PC won't standby

[travist]

I just built a new PC (specs listed in profile). The computer won't standby on it's own. If I go to start/stanby it works fine. Is there a setting that I'm missing that would cause the PC not to standby on it's own? I've checked power options, tried power saving as well as a custom plan. Monitor won't shut off either, regardless of settings in power options.

Thanks,

Travis

 

[FliGi7]

What do you mean, on its own?

 

[mitchell65]

Hi Travis and welcome to he Forum
Try this for starters:
Go to "ScreenSaver" then "Change Power Settings" then "Change Plan Settings" then "Change Advance Power Settings" then "Multimedia Settings" then "When Sharing Media" and make sure the setting says "ALLOW THE COMPUTER TO SLEEP."

 

[travist]

@FliGi7:

I mean sleep without clicking start/standby. As in power options that say after a certain amount of time put the computer to sleep.

@mitchell65:

I believe I tried that when I set a custom power plan. I will have to verify when I get home to make sure. I tried everything that seemed it could affect it from going to sleep. It's strange, because on all my other computers this works out of the box. I was thinking a bios setting but I because it goes to standby manually I don't think it would be.

 

[gregrocker]

Update your display driver - check optional Windows updates for any newer drivers, then the Support Downloads webpage for your model Display device.

Check the Performance Log for what might be hanging at moment it should sleep: Win7 Troubleshooting Tips

Trace sleep issues using this tool: Trace Windows 7 boot/shutdown/hibernate/standby/resume issues - MSFN Forum

 

[travist]

Update your display driver - check optional Windows updates for any newer drivers, then the Support Downloads webpage for your model Display device.

Check the Performance Log for what might be hanging at moment it should sleep: Win7 Troubleshooting Tips

Trace sleep issues using this tool: Trace Windows 7 boot/shutdown/hibernate/standby/resume issues - MSFN Forum

Display drivers are current (Downloaded from NVIDIA). All windows updates installed, and no devices without drivers in Device Manager. I checked the logs once, but was looking for another problem so didn't focus too much on anything that could be causeing this one. Don't remember seeing anything though.

I'll definately try out that tool, as well as check the logs again for anything unusual. Thanks for the help!

 

[Atin90]

I have seen this behaviour on a newly installed system. After few days of use, the PC will eventually started to go to sleep. I suspect that the initial indexing of your drives causes this and once all is done, my PC will sleep on it's own.

 

[travist]

Good point Atin90. I checked indexing options and it shows that indexing is complete. Not sure if any background processes could still be going, but I didn't think of this.

 

[travist]

Ok, checked a couple of things last night. Re-installed video drivers from NVIDIA. Performed clean install of NVIDIA software, even though drivers were up to date. Multimedia settings in power options was already set to allow the computer to sleep when sharing media. Event log contained a couple of questionable things, but nothing that seemed related to going to sleep. I'll research the problems there in more detail in the next couple of days.

Followed the instructions on MSFN Forum and didn't get much out of it. Logs didn't contain any info that helped. Commands listed put PC to sleep with no problem. Resume worked fine.

For some reason, something is preventing it from sleeping on it's own. I'm not sure how else to troubleshoot this. Will the computer sleep in safe mode? Could it be a bad driver or something?

 

[thebigguyconnor]

Try disabling Hybrid Sleep. This "feature" is causing a lot of trouble in windows 7 computers, not only to mention it slows down the amount of time required to sleep.

Turn Off Hybrid Sleep in Windows 7 — MAXIMUMpcguides – Windows 7 tips, tricks, help, and how-to guides

 

[Vincenzo]

Here's a tool that supposedly can be used to troubleshoot sleep issues, though I've never used it for that purpose myself:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4569-power-efficiency-diagnostics-report.html

more info here:
Evaluate System Energy Usage and Get Power Management Report with PowerCfg -Energy Switch in Windows 7 » My Digital Life

 

[Vincenzo]

Another way to go about this might be to use msconfig to configure a selective startup, without loading system services and startup items. If it is able to sleep in that mode, then start adding the services and startup items back in until you find the culprit.

 

[travist]

Yea, I'm beginning to think it is a software or driver issue, because the screensaver never comes on, regardless of what I change the setting to. The computer sleeps fine, it just never thinks it's idle which stops the screensaver/auto sleep from working.

I think msconfig may be the answer. I'm going to try disabling everything to see if that works, and if so I will have to do like you suggested and re-enable one by one. I have some bad RAM, so my system will be down until I can get the RMA'd RAM back. If it doesn't get figured out tonight, it may be a week or so. I'll post back my findings once I get it sorted out. Thanks for the help!

 

[gregrocker]

Turn off the screensaver - it is not needed for flat screens and can interfere. Instead rightclick desktop>Personalize to set up a Desktop Background slideshow with Win7 spectacular scenic pics.

Turn off the Nvidia software in msconfig>Startup and services.msc as it isn't needed if you're not overclocking - just the driver which came with it.

 

[travist]

Tried all of the suggestions, and still no dice. I may do a clean install and check to see if the screensaver/sleep works once I get my RAM back after RMA.

 

[Atin90]

What happens if you reduce the time before the PC goes to sleep to very low value, let's say 1 minute? Does it go to sleep then?

 

[gregrocker]

Again, turn off the screensaver.

Did you try a Clean Boot Procedure from the troubleshooting list I posted earlier? You have to be thorough with these sleep issues and can't skip steps.

Is everything unchecked in msconfig>Startup besides AV and gadgets/stickynotes if u use them?

 

[travist]

That's what I'm set at now...

 

[travist]

Again, turn off the screensaver.

Did you try a Clean Boot Procedure from the troubleshooting list I posted earlier? You have to be thorough with these sleep issues and can't skip steps.

Is everything unchecked in msconfig>Startup besides AV and gadgets/stickynotes if u use them?

Sorry, I missed this post earlier. I have not tried the clean boot procedure yet. I did uncheck everything in msconfig that it would allow me to uncheck. The computer is a domain member, so there were a couple that were required. I also tried using base video to make sure it wasn't something with the video driver causing the problems. No change.

Screensaver is disabled, and sleep is set to 1 minute. I'll give the above procedure a try as soon as I can and post back.

Thanks again for the help!

 

[travist]

So I tried the clean boot procedure. I had done something similar before, but I just disabled everything (including microsoft services. I retried the procedure with all services disabled EXCEPT microsoft services like the procedure says. Still no dice. Screensaver is disabled, sleep set to 1 minute, sleep while sharing media enabled. Not sure where to go from here.

My replacement RAM is on it's way, so I'm not sure if that could have anything to do with this. I don't see how it could really, since it seems to be a software issue. I may attempt a re-install if there are not any other ideas to try. I've installed win7 (both x32 & x64) on several computers, and I have yet to run across this problem. Because of the RAM issues I had at first, I had many BSODs and freezes - maybe something was corrupted because of these???