Windows 8.1 refuses to sleep

[Chuck38]

Hey, we're getting close to 1,000 posts on this thread!

 

[gator2013]

I guess a good start would be to know who else is having the insomnia after regular maintenance runs. You can tell when it runs by going into the task scheduler and then navigating to the path that I listed above. At the top it shows you "Last Time Run". I've found this is the only place to see it reliably because, at least for me, it isn't posted to the system log.

You can also see the Last Run of Idle Maintenance/Scheduled Maintenance in the Action Center.



I have been looking at this as well. It appears that Idle Maintenance and Regular Maintenance perform similar actions and whether the latest run is triggered by the Idle Routine or the Regular Maintenance Routine the last run time is listed in the Action Center as well as the Task Scheduler. The Actions for both are simply listed as Custom Handler in the Task Actions.

My system exhibits some of the same sleep quirks that others have described but not identical. I generally shut down at night so the late night maintenance is of no consequence and I usually trigger it manually at some point during the day before I walk away for a bit. It usually takes about 15 minutes to complete and I can always tell from my Norton Performance graph if Idle Maintenance was run.

When I start my PC in the morning it will sleep perfectly according to my set Power Plan but by late in the day or early evening the PC will not go to sleep on it's own and sleep must be manually triggered to sleep, however, if I shutdown or Restart the PC will once again Sleep on it's own.

Personally, at least for my PC, I think the problem is some quirks with the way the Task Scheduler interacts with some of the scheduled tasks and the automatic maintenance is probably part of it. I am on a Desktop so preserving a battery is not an issue and while a bit annoying the inconsistent Sleep process is not something I will lose any sleep over. but if this was a Laptop I would be a bit more concerned. The only thing I can find that you can effectively change is the Scheduled Time for the Automatic Maintenance and that time can be changed in the Action Center and well as the Task Scheduler.

 

[Steve06]

John, I stumbled upon the exactly same thread myself and disabled fast start up as advised. So far, the issue has not reoccurred, but it's not clear to me if I should leave it off and live with slower bootup or if I am to switch it back on.

The whole issue must be related to a recent driver update as it is entirely new. I always install newest drivers suggested through Intel's Driver Auto Update website or from my Mobo manufacturer's homepage.

I will probably also switch from MS to local account as you did as there does not seem to be much value in having Windows linked to the MS account anyway.

 

[NCguy]

The only thing I can find that you can effectively change is the Scheduled Time for the Automatic Maintenance and that time can be changed in the Action Center and well as the Task Scheduler.

Thanks for that info. How does changing the start time help? It seems to run at random times regardless and if you set it during your work hours wont it just cause insomnia from that point on?

 

[gator2013]

Thanks for that info. How does changing the start time help? It seems to run at random times regardless and if you set it during your work hours wont it just cause insomnia from that point on?

I don't know if it will help in any given situation but if you change the Regular Maintenance schedule to run during daytime hours you won't have to deal with that task running at night and waking your computer and if the task starts during the day when you are using the PC the task will only start when system is idle and the task will cease when not idle. I think a bare minimum of these tasks are in the registry and cannot be easily changed and some bare minimum of the task is going to run at some periodic interval no matter what you do which is why I manually trigger the Regular Maintenance Task so at the very least I am fulfilling some minimum requirement.

I have not yet tried all the different combinations to see what will stick and what won't because some of the changes I have tried to make are reversed after a Shutdown or Restart. I don't think there is much you can do to alter the Idle Maintenance Routine because the Trigger is set to run at PC idle and cease when not idle.

 

[NCguy]

The only thing file history is good for, is to make ghost image. That great feature of Win 7 is hidden there. If you find something please let me know!

You sound knowledgeable with the security issues related to disabling the subtasks. Are you saying that if I disable the subtask that windows will come behind me later and re-enable it? On the surface disabling the subtasks looks pretty straightforward.

Yeah, I succeed once by playing with privileges and group policy, but I DON'T RECOMMEND IT. There is no easy way to disable maintenance for real, the maintenance configurator task will re-enable the maintenance no matter how many times you disable it.

