How to Protect Your Online Privacy: Best Practices for 2024
Learn how to protect your online privacy in 2024 with these essential best practices, from strong passwords to VPNs and safe browsing habits.
Sometimes your computer just doesn't want to stay asleep. You could hit the sleep button, see the screen go black, hear the fans stop spinning, and still be woken up by blinding lights in the middle of the night. Does this sound like a familiar story? Even when you're absolutely sure your computer is down for the night, processes continue running that can really ruin a good night's sleep. Here are a few ways to diagnose the problem and keep your computer down for the night.
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First Find Why Woke Your Computer?
If you want to know why woke your computer up, just open the Start menu and search “cmd,” then right-click the Command Prompt entry and choose Run As Administrator. Type the following command and press Enter:
powercfg -lastwakeNow you can show a clear answer from command prompt. If you notice that this problem is noticed from another apps or programs then you can adjust that program’s settings or uninstall it to stop the problem.
In other cases, it may list a specific hardware device, and you can skip down to the relevant section in this article or do a web search for what settings to change on that device. If the above command didn’t give you useful information, try below command:
powercfg -waketimersI’ve also had luck searching Windows’ Event Viewer for information. Click the Start menu, search for "Event Viewer," and launch the tool. In the sidebar, head to Windows Logs > System, then click Filter Current Log on the right side of the window. In Windows 11, it's called Create Custom View.
Choose Power-Troubleshooter from the Event Sources drop-down menu and click OK to see all the times your computer woke up recently and what caused them. Filtering by Kernel-Power may help too, but in my experience, it’s less likely to include useful data. Using that information, you can try some of the solutions below to keep your computer from waking up randomly next time.
Try Windows Update or Scheduled Maintenance
Windows Update is a fickle beast, and I’ve had it cause numerous unwanted wake ups in the past. There are a few ways to solve this problem. First, try using Windows Update’s built-in tools to more meticulously schedule those updates and reboots.
Set your Active Hours and defer updates until you have time to install them, and you may be able to solve this problem easily. In Windows 10, head to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update to pause updates or change active hours. Windows 11 users can open Settings > Windows Update to pause updates. To change active hours, click Advanced options > Active hours.
Note that some of these options may be unavailable if you received your computer through work.
Try Local Group Policy Editor
If you need to dig a little deeper into your settings, you will need a Pro or Enterprise edition of Windows 10 or 11 in order to access the Group Policy Editor. As long as you have something other than the Home edition, you can open the Start menu and search for "Group Policy."
With Local Group Policy Editor open, head to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update, then double-click Enabling Windows Update Power Management and set it to Disabled.
Try Change Automatic Maintenance Settings
Windows also runs an Automatic Maintenance set of tasks once per day, which it says includes software updates, security scans, and other jobs. Open the Start menu, search for "Automatic maintenance," and click Change Automatic Maintenance settings to open the Control Panel.
From this menu, you can either change the time this runs—I have mine set to run at 5 p.m.—or prevent it from waking the computer altogether by unchecking the Allow schedule maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time box at the bottom.
Find a Misconduct USB Device
Windows might indicate that a USB device is waking your computer, but you'll need to identify the specific culprit. It's often the mouse or keyboard—perhaps your cat finds it a fun toy when you're not around—but it could be any device.
If you're having trouble pinpointing the problem, try removing all USB devices the next time you put your computer to sleep. If it stays asleep, reintroduce one device at a time each night until you discover which one is causing the issue.
Once you find the problematic hardware, open the Start menu and search for "Device Manager." Find the device in the resulting list—say, your keyboard—and right-click on it. Select Properties and the Power Management tab, then uncheck the Allow This Device to Wake the Computer option and click OK.
If your computer doesn't stay asleep after this, you might also try entering the BIOS and disabling USB waking from there, if you see an option for it. (Enter the BIOS setup by pressing a key when your computer first boots, usually something like Delete or F2—the boot screen will tell you.)
Limit Your Network Adapter
One of my insomniac computers revealed that it was waking up due to an "Intel(R) I211 Gigabit Network Connection." This is the Ethernet port connecting my computer to the internet, indicating that some network activity is causing the wake-ups. You can address this issue through the Device Manager.
Open the Start menu, search for "Device Manager," and find the Ethernet or Wi-Fi adapter in question under Network Adapters. Right-click on it, choose Properties, and open the Power Management tab. Uncheck the Allow This Device to Wake the Computer option, and you should be golden. You may also find network wake up options in the BIOS, as described above.
Alternatively, you can keep that box checked, and select Only Allow a Magic Packet to Wake the Computer. A magic packet is useful if you use Wake-On-LAN to access sleeping computers remotely. It’ll ensure that Wake-On-LAN still works, without allowing just any network traffic to rouse your computer from its slumber.
Disable Wake Timers
If none of the above fix your issue, you may have to dig in to the wake timers set on your computer—that is, scheduled events that are allowed to wake your machine. Open the Start menu, search for "Edit Power Plan," and click Change Advanced Settings in the Edit Plan Settings window. Head to Sleep > Allow Wake Timers and change Battery and Plugged In to Disabled. Repeat this process for all your power plans in the drop-down menu at the top, not just the one you’re currently using.
Here’s the thing, though: This is a sweeping setting designed to affect all wake timers, which may mean it’s too overzealous for you (if you have certain wake timers you want turned on). It’s also weirdly ineffective, which means even if you do want to take this more extreme measure, it may not stop the wake timers—but feel free to adjust it anyway.
With that in mind, I also recommend opening PowerShell. Do this by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Windows PowerShell (Windows 10) or Windows Terminal (Windows 11). You can then run the following command:
Get-ScheduledTask | where {$_.settings.waketorun}
This may help you find scheduled tasks designed to wake up your PC. If you find any you want turned off, open the Start menu and search for "Task Scheduler," then navigate to the task in question using the sidebar, and double-click to edit it. Select the Conditions tab and uncheck the Wake the Computer to Run This Task box.
Random wake ups can be incredibly finicky to solve, and you may find that even more digging is required to find your specific issue. But hopefully the above options have at least pointed you in the right direction.
Keep in mind that you may have to go back and do this in a few months if it starts happening again—new programs, new hardware, and Windows updates can always cause the problem to resurface. It’s a curse, but at least now you can keep it under control.
