Why my Windows device is not going to sleep? (Explained)

Recently my PC was not going to sleep mode even I left it idle for more than an hour. So I dug a little bit and came up with some solutions. Solution to my problem was really short. I had switched to High performance power plan and I forgot to switch back to Balanced.

There are some tools/programs which prevent system from sleep mode i.e. Media players will prevent your system from sleep mode so that your PC screen must not go black while you are watching some movie. Some drivers can also prevent sleep mode if they are being used e.g. Audio drivers.

How to fix power plan settings?

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Go to control panel, search for power and click on Power Options from results.

From there you'll be able to see which Power Plan your PC is using. You can customize Plans by clicking on Change plan settings or you can create new customized Power Plan by clicking on Create a power plan from the left sidebar.

Select Balanced and also make sure that your PC can go to sleep; if Put the computer to sleep is set to never than change it to time interval after which you want your PC to go in sleep mode.

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Still PC is not going to sleep mode?

Maybe there is some process which has stopped responding and is not letting your PC to go in sleep mode. If you have some video or audio running then Windows drivers'll not let your PC go to sleep mode.

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How to check?

In order to check which process or driver is not letting your PC to go in sleep mode you've to run a command in Command Prompt, but you have to run CMD as an administrator which is not a problem.

Command to check drivers or processes which are not letting your PC to sleep mode

powercfg /requests

After checking which process or driver is making mess, you can perform appropriate action.

How to open CMD as an administrator?

There are two ways to open CMD as an administrator:

1. • From start menu click on All programs and then accessories.
   • Right click on "command prompt" and click on run as administrator. Click on yes if User Account Control asks.
2. • In windows 7 search for cmd in start menu and press CTRL + SHIFT + Enter for opening Command prompt as an administrator.