DISCLAIMER: I’m complaining about a computer I’ve owned for less than 48 hours … I still have a lot to learn, tweak and “get to know” about it.

Why is my Windows 7 Computer sleeping, I set it to NEVER sleep?

I just bought a new computer with Windows 7 Home Premium and I’m disappointed about a few things, especially considering I opted NOT to buy a bargain-priced PC but to invest in my budding business. I decided there were 3 or 4 important things my computer must do, and went out and bought a computer that wasn’t extravagantly priced but did what I needed. I was pleased to find that Alienware had such a PC at Best Buy!

I promptly got setup after finding out that the “Important Information – 512e Hard Drive” warning, an Orange pamphlet with entirely too little useful information, did not apply to me – but I diverge. After getting set up I installed anti-virus, and a video capture program which was one of the things that made me realize my old “prize computer” which is about 4 years old wasn’t doing everything I needed, and after I re-evaluated it wasn’t doing some of the things I wanted it to do either.

So I installed the video capture, captured some video, set the program off to crunching the video which normally takes an hour or two, then off to bed I went skipping happily knowing my brand new trusty Alienware PC was taking care of business for me. But it wasn’t. Why did my computer stop working and go to sleep? I went to the Microsoft Windows 7 Sleep and Hibernation FAQ page and read about Sleep (primarily for desktops), Hibernate (primarily for laptops) and Hybrid Sleep (primarily for desktops).

I went to START > Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options and I could see it was set for High performance (Favors performance, but may use more energy) and though I was safe. Then I looked off to the left and saw and clicked on “Choose when to turn off the display. I could see it was set to turn off the display in 20 minutes and put the computer to sleep never – so I was good. Right? Of course not … I should have been, but don’t forget the computer stopped working on my video.

Then I noticed Change advanced power settings and clicked on it, and under Sleep it has settings for:

  • Sleep after
  • Allow hybrid sleep
  • Hibernate after
  • Allow wake timers

Sleep after, Hibernate after and Allow wake timers sound fine, and did not interfere. But what’s this “Hybrid sleep”? That Microsoft Sleep & Hibernate FAQ I mentioned earlier says:

Hybrid sleep is designed primarily for desktop computers. Hybrid sleep is a combination of sleep and hibernate—it puts any open documents and programs in memory and on your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state so that you can quickly resume your work. That way, if a power failure occurs, Windows can restore your work from your hard disk. When hybrid sleep is turned on, putting your computer into sleep automatically puts your computer into hybrid sleep. Hybrid sleep is typically turned on by default on desktop computers.

What!? So, in other words, Hybrid sleep is designed to ignore the previous Sleep setting.

New Windows 7 Users Who Want Sleep Off

If you don’t want your computer to Sleep (in any way, shape of form), but you want your monitors to turn off after a reasonable period of inactivity, make sure to turn Hybrid Sleep Off also:

START > Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options then click Change Plan Settings (really you could click Change plan settings, Choose when to turn off the display OR Change when the computer sleeps), then click Change advanced power settings, scroll down to and click Sleep, then Allow hybrid sleep, the click Setting: On and change it to Off, then click Apply and finally OK.

I’m going to try crunching my video file again, and I hope you go back to your PC and get happily turn off that sneaky “Sleep Part II” setting.

Happy computing!