Computer won't go to sleep

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

So recently my Windows 7 computer will go idle and the monitor will go to sleep, but the computer won't. If I restart the computer, for a day or two it'll sleep automatically, but then randomly just doesn't, only the monitor goes to sleep but the computer stays on. I check the Norton Internet Security performance tab, and it showed my computer idle for almost 2 hours and yet the computer didn't go to sleep once, but the monitor went to sleep. Also in the Norton performance tab, every 10 or so minutes a little thing called svchost.exe ran at 1% for a few seconds, but this always ran before, too, and never was there a problem. Can the svchost.exe be keeping the computer awake? Or what is keeping it awake?

 

It seems like ever since Norton autoupdated to 2014 last weekend the computer's having sleep problems.

2
MedievalMan wrote:

So recently my Windows 7 computer will go idle and the monitor will go to sleep, but the computer won't. If I restart the computer, for a day or two it'll sleep automatically, but then randomly just doesn't, only the monitor goes to sleep but the computer stays on. I check the Norton Internet Security performance tab, and it showed my computer idle for almost 2 hours and yet the computer didn't go to sleep once, but the monitor went to sleep. Also in the Norton performance tab, every 10 or so minutes a little thing called svchost.exe ran at 1% for a few seconds, but this always ran before, too, and never was there a problem. Can the svchost.exe be keeping the computer awake? Or what is keeping it awake?

 

It seems like ever since Norton autoupdated to 2014 last weekend the computer's having sleep problems.

It may be that your PC is receiving another requests to remain awake and the timing with the Norton update may be co-incidental.

 

One way to check this is to use "powercfg" in CMD to check for internal or external requests that can prevent a PC from sleeping.

 

To run some modes of "powercfg", CMD needs to be launched with Admin privilege.

 

Click the Start menu

 

In the "Search for Programs" field, enter cmd  and then right-click the cmd icon.  Click "Run as Administrator".

 

In the CMD window, enter

 

powercfg /requests

 

Here's a couple of CMD screencaps from my PC's CMD window.

 

The 1st screencap shows that my PC will remain awake due to its streaming app in use.  I was watching a live TV show streamed to the PC at the time I captured the screencap.

 

Capture.PNG

 

 

This screencap was taken after I closed my TV/streaming program on my PC.  This would be ideally what you'd like to see if your PC's "sleep" mode is working correctly.

 

Capture 2.PNG

 

I had a similar issue with my Laptop a year ago where my Laptop was being prevented from sleeping by a request originating from my Desktop PC via my Windows 7 Homegroup network.

 

I used the "-requestsoverride" parameter to eliminate the external request.

 

Here's an example of the parameter usage in CMD:

 

powercfg -requestsoverride usage, ie, if PC is waking up without a user input or remaining awake:

 

Usage: POWERCFG -REQUESTSOVERRIDE <CALLER_TYPE> <NAME> <REQUEST> <CALLER_TYPE> Specifies one of the following caller type: PROCESS, SERVICE, DRIVER. This is obtained by calling the POWERCFG -REQUESTS command. <NAME> Specifies the caller name. This is the name returned from calling POWERCFG -REQUESTS command. <REQUEST>

Specifies one or more of the following Power. Request Types: Display, System, Awaymode. Example: POWERCFG

 

-REQUESTSOVERRIDE PROCESS wmplayer.exe Display System

 

 

Here's how I put my PC's to sleep.  It's not a solution to your issue but just something to consider as it works good for me and it's similar the "lock workstation" function that's available in Windows with the <win> l  key combination.

 

I mapped my "s" key to put the PC's to sleep with <win> s   .  There are several ways to do it but I use a script app to map various other key functions so I added a "sleep" hotkey that I use in the same way that some PC users use the <win> l   default Windows keymap that will lock a PC while the user is away from the PC. 

3

So recently my Windows 7 computer will go idle and the monitor will go to sleep, but the computer won't. If I restart the computer, for a day or two it'll sleep automatically, but then randomly just doesn't, only the monitor goes to sleep but the computer stays on. I check the Norton Internet Security performance tab, and it showed my computer idle for almost 2 hours and yet the computer didn't go to sleep once, but the monitor went to sleep. Also in the Norton performance tab, every 10 or so minutes a little thing called svchost.exe ran at 1% for a few seconds, but this always ran before, too, and never was there a problem. Can the svchost.exe be keeping the computer awake? Or what is keeping it awake?

