Found a program preventing the computer from sleeping!

joebedford wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:
Seriously though, I fail to understand why folks insist on having their PCs "sleep" or "hibernate"

Don't worry about it. It's not important enough to take the time to explain it to you.

I'll respond.

The sleep and hibernate features are good features if using a lap-top, especially if the lap-top is running on battery power only. It prolongs the battery from running down so quick, if the computer is unattended.

Unfortunately, the hibernate and sleep and even the screen saver features are built into the software that's loaded on every PC, laptop or desktop.

No everyone wants the sleep, hibernation, or even screen saver activated. They want their computers ON and left ON, and depending on what they are using their computers for, that's perfectly OK. It might not be for everyone, but the option should be available.

Then there are those who want, or need the sleep-hibernation-screen savers to be active. In an office setting it's for security reasons, so someone cannot come along if you move away from your desk a while and someone could get on your computer and .... say ... send hateful e-mails to the company CEO ... and YOUR email address would be the sending e-mail. You'd be fired before you get back to your desk.

Sometimes, folks use there computers at home. OK, not everyone is above board, and hide things from their family members, and visit web site, or who knows what that they don't want someone else to see. Screen saver with password to restart, hibernation is used extensively.

Either way, it's not right or wrong. It's just the we each want to use our own equipment.

Gdetrailer wrote:
Seriously though, I fail to understand why folks insist on having their PCs "sleep" or "hibernate"

Don't worry about it. It's not important enough to take the time to explain it to you.

I would caution on having an XP computer connected to the internet since it is no longer supported. Are you running good third party security software to protect vulnerabilities? There are more knowledgable people on here than me but you need more than virus protection since XP isn't supported and vulnerabilities are no longer patched.

Gdetrailer wrote:

My Roadtrek wrote:
If you have an older computer running Windows 10 make sure to upgrade the video card drivers. Older cards can cause shut down, and sleep problems. Even with the updated drivers the Sleep option may no longer be avaiable because the video card/drivers are just too old. A new video card then would be needed.

BS..

Updating drivers for the sake of having the latest drivers can cause a heck of a lot MORE problems..

One should really be very careful with installing the newest drivers since the newest often will break something in the process..

Many cases of a innocent driver update which does not support a mode you were using or worse yet corrupting your OS to the point of no return..

Drivers as long as they are working properly DO NOT "GO OUT OF DATE"..

Update at your own risk.

BS to you too.
Updating video drivers.
I agree with your overall statement about drivers, but graphics card drivers are different, and in many cases improve performance.
One of the biggest problems with not being able to update to Windows 10 on an older PC is the video card drivers. Windows 10 will tell you that the video card is not compatible with Win 10, Updating the video drivers will solve this problem on a lot of PC's.
All one has to do is go to the manufactures website and check for an updated video driver. Manufactures know this is a problem and are updating many of the cards drivers.
I have had to do this with 3 PC's to allow Windows 10 to install.

Gdetrailer wrote:

Naio wrote:
Those windows settings don't always work. Depends on what version of windows you have. XP might be ok, but, on the newer versions of windows you can select 'never sleep' all you want but the computer will still sleep.

Umm. No, not correct.

I just double checked one of my Win7 machines..

Win7 gives you MANY MORE "options" in the power settings than XP, some options DEPEND on you setting OTHER "options" correctly in order to stop all the power savings sleep modes.

XP was much simpler but in simpler you had less options for tweeking. Win7 and above the multitude of options allows for some fine tuning..

What the problem is, the power settings are a lot harder to FIND in Win7 and up, they are buried and not where one would expect.

While one could use a third party software to turn off power savings modes (easy) it is not necessary if you are not lazy and willing to kick some Windoze settings tires along the way (a bit harder)..

For me, the settings were easy to find and understand. I didn't mention windows 7 because I have, as I said, had this experience with many modern versions of windows. Perhaps it is an issue with laptop manufacturers customising windows.

In windows 7 light version, of course, MANY of the user settings appear to work (no error message) but do not in fact work. You cannot set your own desktop wallpaper, for example.

My Roadtrek wrote:
If you have an older computer running Windows 10 make sure to upgrade the video card drivers. Older cards can cause shut down, and sleep problems. Even with the updated drivers the Sleep option may no longer be avaiable because the video card/drivers are just too old. A new video card then would be needed.

BS..

Updating drivers for the sake of having the latest drivers can cause a heck of a lot MORE problems..

One should really be very careful with installing the newest drivers since the newest often will break something in the process..

Many cases of a innocent driver update which does not support a mode you were using or worse yet corrupting your OS to the point of no return..

Drivers as long as they are working properly DO NOT "GO OUT OF DATE"..

Update at your own risk.

If you have an older computer running Windows 10 make sure to upgrade the video card drivers. Older cards can cause shut down, and sleep problems. Even with the updated drivers the Sleep option may no longer be avaiable because the video card/drivers are just too old. A new video card then would be needed.

joebedford wrote:
Hey - if you find one that puts the machine to sleep, please let me know. My machine will not automatically sleep despite all settings saying to do so. I have to manually sleep it using the start menu.

Get a bigger hammer?



Seriously though, I fail to understand why folks insist on having their PCs "sleep" or "hibernate".. Given the speed PCs boot now days and if you have a SSD drive, boot up time from a cold start is one or two seconds.. For all intents and purposes as fast as taking a PC out of hiboernate or sleep mode..

I NEVER allow my PCs to automatically sleep or hibernate.. Windows has to temporarily "save" all the open files when it does this.. Gives the OS a real good chance to bork up something in the process..

I turn my PC on at the beginning of the day and before I go to bed I shut the PC down properly then I turn the surge protector OFF that the PC is plugged into.. This ensures my desktop PC is completely powered off adding years to the power supply life..

Laptops, you simply turn the blasted thing off and that allows the charger to top off the battery overnight..

Hey - if you find one that puts the machine to sleep, please let me know. My machine will not automatically sleep despite all settings saying to do so. I have to manually sleep it using the start menu.

This may or may not be relevant in your case? But I use both PC and MAC side by side at work, all networked together. I've got Adobe CS6 Design Suite installed on an iMAC. Which, to no surprise, is used for media graphics work. Files are shared between the PC. Think of it like a local Dropbox.

The problem I have on the PC is that its set by policy to sign out the user with no activity every 15 minutes. Which is especially annoying having to constantly log back in when I'm working on the iMAC. The policy is set on the enterprise level, so nothing I can do to change it.

Yes, there are apps that move the mouse one pixel at a set time to keep from logging off or going to sleep. But my solution was to create a small 100K video file that just loops constantly in the player. No audio. Just a still image, minimized to the task bar. I've set the video file to automatically play on WIN startup.

Windows never logs off or goes to sleep as it senses a user activity. Specifically, a video file playing. One that I don't actually even watch. Simple solution, and safer than trusting an third party program, which could be doing more than just keeping your system from going to sleep?