprised if the issue came from an update, but I think it started before the last one. I know this because I control Windows updates to avoid collecting rubish to fill up the disk. Only when I am sure, of course, like receiving updates for specific Office applications that I don't have installed. It checks for updates and I pick up from what it presents me. This is almost every day because some come bery frequently, like for Windows Defender. So, the last bunch of not frequent ones was on 12th, and from my first post the issue started a bit before that. However, ate that time I hadn't received any update for a couple of weeks, apart those for Defender. I am checking this form the Updates History log.

Well, I don't like Sysrem Restore. One of the reasons is because it changes some file names and that is annoying for more than one reason. Also it takes lots of useless disk space. I make a weekly image, but here there is a problem now. This selp sleep thing started just when I wanted to make a new one after having uninstalled some programs and installed other ones, as well as other changes. I didn't have the time for a new image and if I reinstall the last one I will have lots of changes to redo, but if I can't fix this issue now it is what I will have to do, because when the computer goes into such a self sleep cycle anything takes infinite time to do owing to the continuous interruptions. It must be well over half our that I am writing this post because it started into one of these cycles.

However, I do not wish do do a restore because this is the only issue so far and I am convinced that it will be easy to repair if I know what makes it. Why is it not listed in the Event logs just like the wake? I ignore it, of course, but there must be a way to find that out.

Please, help finding what makes the computer go to sleep by itself.


Edit: I noticed that when it is in a self sleep cycle it goes into sleep faster when I type on the keyboard.

If you are not concerned with the event history. You can clear the logs and then will have fewer results to filter as new event occur.

Event Viewer One Click Clear

A Guy