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So, I have a pretty new laptop, and one of its quirks is that, at random times (though typically in the middle of the night), it seems to wake up from sleep mode, churn a bit, and then go back into sleep mode. I write "seems" because its fans are very loud, so it's obvious when it's not asleep, but during the time it is "on", I can't see anything on the screen.
I have researched the problem somewhat, and could only find similar issues; nothing identical. In those cases, it appeared that certain devices could be responsible. Nothing is plugged into my computer during this behavior, but I nonetheless disabled every device's permission to wake the computer through the device manager. This included disabling the magic packet wake for the network (despite its only having a wireless connection). Using "powercfg /lastwake" gives an empty wake history. But, I also went through all the tasks and checked if they would wake the computer. None appeared to.
The problem persisted, so, after some more research, I found this, and executed it for all power schemes on the computer. The problem persists.
System:
OS: Windows 7 Professional
CPU: Intel 990X
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 580M/12GB RAM
Motherboard: Clevo X7200
Model: NP7282-S1 (Sager-built laptop)
imallett
Posted 2012-04-13T00:51:30.217
Reputation: 237
1By
tasksare you referring to scheduled tasks? Also, do you have "hibernate after x minutes" set? This will cause the laptop to wake up in order to initiate hibernate. – Paul – 2012-04-13T02:05:18.3101I would suggest to put your computer to hibernate instead of sleep mode, because in sleep mode it still consumes power. – Niels – 2012-04-13T05:50:00.407
You can look in the event log, most tasks that are started in the task scheduler will appear in the event log. or It might be easier to just go straight to the task scheduler , and see all the fun things that are set to go off at night while your sleeping. The "screen standby" or monitor standby does not have to be changed to complete these tasks, as the screen off is an independant item. Some night stay up really late, sneak up behind it while it is doing its nocturnal routine, and check out the resource monitor :-) – Psycogeek – 2012-04-13T05:55:13.553
Paul--I did on some of the power plans! I have removed them, so we'll see if that fixes it. Niels, true, but I can take the two or three percent battery hit for slow RAM refresh. The battery spontaneously leaking power is more of an issue for me. Psycogeek, I had checked the task scheduler; nothing was scheduled. Thanks all, – imallett – 2012-04-14T02:40:20.613
@IanMallett, what kind of laptop is it? We have an Acer Aspire that occasionally turns on in the middle of the night at a random time (~11pm-4am) for a few seconds, but the hard-drive keeps thrashing for several more. It only happens when in [hybrid] sleep though, not when Windows is actually shut down. It’s not Windows Update or any other scheduled task because the time is seemingly random, and it is not WoL either because that is specifically disabled. I keep trying to catch it to see if pressing a key will do anything, but, I keep missing it and have only seen the LED and a black screen. – Synetech – 2012-08-03T02:14:18.923
@Paul: After nearly a year without incident, I believe that this fix was the issue. If you make an answer to that effect, I'll accept it. – imallett – 2013-03-22T01:33:58.987