Windows 8 refuses to stay awake

TBugReporter

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Amazing... I searched for "sleep" here and found the "Windows 8.1 refuses to sleep" thread, which is still going strong after almost 800 posts, talking about the exact opposite problem to the one I'm having! (Now, needless to say, I haven't read the entirety of that thread - yet; could someone boil it down to the essentials?)

I'm trying to configure my computer so that it never sleeps, hibernates, or shuts down unless I specifically ask it to - or if it's so starved for energy that shutting down is the only way to ensure that nothing gets damaged. The machine is never unplugged, so it should never have any reason to shut down, short of a power failure. I've had problems with this intermittently since I got this computer, and I thought I had it fixed, but last week the problem started again. The attached file is a full transcript of the Power Options Control Panel; as you can tell by how long I spent making this transcript, I've been trying to track this down for quite a while. View attachment Power Panel (8.1).txt

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 (duh)
Perhaps:

**************************************
Hard disk
Turn off hard disk after
On battery: 10 Minutes>>>>>NEVER
Plugged in: 20 Minutes>>>>>NEVER
**************************************

************************************************
Sleep
Sleep after
On battery: 20 Minutes>>>>>NEVER
Plugged in: Never
************************************************

You can change them back if they don't help.
You could disable hibernation too, as a test.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    AMD K140 Cores 2 Threads 2 Name AMD K140 Package Socket FT1 BGA Technology 40nm
    Motherboard
    Manufacturer Gateway Model SX2110G (P0)
    Memory
    Type DDR3 Size 8192 MBytes DRAM Frequency 532.3 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    AMD High Definition Audio Device Realtek High Definition Audio USB Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Name 1950W on AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x76
    Screen Resolution
    Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x768 pixels
    Hard Drives
    AMD K140
    Cores 2
    Threads 2
    Name AMD K140
    Package Socket FT1 BGA
    Technology 40nm
    Specification AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Family F
    Extended Family 14
    Model 2
    Extended Model 2
    Stepping 0
    Revision ON-C0
    Instruction
    Browser
    Opera 24.0
    Antivirus
    Avast Internet Security
I'm not sure how those settings could be causing the problem, but at this point, I'm willing to try anything, so I'll make those changes later today (once I stop using the machine in question) and see if they help.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 (duh)
So far, so good; I left it on last night and it was still on this morning - but that might just mean that whatever's making it turn off didn't happen last night.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 (duh)
It happened again. When I got to the computer today, the screen was off. I'm not sure if this is significant, but yesterday, I had some time to kill and tried fooling around with some TIFKAM games - and IIRC, the day I downloaded them was the day before I started this thread. Coincidence?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 (duh)
I don't see in your initial post how you know that the machine is sleeping. Is it possible that the monitor has a low power mode that is entered after a certain time? Did you verify that the machine is actually sleeping via the event viewer, Kernel-Power event 42 and/or Power-Troubleshooter event 1?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS
    CPU
    i7-4770K
    Motherboard
    Asus H87i-plus
    Memory
    16g
    Graphics Card(s)
    HD 4600
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Corsair 60gb SSD (SATA 3)
    2tb WD
    Cooling
    Corsair H80i
    Other Info
    HTPC
It's happening again. This time, I suspect that a Windows Update may have something to do with it, because we have several identical computers that were bought at the same time and it started happening to all of them more or less simultaneously.

I don't see in your initial post how you know that the machine is sleeping. [...] Did you verify that the machine is actually sleeping via the event viewer, Kernel-Power event 42 and/or Power-Troubleshooter event 1?
I apologize for not noticing your post until now. I didn't look too thoroughly before, but I did find event 42 in the logs this time:
The system is entering sleep.

Sleep Reason: System Idle
(Real helpful message, guys. Yeah, I know the system's idle; what I need to know is: why do you care, when I've been doing everything I can in the past months to get you to stop caring?)

Is it possible that the monitor has a low power mode that is entered after a certain time?
Even if that had turned out to be true, the behaviour is still unwanted, and I don't see why the settings in the Power Control Panel are insufficient to control it. I went thru the power controls again and verified that they are set exactly as documented in my original post, so whatever changed yesterday appears to be non-configurable by the user - at least by normal means. OTOH, they must get changed in some other indirect way, since in past instances, the problem has disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 (duh)
I'm trying to configure my computer so that it never sleeps, hibernates, or shuts down unless I specifically ask it to - or if it's so starved for energy that shutting down is the only way to ensure that nothing gets damaged. The machine is never unplugged, so it should never have any reason to shut down, short of a power failure. I've had problems with this intermittently since I got this computer, and I thought I had it fixed, but last week the problem started again. The attached file is a full transcript of the Power Options Control Panel; as you can tell by how long I spent making this transcript, I've been trying to track this down for quite a while.

Any help would be appreciated.

Since you haven't included anything but Windows 8 in your system specs, I don't know if your computer is a laptop or a desktop. With that said, have you been to the Power Options in the Control Panel?

If it's a desktop, this might be helpful. Click on the graphic to enlarge.

Power Options.PNG

You should pay attention to "Choose when to turn off the display" and "Change when the computer sleeps". I think it's self-explanatory from there.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavilion 500-056
    CPU
    AMD Elite Quad-Core A8-6500
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon HD 8570D
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer 23"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 X 1080
    Hard Drives
    1 TB
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wave K350
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    Fast
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
Wynona, I don't think you would get the on battery setting if it was a desktop tower ,I know I don't
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    win8.1.1 enterprise
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Hinze57
    CPU
    AMD FX 6100 6core 3.30gHz
    Motherboard
    gigibyte ga-78lmy-s2p
    Memory
    4gig ddr3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radon hd5000 Series
    Sound Card
    onboard realtek hd
    Monitor(s) Displays
    19" viewsonic/ 22"Samsung
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    128gig ssd Kingston
    80gig WD 10000 rpm spinner
    Case
    micro
    Keyboard
    microsoft curve 200
    Mouse
    Logitech wireless M215
    Internet Speed
    high speed 20
    Browser
    ie 11
    Antivirus
    windows defender
    Other Info
    updated enterprise apr 2/14
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