Windows 8.1 refuses to sleep

Yep, I am just about sleeped out as well. Thanks to all for the testing and comments. I, too, will keep looking on here but have lost confidence that I can find the cause.

For me, it's disable the Power svc and carry on.
 
Same here, I feel lucky to have stumbled on this forum. The local account with skydrive shut down solution for sleep timer works for me. I will stick to it until something better comes up!
 
Right ladies...

I have a solution to this problem. It isn't a permanent fix, in fact it isn't a fix at all, but it's a reliable workaround.

First, download WIZMO, which is a .Net command executor for the command line in Windows 7 and 8, it's designed to implement .NET features instead of Rundll32, which corrupts the stack in newer Windows OSses if you execute power management functions like hibernate and standby from Rundll32 calls.

The link for WIZMO is here:
https://www.grc.com/WIZMO/WIZMO.HTM

1) Place WIZMO in your PATH (i.e. System32 or whatever path you like which is in the environment variables.)
2) Go to CPanel -> Power Options -> Change When Sleeps -> Set to Never
3) Go to Task Scheduler and create a task.
4) Set task to run whether logged on or not with highest privileges (it needs to run as admin to work).
5) Go to Triggers -> Create Trigger -> On Idle, save and close that applet.
6) Go to Conditions. Select start task only if idle for (x minutes, however long you want). Under wait for idle, select 'Do Not Wait'.
7) Select stop if computer ceases to be idle, select restart if idle state resumes.
8) Go to Settings. Select 'Allow Task to Run On Demand'. Select 'Run as soon as possible ... schedule missed'. Select stop task if runs: longer than 3 days. Select 'If does not stop when requested, force stop'.
9) Go to Actions. Create an Action. Under Action, select 'Start a Program'. Below, type the path to WIZMO (e.g. C:\wizmo.exe). Under arguments, type 'standby' without quotes.
10) Save your task and test. Note: this will only work if your system is capable of being idle and if the background service is enabled for task scheduler (default is enabled on fresh install, if not enable by running services.msc).

I hope that helps everybody. For the guy above, please don't disable power management service as this will cut off your audio and put up your electricity bill significantly as everything will be running at 100% power state.

Comments invited below with questions or thanks.
 
WhiteTiger, welcome to the eightforums! Check out the tutorials on this site as there are some very good ones.

Thanks for the tip about the Power service. I realized in the advanced power services menu was the listing for processor power throttle down to like 5%. Makes sense that would also get turned off. I also found that I could only play MP3s in stereo instead of 5.1 settings. Good to know.

I did start fooling with task scheduler and realized that I could probably kludge together a timer setup. It would defeat the purpose of the ability to quickly change the sleep timer tho, which is a key thing that I use a lot. Someone pulled up a gem that turned on an extra timer in the advanced sleep setting that seemed to work as well, but again involved more steps to change than I was willing to make every time I wanted to give myself more time before sleep (it's buried in here somewhere in all these posts, I swear!).

I just leave my sleep set to 3 hours and use the power button which I am getting very used to. If sleep does work, great! otherwise, I will manually sleep it the next I am on the computer.

Thanks folks for the attaboys. We gave it a GREAT run for the money and I am amazed at the creativity and sheer perversity which we tackled the problem!
 
I too have have mostly given up on fixing my sleep problem, for now. I have put too much time into this without resolution. Disabling Skydrive has helped but is not the answer. Interesting that my PC will sleep reliably as long as I do not have a browser open. Any browser open will stop sleep. Well, since I always have multiple browser windows open, my PC never sleeps unless I remember to force sleep. Well, that's the problem, I usually walk away from my desk and forget. I too am trying to develop a habit of forcing sleep. Thanks for all of the help here. I will continue look here for a permanent solution. It really bothers me that my Win 8.1 laptop sleeps without fail and I can't figure this out for my desktop.
 
morning... mine is still slightly unreliable with skydrive disabled..... so I have finally taken the step of unlinking my account from my Microsoft account. The is an easy way, without creating a new login, or creating a new profile (I have read blogs which say that's the way)...

steps

1. Go to the user accounts settings window (settings from metro, change pc settings at the bottom, then accounts on the right.)2. Instead of creating a new account, select "Your Account."
3. Select "Disconnect" under your email address.
4. Enter your MS Live password.
5. Enter your local user account name and password.
6. You are now back to a local user account
 
Rob, did me no good to go to a local account (and I tried many times). Right now, I am back to where I was (Logged into MS Live, Skydrive enabled, Homegroup enabled, etc) and I sleep just about as much BEFORE I did all that. Don't bother.
 
Tried the whitetiger workaround. Didn't work. Manually running the task invokes sleep so it is not the action bit that is wrong.

The long and short of it for me seems to be that the idle state is not being recognised. And asking the scheduler to detect the idle state doesn't change the basic defect. This conclusion is also reinforced with the screen shutoff when running a video.

Ho hum. Back to ground zero.
 
I don't want to pop any bubbles, but I have to confirm that Windows 8.1 isn't broken. All the troubles I had with it, came from third party software and drivers it seems.

How did I manage to fix it.

Well, I went back to Windows 8 (the image I made just before upgrading to 8.1.)

