Resolving Windows Sleep Problems

This is more of a reminder to myself but it may come in handy for you.

Whenever I reinstall Windows I always make sure to install the latest chipset drivers from Intel which tends to make things run more smoothly, especially on laptops, with regards to power management.

On my desktop computer there is one more step I need to take before it will correctly sleep and stay asleep but I always seem to forget this and spend some time wondering which driver or device isn’t letting the computer go to sleep. Nine times out of ten though it’s not as a result faulty or missing drivers but is actually “by design”.

Wired network adapters seem to always be configured to Wake-on-LAN by default. This may be useful for corporate networks but is terribly annoying for home computers where it gives the appearance that Windows simply can’t sleep reliably when in fact it is the network adapter that keeps waking up the computer when network traffic is received.

Anyway the solution is simple, simply uncheck the “Allow this device to wake the computer” option for you wired network adapter:

 

Hope that helps.

3 Comments

  • I leave the “Allow this device to wake the computer” checkbox checked but then also check the "Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer".

    This way my desktop sleeps and will only wake up to an ethernet packet which contains it's MAC address listed 16 times.

    If I sit down somewhere else with my laptop and need to access my sleeping desktop then I send the 'magic packet' to wake it up.

    But otherwise it remains asleep reliably.

    Cheers

  • Sean: thanks for the tip. Is there a built-in tool on Windows that can send the magic packet?

  • My PC runs WinXP. The "Allow this device to wake the computer" option is not checked. Does XP have this problem?

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