Computer Won't Go to Sleep Automatically

Hi all,

After I upgraded to Windows 10, my system won't go to sleep automatically. The display will turn off after the idle time I've set but the computer remains on. I've tested with setting it to sleep after being idle for 1 minute, and only the display turns off. If I manually go to Power -> Sleep in the Start Menu, it will go to sleep.

Hi, there are a great many threads discussing sleep issues on the forum- have you tried these at all?
One way to search is (as a normal search)
"will not sleep" site:Windows 10 blog
(vary the string, look for solved threads)

Or you can search the forum directly using the search box- I find I get what I'm looking for more easily using the first, oddly enough.

Please post back and let us know what you've tried.

E.g.
Originally Posted by rno2
Sometimes it is your network adapter. Go to device manager, then network adapters and click on properties. Then click on the power managerment tab and uncheck "allow this device to wake the computer".

Hi, there are a great many threads discussing sleep issues on the forum- have you tried these at all?
One way to search is (as a normal search)
"will not sleep" site:Windows 10 blog
(vary the string, look for solved threads)

Or you can search the forum directly using the search box- I find I get what I'm looking for more easily using the first, oddly enough.

Please post back and let us know what you've tried.

Thanks for the reply. I followed your suggestion and searched for other threads. I found one where they suggested using the powercfg -requests command. I tried that and found it says my Creative sound card driver is likely keeping it awake, it says "An audio stream is currently in use" even though I have no audio playing. So I assume this is a driver issue with Creative and will just have to wait for an update.

Good, but there may not be just one cause.. and one solution may be to use the previous version of the driver, or temporarily disable it for test purposes.

Unfortunately some experience driver incompatibilities in different ways- for example I have Ashampoo programs that can't now find my sound card, and Audacity > v2.03 won't play sound.

Maybe you can find a temporary solution here srvnet prevents Windows 8 computer from sleeping tell windows to ignore the request.

I tried to disable the device. It longer shows up in the powercfg /requests, but it still will not go automatically to sleep. I'm not sure what's causing it anymore.

Did you upgrade to Win 10 or clean install?
Does sleep work properly (timed) in Safe Mode?

Have you tried this to see if it gives info on sthg keeping your PC awake?
(Found following the search procedure I suggested)
Wake Source - Read Event Viewer Log - Windows 7 Help blog

Here's sthg else you can try as an experiment:
Disable ‘Wake timers’
double check to make sure that "Allow wake timers" under "Sleep" in your power plan settings is disabled in case it may be some task (ex: Automatic Maintenance) waking the PC to perform something.

Power Plan Settings - Change

It's definitely something to do with my soundcard. I physically removed it from the computer and it was able to sleep automatically.

Hi, good.. ok, so can you use an older driver? If so, you will need to stop Windows updating it. The forum has a tutorial on how to do that.