From this point, I uninstalled all the programs I knew that had trouble with 8.1.

- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Adobe Dreamweaver CC
- Oracle VirtualBox
- iolo System Mechanic
- anti-virus software (my case AVG.)

And also some other programs that had accumulated during the year, especially if any toolbars had managed to get installed. I did this with Revo Uninstaller, because this program also deletes the stuff that stays behind in the Registry and maps on the hard disk.

And then, I did my upgrade again from the store.

SkyDrive worked just fine and my Apps as well. This problem was solved immediately.


After I was done checking, I managed to install the Adobe software again. There was an update for the Creative Cloud software, and I knew that Dreamweaver could be installed, it only couldn't be installed before the upgrade. I believe the other CC Adobe software causes the same problems as well. So, uninstalling before the upgrade is the best way to go.


I then tried my sleep function for a full day, before I added any other software. It worked for me, until the next day. In the morning, when I woke up the PC, it was suddenly stuck. My screen stayed black while the PC started but didn't do anything. Obviously a crash of something, but I couldn't find any information about it in the logs.

Then I deactivated Hyper sleep. Same result the next day. I then deactivated Hibernation, again same result the next day. Although, I did notice that the tasks the PC had to do in the morning, had been done. So, the PC only crashed after I invoked it to wake up.


This could have several causes, although, because it seemed that my PC did try to wake up but that my screen didn't receive the wake up call, I decided to look for new drivers for my Graphic card. It's an AMD Radeon HD 5800 Series, btw. I found the Catalyst Control Center version 13.9 and installed it on my PC.


And from that moment on, my PC slept and woke up without problems. I reactivated Hibernation yesterday, and this morning, the PC woke up again as when Windows 8 was on it. :)


The only thing I noticed, that is different from before, is that as long as my TV is on, which is connected with a HDMI cable to the PC, the PC stays awake as long as I'm watching it. :) Now, for me, this isn't a bad thing, because I have also some stuff on the PC that I sometimes watch through the network connection with my Cable digicorder. In the past, I had to get up to start my PC if I wanted to watch something on it. :) And, the good thing is, after I shutdown my TV and Cable box, it takes about 2 minutes for my PC to go to sleep.


For me, it seems Windows 8.1 wasn't the guilty one, but some of the other software that I had installed that I now have removed from my PC. Btw, Oracle's VisualBox 4.3.2 isn't buggy anymore. I presumed it was, because my PC didn't go to sleep after installing it, but I was watching TV while I waited it to go to sleep. At that point, I didn't knew this kept my PC awake.


The Toshiba laptop, I also reinstalled again by removing everything from my PC and to do a clean install. It has less software on it and doesn't take too long to reinstall.

On my Acer netbook, I could reverse the things iolo System Mechanic had done to it, and after I had done this and removed the software, it works now also as it should.


During the whole process, I made one little mistake. I did most of my troubleshooting on the Toshiba laptop, and when I had done a clean install, for some stupid reason, I had installed iolo System Mechanic on it without thinking. :( If I hadn't done that, maybe I had found a solution much earlier. Slap to the head! ;)


I hope that you guys can find a solution for your problems as well. At least, I can confirm now that Windows 8.1 can work as it should, if you can find the guilty party.
 
With regards to software being a potential issue, I don't really have that much installed (none of the stuff that I see other people having to uninstall or play with to get sleep to work right). And it is all the same programs I had when running Win 8 which did actually sleep as needed.

That being said, since 8.1 is newer, there could still be incompatibilities with software that worked fine under 8. I don't know...
 
maliksaad said:
I was having the same issue but when I switched to a 'Local Account', the issue was resolved.
Click to expand...
I switched to a local account an hour ago and my comp slept reliably with a 35ish sec delay. (In my view, anything more than 7 sec is very suspicious, but, hey, this was reliable).

Until I tried the video play test. This, too, was reliable. It reliably slept at around 95 sec (one min plus the 35 sec delay). This is a bit different than previously as it now goes into sleep mode whereas, before, it only blanked the screen.

Once again, failure rules the day! It just is not picking the idle state properly.

@Rudy. Thanks for the further input. I don't seem to have the already discovered problem programs but there must be something here that is problematic. But, even when started in Diagnostic mode (minimal things running), it still is not right.

Cheers, all, and keep smiling!!
 
It's the Windows, not the third-party software. The issue is with the SkyDrive app. I have fresh-installed Windows 8.1 three times. I did not update, did not install any third-party software, but still the same problem. I have tried this on 2 PCs, same issue.
 
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I tested another thing. I killed the 'SkyDrive Sync Engine Host' process and after that, the computer was able to go into sleep right at the chosen time. By the way the [FONT=Segoe UI, Arial, sans-serif]HomeGroup is off too[/FONT]

[FONT=Segoe UI, Arial, sans-serif]Just turning off the [/FONT]HomeGroup[FONT=Segoe UI, Arial, sans-serif] didn't solve the issue. You definitely need to kill [/FONT]the 'SkyDrive Sync Engine Host' process.
 

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maliksaad, I firmly believe that there is more than one problem source which is why we can't find the one solution. I don't have the skydrive sync svc going, and no homedrive set up, but I still have the sleep problem.
 
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