"In the idle maintenance properties, you can intelligently change the conditions in such a way that it is never satisfied. Windows requires either one of the conditions to be enabled. In my case I have set it to be enabled only when the PC is connected with a non-existent Wifi connection."

Here:

[How To] Completely Disable Idle Maintenance in Windows 8.1

Tell me if it solves your sleep issue after that!

That procedure addresses idle maintenance. I'm assuming that you could change regular maintenance to an unsatisfied condition the same way? Anyway its interesting. It does say in the article though that "disabling" regular maintenance also solves the problem. Actually when I tried that windows reset regular maintenance from disabled to ready on me the same way that the article says that it resets idle maintenance.

 

[NCguy]

OK, my PC is back asleep. Solution for me is to not log onto MS account/Onedrive on bootup. Instead, I am back on local account. I forgot that I logged in for some reason or another and didn't bother to see if that was the cause of my sleep issue.

Issue Solved (for now)

Onedrive is actually one of the things I like about W8.1. You can't use it at all on a local account can you?

 

[NCguy]

I guess a good start would be to know who else is having the insomnia after regular maintenance runs. You can tell when it runs by going into the task scheduler and then navigating to the path that I listed above. At the top it shows you "Last Time Run". I've found this is the only place to see it reliably because, at least for me, it isn't posted to the system log.

You can also see the Last Run of Idle Maintenance/Scheduled Maintenance in the Action Center.

View attachment 39971

I have been looking at this as well. It appears that Idle Maintenance and Regular Maintenance perform similar actions and whether the latest run is triggered by the Idle Routine or the Regular Maintenance Routine the last run time is listed in the Action Center as well as the Task Scheduler. The Actions for both are simply listed as Custom Handler in the Task Actions.

My system exhibits some of the same sleep quirks that others have described but not identical. I generally shut down at night so the late night maintenance is of no consequence and I usually trigger it manually at some point during the day before I walk away for a bit. It usually takes about 15 minutes to complete and I can always tell from my Norton Performance graph if Idle Maintenance was run.

When I start my PC in the morning it will sleep perfectly according to my set Power Plan but by late in the day or early evening the PC will not go to sleep on it's own and sleep must be manually triggered to sleep, however, if I shutdown or Restart the PC will once again Sleep on it's own.

Personally, at least for my PC, I think the problem is some quirks with the way the Task Scheduler interacts with some of the scheduled tasks and the automatic maintenance is probably part of it. I am on a Desktop so preserving a battery is not an issue and while a bit annoying the inconsistent Sleep process is not something I will lose any sleep over. but if this was a Laptop I would be a bit more concerned. The only thing I can find that you can effectively change is the Scheduled Time for the Automatic Maintenance and that time can be changed in the Action Center and well as the Task Scheduler.

This article shows the individual scheduled tasks that are launched by regular maintenance and where they are located. I believe they can be individually disabled but it may not stick. The calls for these are probably in the task handler you referenced.

Why You Shouldn?t Disable The Task Scheduler Service in Windows 7 and Windows 8 - Ask Premier Field Engineering (PFE) Platforms - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

 

[johnpombrio]

John, I stumbled upon the exactly same thread myself and disabled fast start up as advised. So far, the issue has not reoccurred, but it's not clear to me if I should leave it off and live with slower bootup or if I am to switch it back on.

The whole issue must be related to a recent driver update as it is entirely new. I always install newest drivers suggested through Intel's Driver Auto Update website or from my Mobo manufacturer's homepage.

I will probably also switch from MS to local account as you did as there does not seem to be much value in having Windows linked to the MS account anyway.

Steve, If you have a boot SSD, then no worries about disabling fast startup. If you have a hard drive, simply try booting it a few times with fast startup disabled/enabled to see the difference. It probably will not be much.

The nice thing about disabling Fast startup is that it disables hibernate. If you have an SSD, you can then delete the hibfil.sys file that takes up precious room on the drive.

 

[linw]

OK, my PC is back asleep. Solution for me is to not log onto MS account/Onedrive on bootup. Instead, I am back on local account. I forgot that I logged in for some reason or another and didn't bother to see if that was the cause of my sleep issue.

