Why Won't My Dell Laptop Go To Sleep?

[Doofus]

Inspiron 7548. 3 or 4 years old, running Windows 10.

No matter what I do with the power settings (its currently in 'balanced' default), the screen won't turn off and the laptop won't go to sleep. It's plugged in.

I've fked about with advanced settings over the past three days and nothing makes any difference. It works fine and as expected on battery.

It's getting on my tits. What's wrong with the piece of crap?

[Doofus]

GregK2 said:

Been into the additional power settings?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4027067/w...

Yep

[Doofus]

CorradoTDI said:

Has it ever worked?

I think so.

[Doofus]

Jimboka said:

Caffeine running?

Me no understandy. If Caffeine is a piece of software, then I don't think so, as I've never heard of it.

[Doofus]

stevensdrs said:

Have you unchecked the wake from sleep box on mouse settings and on your network adapter settings.?

Not that I know of. I'll try that.

Would that stop the screen switching off? The settings are screen off after 10 minutes, sleep after 30. It does neither.

[Doofus]

Incidentally, I don't know if it's related, but if I have a screensaver active, it doesn't kick in (yo).

[Doofus]

maccas99 said:

I don't have this problem but a quick browse of the web suggests you are not alone and the screen saver not working is related.

You can go to WIN+X , run Command Prompt (Admin) from there, and enter: powercfg -requests

This should tell you what's keeping the system online.

Within the same command prompt try running System File Checker (SFC /scannow) to see if there are any file issues.

You could also unplug all peripherals to see if something is keeping it online?

One final suggestion, create a new user account and login with that account to see if you get the same issue?

Thank you for that. I'll try this.

Also perhaps unrelated; when I plug in a Logitech 'unified' mouse, the built-in touch pad stops working, even though it's been set to 'not disable'

[Doofus]

stevensdrs said:

Yes. Any signal from the mouse or lan will reset the sleep timers back to zero and so it never gets to 10 minutes.

I have a setting called 'Sleep on WoWLAN Disconnect' which was Enabled, so I've Disabled it. Going to have some lunch, then I'll see what happens.

Should I do anything with "Wake On Magic Packet" or "Wake On Pattern Match"?

[Doofus]

Doofus said:

I have a setting called 'Sleep on WoWLAN Disconnect' which was Enabled, so I've Disabled it. Going to have some lunch, then I'll see what happens.

Answer: fk all.

[Doofus]

Jimboka said:

Sorry caffeine is software yes.
Typically used to keep the work computer ‘awake’ while cutting the grass etc

Still no understandy

It's not a work computer, and it's not on a network.

[Doofus]

Doofus said:

maccas99 said:

I don't have this problem but a quick browse of the web suggests you are not alone and the screen saver not working is related.

You can go to WIN+X , run Command Prompt (Admin) from there, and enter: powercfg -requests

This should tell you what's keeping the system online.

Within the same command prompt try running System File Checker (SFC /scannow) to see if there are any file issues.

You could also unplug all peripherals to see if something is keeping it online?

One final suggestion, create a new user account and login with that account to see if you get the same issue?

Thank you for that. I'll try this.

powercfg -requests

DISPLAY: None
SYSTEM: None
AWAYMODE: None
EXECUTION:None
PERFBOOST: None
ACTIVELOCKSCREEN: None


System File Check running now....

[Doofus]

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

The only peripheral plugged in is a unified mouse, so I'll unplug that and see...

[Doofus]

I unplugged the mouse and it made bugger all difference.

Because I'm clutching at straws, I'll turn the mouse off, rather than unplugging the dongle...

[Doofus]

Guess what?

That didn't work either.

[Doofus]

Dave. said:

Key stuck down?

https://www.passmark.com/products/keytest/

Nope.

[Doofus]

I've resorted to having the bd sleep when I close the lid. It's a PITA, because I have to log back on every time I want to use it rather than just wiggle the mouse to turn the screen back on, but it's that or throw the fker out of the window, so....

[Doofus]

JimSuperSix said:

Next time buy a Lenovo. 7+ times I had to cook my Dell POS with a heatgun to reflow the crappy motherboard joints, in the end I gave up a bought a Lenovo which has been flawless used 5 days a week for years.

One suggestion though - have you tried the Restart option, then see if there are any windows updates wanting to complete? I found on 2 PCs that Windows would sometimes refuse to turn off until I set it to restart instead, whereupon it seemed to get itself unfked and work properly again.

I've used Dells for years, with no reliability problems, and the only Lenovo I had was ugly, heavy and slow.

I've restarted the stupid thing three or four times this week to try to resolve this issue, so it's definitely UTD.

[Doofus]

JimSuperSix said:

Anyway, some ideas here:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/...

Thank you. I'll wade through that lot later this afternoon

[Doofus]

Gandahar said:

Screen prints of all your Power options settings screens please.

How many are there?

[Doofus]

The bloody thing has randomly started working properly this morning...