Lights on..

[monabri]

I normally leave my computer in "sleep" mode with Excel files open. Thus, when I touch the mouse the screen normally powers up and one can continue work.

Occasionally, when I come to use the computer after putting it into sleep mode, it will not respond. The lights on the computer (a soft touch strip of
control buttons) are lit up but computer refuses to power up. The only recourse is to power it down and reboot.

This does not happen all the time, maybe once or twice a month (no log of days, unfortunately). I would like to stop this from happening if possible or at least understand why it is behaving in such a manner?





Dell Studio 1749 (October 2006!) Windows 10 i5 core 64bit OS 512GB SSD, 8 GB RAM.

[GrandOiseau]

Could it be that it has been left so long an extra level of the power settings kick in?

Personally, I don't like to leave PC's and laptops in Sleep mode all the time. I like the cleansing effect of a shut down.

[Infrasonic]

If you've got an SSD as your boot drive try hibernate rather than sleep. The difference in wake time isn't that much.

You could also mess with the W10 advanced power profile settings and turn off some of the default suspends for peripherals and hardware, although I've done that and can still get issues with wake from sleep if it's been left in that mode for some time (24 hours +).

[bungeejumper]

If you've got an SSD as your boot drive try hibernate rather than sleep. The difference in wake time isn't that much.

I've had similar experiences to the OP, and I've also found that using hibernate rather than sleep resolves the problem.

I suppose it might not be a complete coincidence that my machine is a Dell as well - although this one is only two years old. (Also an i5 running 8 gb of ram). Dells do carry a certain amount of system maintenance bloatware, some of which is known to mess with some Windows functions, but the hibernate command does seem to fix it.

From memory, you have to go three or four levels into the Settings menu before you come across the hibernate option at all. It's among the advanced power down commands. And apparently it's a good idea to set the sleep options to "never".

But as a matter of good management I wouldn't ever leave an Excel spreadsheet running overnight unless I'd saved it before I knocked off for the evening. It's always sad to see grown-ups crying.

BJ

[monabri]

I've adjusted the settings to Hibernate rather than sleep. Thanks for the replies.

[SteelCamel]

For issues with power management, it's always worth making sure that the BIOS is up to date. The final release for your machine seems to be A08 from 2011, so won't have been written with Windows 10 in mind, but probably still worth trying.