If you are working on your PC and are distracted for a minute, do you return to find it in sleep mode? How can you stop it or at least change it to give you more time? Here is the answer.
Having your PC go to sleep when you spend two minutes on a phone call, chat to someone or go and fetch a drink is very irritating and you have to wake the computer, and log back in before you can continue your work.
Why does it sleep so soon? Let’s look at the different ways to configure various settings in Windows 10 that are related to sleep. Hopefully one of them will fix your problem.
Check the battery
If you have a laptop, click the battery icon at the right side of the taskbar and see how the slider is set. If it is all the way to the left it means that maximum battery savings are set and this could cause the laptop to sleep sooner than it normally would.
Drag the slider all the way to the right (Best performance) and see if it solves the problem.
Set power and sleep settings
Open the Settings app by pressing Windows+I and click System. Select Power & sleep in the menu on the left. On the right are two sections, one for Screen and one for Sleep.
The computer can be in several different states and it can be running with the screen on or it can be running with the screen off. When the screen is off, it does not mean that the computer is sleeping. It could be, but it could also be running.
It is a good idea to set the computer to turn off the screen after it has been idle for a few minutes. It consumes a lot of power and so turning it off will lengthen the battery life. It helps to save a tiny bit on your electricity bill when running on mains power.
The screen setting has nothing to do with sleep and it will not put the computer into sleep mode.
The Sleep setting is an important one and after a certain length of time idling, it can put everything into a very low power state and almost, but not quite stop. Power consumption is minimal in this state, so it is a good idea to set the timeout to a fairly low number on battery power. It can be useful for saving mains electricity too.
Make sure these settings are not too short or too long.
These settings are still in the Control Panel and it is worth checking them there too. Go to Start > Windows System > Control Panel > Power Options and click the link on the left, Change when the computer sleeps.
Choose the settings you want for turning off the display and putting the computer to sleep.
Click Change advanced power settings and expand the Sleep section and Sleep after subsection. This should be the same as before, but check anyway.
Turn off the screen saver
The screen saver works on a timer and it could cause the computer to turn off the screen. It could even cause it to sleep. Turn it off and see if it fixes the problem.
Open the Windows Settings app and enter ‘screen saver‘ into the search box. Click Turn screen saver on or off in the search results.
Set the screen saver to (None) in the next window. Notice that there is an option On resume, display log-on screen. A screen saver could make the computer look like it is sleeping and then make you log on when you try to wake it.
Check for other utilities
Are there any other utilities running on your computer? Look for icons at the right side of the taskbar, especially ones that are hidden in that pop-up panel. Could any of them be putting the computer into sleep mode?
Sleep from the lock screen
One thing I have noticed is that the screen turns off sooner and the computer sleeps sooner if it is on the lock screen.
It is useful to press Windows+L when you leave your computer so that it locks and no-one else can access it. However, it then seems to blank the screen and power much sooner than if left running and logged in.
Is this by design or a bug?
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