Issue Solved (for now)

I'm in the same boat. I have to use a local login to get back to reasonably reliable sleep performance. It is a network thing as unplugging the network cable has the same effect (improve sleep) when in network login mode.

 

[johnpombrio]

OK, my PC is back asleep. Solution for me is to not log onto MS account/Onedrive on bootup. Instead, I am back on local account. I forgot that I logged in for some reason or another and didn't bother to see if that was the cause of my sleep issue.

I'm in the same boat. I have to use a local login to get back to reasonably reliable sleep performance. It is a network thing as unplugging the network cable has the same effect (improve sleep) when in network login mode.

Lin, My computer was not asleep for a couple of times yesterday so not a solution.

 

[johnpombrio]

So computer has been awake for 4 times in the past couple of day so logging off of MS live account was not a solution. I have a feeling like others here that it really depends on how long it has been since the last reboot that makes the computer more likely to sleep.

Here is the damage of not sleeping. Using a Kil-a-Watt meter, my computer idles at 88 watts. Sleeps at 3-4W. At, say, 10 cents per KWh, that is 20 cents a day, $75/year. Good reason to try to get the computer to sleep. The other is noise, dust intake, and lights shining in the room.

 

[Steve06]

John, this all confirms my conjectures of months ago (sadly).

I remember you reporting after the Dec updates or so that the insomnia had been cured for at least one of your computers. Does this still hold? If yes, how do your computers differ in terms of hardware?

 

[linw]

@John - Even more reason in NZ as our power charges are around 20 US cents per kwh.

It's interesting that we can't seem to find a pattern between us. Just when I thought I could see a similarity between yours and mine you come straight back and say it isn't so!

And I don't have the problem of time after boot. It sleeps OK but it is still not right as it ignores requests when playing vids from a browser.

But my netbook seems to have it sorted. It sleeps reliably AND it stays awake for vid/browser playing.

 

[johnpombrio]

John, this all confirms my conjectures of months ago (sadly).

I remember you reporting after the Dec updates or so that the insomnia had been cured for at least one of your computers. Does this still hold? If yes, how do your computers differ in terms of hardware?

Steve, seems like the Win8.1.1 update (the one that is going to be released in a couple of weeks) might have broke my main computer again. Out of the 4 computers in the house, only one has a sleep issue. Unfortunately, it is my most used computer.

 

[NCguy]

Have you guys checked to see if regular maintenance is the cause and reboot resets it?

 

[orbitalfenestra]

I wonder if someone would happen to have a brand new 8.1 laptop or a PC with all win 8.1 certified hardware, if that person would experience such issues... Maybe this is it guys: there is a gap between win 8 and 8.1 and our hardware or at least some of it became legacy!

 

[NCguy]

I wonder if someone would happen to have a brand new 8.1 laptop or a PC with all win 8.1 certified hardware, if that person would experience such issues... Maybe this is it guys: there is a gap between win 8 and 8.1 and our hardware or at least some of it became legacy!

Are they actually certifying hardware for 8.1? Is it common for them to certify for a point release?

 

[orbitalfenestra]

I wonder if someone would happen to have a brand new 8.1 laptop or a PC with all win 8.1 certified hardware, if that person would experience such issues... Maybe this is it guys: there is a gap between win 8 and 8.1 and our hardware or at least some of it became legacy!

Are they actually certifying hardware for 8.1? Is it common for them to certify for a point release?

I think that drivers have hard time with 8.1 win 7 to win 8 was smoother. I'm just curious if I would go to a store and purchase a brand new laptop if I could reproduce the same issues.

 

[NCguy]

I wonder if someone would happen to have a brand new 8.1 laptop or a PC with all win 8.1 certified hardware, if that person would experience such issues... Maybe this is it guys: there is a gap between win 8 and 8.1 and our hardware or at least some of it became legacy!

Are they actually certifying hardware for 8.1? Is it common for them to certify for a point release?

I think that drivers have hard time with 8.1 win 7 to win 8 was smoother. I'm just curious if I would go to a store and purchase a brand new laptop if I could reproduce the same issues.

Personally, I think the chances are high.