Windows 7 will not always go to sleep - related to printer spooler???

matamateuruser1 · 07 Mar 2011

Hi all,
From time to time Windows 7 will not go to sleep (only the display will turn off). I have searched various forums and tried the following fixes:
-I have already made sure that network adapters are not allowed to wake up the computer.
-I typed "POWERCFG -ENERGY" in the command prompt (as administrator) and an energy report was generated, which reported this error:

System Availability Requests:System Required Request
The service has made a request to prevent the system from automatically entering sleep.
Requesting Service Spooler

Opening task manager, I see a process running called "splwow64.exe" -- is this the spooler preventing the computer from sleeping?

Has anyone seen this problem before? Know any fixes? My sleeping problem seems different from the one often reported (computers sleeping but then waking up immediately).

I'm not especially knowledgeable about the inner workings of computers so I would appreciate any help!

-mat

Vincenzo · 07 Mar 2011

I can't really answer whether or not that is the service that is being referred to by the Power Management Report, but I had a problem with a printer spooler preventing sleep, and found that if I went into services.msc and stopped the printer spooler service, that sleep mode could then be entered. You might try that, or try endtasking the process you are seeing in Task Manager. Then see if sleep works, or try running the report again.