Ok so i’m currently running Windows 7 RC and last night I was downloading a game demo but really wanted to go sleep. The game had another 30 mins until the download ended and so I though oh well the computer sleeps after 60 mins of none usage so I will just leave it. When I woke up this morning I noticed, well heard my Computer Fans whirring around so i turned on the monitor expecting to see some sort of error message but there wasn’t. All that was showing was the login screen. So I sat down and had a think why this could be and then thought of a way to solve the problem. Here’s what I did:

Step 1

Ok so the first step is to find out what is causing the computer to wake up that’s if it is going to sleep at all. Certain devices connected to your computer can cause it to either not sleep or wake up from sleep. These can include your keyboard when a certain key is pressed, mouse movement etc. I found the best way to find out what was causing this problem would be to check the Event Viewer…

On Vista/Win7 Click Start then type, Event Viewer, Hit Enter.

Step 2

Fig1 - Event Viewer Navigation

The Event Viewer is a great tool that lets you see what the system is doing and what applications are doing. It is a great way of solving problems but is often not used as its hidden away in the control panel. Anyway once this has loaded a Overview screen is shown with a navigation bar running down the left side as shown in Fig 1 on the right. You need to navigate to…

Windows Logs -> System

Step 3

Fig 2 - Event Viewer

Now you need to navigate down the list to the time you roughly expected the computer to sleep. You need to look for an Event Source called Power Troubleshooter. Once you find this in the list click on the item and below the list you should see further information as shown in Fig 3. You may be able to find the problem easier by sorting the Source by clicking “Source” this can take some time.

Step 4

Fig 3 - Event Information

The Event Information shows that the computer has returned from sleep and we can see what time it started to sleep. It is showing the computer went to sleep for around 30 seconds which is obviously the issue so we need to know what has woke it so quickly…

Step 5

Fig 4 - Event Information

Scroll down the information and this shows what the Wake Source was. In this instance my NVIDIA networking Controller was waking the system. This gives you a great lead to solving the problem.

Step 6

Fig 5 - Device Manager

Now Click Start and Type Device Manager and click Enter.

The Device Manager loads now you need to navigate to where the Wake Source is listed. For the NVIDIA Networking Controller it is under Network Adapters.

Now Right Click, chose Properties, and looking at the tabs across the top select Power Management. Both Allow the computer to turn off this device and allow this device to wake the computer were ticked. So UNTICK Allow this Device to Wake the Computer and click OK. This will prevent this device from waking the computer.

Using the Steps above solved the issue when I tested it later.