Prevent Windows form waking up from sleep

September 5, 2021 | Reading time 2 minutes

PC and laptops with Windows can wake up without you doing anything. It is not on every machine, but it is annoying when a machine has it. There are two settings that solved this on my Windows laptops.

Disable hibernate

Windows can go into a deep sleep when it is on standby. Both plugged in and on battery. I had this multiple times with a laptop in my bag and that caused the laptop to get extremely hot in my bag. And that I had almost no battery left during my appointment. You want to turn this feature off.

  1. Open Settings
  2. In settings, go to the search box and type Power. You get the option Power & sleep settings. Select this one.
  3. Go to additional power settings.
  4. Go to Change plan settings.
  5. Go to Change advanced power settings.
  6. Open Sleep.
  7. Open Hibernate and make sure that both On battery and Plugged in are set to Never.
Power options window with Hibernate settings.

Disable wake timers

  1. Keep in the same window. (Repeat step 1 – 5)
  2. Open (or stay in Sleep).
  3. Open Allow wake timers and set both On battery and Plugged to Disable.
Power options window with Allow wake timer settings.

Changing these two settings solved my issue that my Windows laptops keep waking up from sleep. If your Windows PC still wakes up from sleep, open the terminal (or Command Prompt, PowerShell) and type in ‘powercfg /lastwake’. Make you do this after Windows waking up without your intervention. It tells you the Wake Source.

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