Now enter this into the black void known as the Command Prompt: powercfg.exe /energyĪfter about a minute, you can view the Power Configuration report by browsing to the file location displayed in the results: You have to be an admin to pull of this trick. Press the Windows Key + x then press the letter “ a” to open a Command Prompt with Administrator rights. We need to find out the exact application (or applications) that is turning your Windows box into an insomniac.įortunately, Windows comes with a niffty little tool to make our sleuthing a little easier. I bet your settings are properly configured here – which is one of the reasons why this conundrum is so freggin’ annoying. Pressing the sleep button is tantamount to popping an Ambien however, the computer should sleep automatically when there’s no or minimal disk activity. Scroll down until you see Power buttons and lid and then click the + (plus) sign next to Sleep button action to verify the action is really set to Sleep. The P ower Options box shows up with a myriad of settings. The Edit Plan Settings box will pop onto the screen. Go ahead and click the blue Change plan settings link immediately to the right of your power plan Press enter and your power plan should immediately show up. Go to the Start Screen and type power options It stands to reason that clicking Sleep should put the computer to sleep however, those settings can change - let’s make sure they haven’t. taking an ambien is tantamount to manually forcing the computer to sleep) 1. Windows 8 slept fine when idle – but in Windows 8.1, it’s like the stupid computer needs the digital equivalent of an ambien before it enters sleep mode. For some reason, Windows 8.1 doesn’t know when to take a break and it’ll inexorably munch on the battery until it drains the thing. In this article, I’m going to show you how to make your intractable PC sleep when it’s just sitting around doing nothing.

No matter what you do, it categorically refuses to sleep when idle.

You’ve done the unthinkable and updated your perfectly working computer to Windows 8.1 and now some of the stuff that used to work, no longer works.Īnd now you find yourself in a real quagmire: you’re wondering why Windows 8.1 wants to stay awake all the time.

Turn off sleep mode windows 8