 

It seems like ever since Norton autoupdated to 2014 last weekend the computer's having sleep problems.

4

Hi MedievalMan,

   May be its a problem with norton's tasks as Scoop8 told. Please post the results of steps defined by him the next time when you encounter this problem( Any running program or process can also cause this). Sometimes if there is some incompactable hardware or missing/corrupted/outdated drivers in your system, this problem can occur. Please keep us posted.

 

5

How do I open powercfg? Everytime I type it in in the search bar in Start, I click it, but a little window pops up then immediately closes, and nothing happens. So how do I open powercfg to check? And if I open powercfg will it mess with my computer in any way?

 

Also, I noticed a process called System Idle Process using 93+ CPU. People said this is nothing, but can this prevent computer from sleep? The computer went to sleep automatically by itself the last day, but then it seems to go idle with the monitor shutting off but computer won't sleep. Usually after a restart it'll do the same thing: sleep on its own for a day or two then do this. So how do I get in to the powercfg window?

6
MedievalMan wrote:

How do I open powercfg? Everytime I type it in in the search bar in Start, I click it, but a little window pops up then immediately closes, and nothing happens. So how do I open powercfg to check? And if I open powercfg will it mess with my computer in any way?

 

Also, I noticed a process called System Idle Process using 93+ CPU. People said this is nothing, but can this prevent computer from sleep? The computer went to sleep automatically by itself the last day, but then it seems to go idle with the monitor shutting off but computer won't sleep. Usually after a restart it'll do the same thing: sleep on its own for a day or two then do this. So how do I get in to the powercfg window?

Hi

 

To run the "powercfg" command, you first need to open the "cmd" window.

 

To open a CMD window, click on the Start button. 

 

In the "search program and files" box, enter "cmd"  (without the quotes).

 

You should see the search results similar to this:

 

Capture 2.PNG

 

 

Then, right-click on the CMD icon.  You should see this:

 

Capture 3.PNG

 

 

 

Left-click on the "Run As Administrator" line in the menu box.

 

You will then see what is called a "UAC" prompt, asking you for permission to run the CMD program as an Administrator,  Click "ok".

 

Then you'll see the CMD window open.

 

Capture 4.PNG

 

At the CMD prompt, enter "powercfg /requests"  (no quotes).

 

You should see a result similar to my earlier post examples.

 

The reason this CMD screen is black background and my previous post screencaps look different with the blue font, is because the default CMD window opens with a black background and a smaller white font, and CMD opens in the user's Windows\system32 directory.

 

I run CMD with a batch file so that I can see the CMD screen easier and with larger fonts and will open in my top C: directory.  The eyes ain't* what they used to be for me :smileyvery-happy:  * official Texas vocabulary word :smileyhappy:

 

Regarding your CPU usage question, the "System Idle Process" issue should be ok as others had mentioned to you.  Here's what mine looks like at present:

 

Capture.PNG

 

 As far as I know, the Idle process won't prevent the PC from entering the Sleep mode but I rarely use the timeout/sleep method as I mentioned in my previous post.  I use the "manual" Sleep method, selecting Sleep from the Windows Menu from a hotkey or from the Windows "Shutdown" menu which can be accessed from the Start button or using <alt> F4 key from a Desktop Active state.

7

The system idle process is just the remaining percentage of CPU time after all running processes are accounted for. It is not actually a working process, so it will not conflict with a sleep request.

 

 

 

8

Alright, so I did the powercfg thing and yesterday under all the options (Display, Drivers, Away) it said "None" and went to sleep as normal yesterday. Now today, it goes to sleep for a minute then wakes up (usually takes it longer than the 20 minutes from idle for it to sleep), did the powercfg and under System it said: [Driver] \FileSystem\svrnet: An active remote client has recently sent requests to this machine". What does that mean? My little brothers have a computer upstairs that they are using, can something from their computer be keeping mine awake? But theirs falls asleep with no problems. How can I stop this request or whatever? I saw you can "request override", but I don't know how to input that and i don't want to mess anything up.

 

EDIT: Ok, now when I did it a few minutes later the request was gone. So what is the request? And do they eventually go away to let the computer sleep? But still, how do I override it for future purposes? And if I override it once, do I have to do it every time?

9
MedievalMan wrote:

Alright, so I did the powercfg thing and yesterday under all the options (Display, Drivers, Away) it said "None" and went to sleep as normal yesterday. Now today, it goes to sleep for a minute then wakes up (usually takes it longer than the 20 minutes from idle for it to sleep), did the powercfg and under System it said: [Driver] \FileSystem\svrnet: An active remote client has recently sent requests to this machine". What does that mean? My little brothers have a computer upstairs that they are using, can something from their computer be keeping mine awake? But theirs falls asleep with no problems. How can I stop this request or whatever? I saw you can "request override", but I don't know how to input that and i don't want to mess anything up.

 

EDIT: Ok, now when I did it a few minutes later the request was gone. So what is the request? And do they eventually go away to let the computer sleep? But still, how do I override it for future purposes? And if I override it once, do I have to do it every time?

 

Hi, MedievalMan.  What powercfg is telling you is that something from outside (remote client) is logging into your computer (if the thing logging in is a remote client, your Computer is acting like a Server) and causing it to "wake up" to service the requests from the remote client.  This is normal and correct behaviour - all that powercfg is telling you is why you are being "pulled out of sleep".

 

 

Now, the next question - What remote client?  There are a bunch of possibilities:

 

A little work with Google turned up the following:

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/bce158e2-d057-4761-b715-5f68b8002fc2/not-sleeping-due-to-filesystemsrvnet?forum=w7itproui

 

 

Good place to start.

 

 

10

So the remote client could be from my little brother's computer then? He created a homegroup, I guess, and I left it, so we'll see if that works. But I already had media streaming turned off and allow the computer to sleep etc. But again, could the remote client be my brother's computer?

11
MedievalMan wrote:

Alright, so I did the powercfg thing and yesterday under all the options (Display, Drivers, Away) it said "None" and went to sleep as normal yesterday. Now today, it goes to sleep for a minute then wakes up (usually takes it longer than the 20 minutes from idle for it to sleep), did the powercfg and under System it said: [Driver] \FileSystem\svrnet: An active remote client has recently sent requests to this machine". What does that mean? My little brothers have a computer upstairs that they are using, can something from their computer be keeping mine awake? But theirs falls asleep with no problems. How can I stop this request or whatever? I saw you can "request override", but I don't know how to input that and i don't want to mess anything up.

 

EDIT: Ok, now when I did it a few minutes later the request was gone. So what is the request? And do they eventually go away to let the computer sleep? But still, how do I override it for future purposes? And if I override it once, do I have to do it every time?

The pwercfg information could be pointing toward the Sleep issue on your PC.

 

twixt provided a good link about the topic.  I recognize that link when I was reading about this issue regarding my Laptop issue last year.  I can't recall exactly which external item was keeping my Laptop awake when I was researching this a year ago but I was able to get it resolved with the "override" parameter in Poweecfg.

 

If I recall, I had to enter the override option twice as the first time, the results didn't retain over a Restart/reboot.  After I entered the command again, it worked.

 

However, I don't use the auto-timeout method for Sleep on my PC's.  I manually invoke the Sleep mode as I described earlier.  I've found that it works better for me that way.

 

Check the example of the "override" parameter in my earlier post #4.

MedievalMan wrote:

So the remote client could be from my little brother's computer then? He created a homegroup, I guess, and I left it, so we'll see if that works. But I already had media streaming turned off and allow the computer to sleep etc. But again, could the remote client be my brother's computer?

It could be the solution for your issue as that was similar in my Laptop issue.  Something from my Desktop PC, via my Homegroup, was keeping my Laptop from entering Sleep mode.  However, I wasn't having the issue that you are, where your PC is being awakened after entering the Sleep mode.

 

Unfortunately, this "Sleep / Hibernation" issue can be rather complicated in finding a solution to a particular PC as configeration's are vastly diverse among home PC setup's and install's. 

 

One suggestion would be to try the override parameter but before executing the command, write down the exact item that was reported using the "requests" command that you did earlier. 

 

Then, if the override command didn't fix your Sleep issue, you can re-enable that item by using another parameter command from "Powercfg" like this:

 

-DEVICEENABLEWAKE            

 

Enable the device to wake the system from a sleep state.

Usage: POWERCFG -DEVICEENABLEWAKE <devicename>

<devicename>  Specifies a device retrieved using  "PowerCfg -DEVICEQUERY wake_programmable".

Example:  POWERCFG -DEVICEENABLEWAKE  "Microsoft USB IntelliMouse Explorer"