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My laptop keeps going to sleep

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Mowh3n

Mowh3n

PCHF Member
Mar 20, 2020
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#1
Ummm... hi again
I posted this thread on the forum:

Solved - My laptop keeps going to sleep

Hey guys my laptop keeps going to sleep for no reason It started about a week ago It goes to sleep mostly when im watching videos with "Media player classic" And it's not due to inactivity or the settings because i checked them! I think it started with the previous graphics driver update I have...
pchelpforum.net pchelpforum.net

I thought it was solved but then again it happened so i did what i was told to
And also i deleted K-lite completely from my laptop
It still goes to sleep
And it happens as random as it was
But it happens when i'm watching a video or a video player is open
By the way i'm using PotPlayer now!
Please help me! And could this be happening because of some hardware issue? Im really worried about the hardware!!!
 
#3
ok, time to start at the basics and make sure we are all on the same page.

so you have adjusted your power settings and basically have told it never to go to sleep, hibernate, stop the drives and turn off the screen for any reason?

next, let's make sure we understand your 'keeps going to sleep'.
so you watch a video and randomly mid-watch what is happening - PC turns off, screen blacks out but PC stays on, or internet drops out etc?
and what do you have to do to 'wake it up' - shake the mouse, tap the keyboard, reboot the PC?

and this only occurs when watching movies, it doesn't happen while using Word, or checking emails, or playing games?
 
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#4
Okay! First of all thank you for your help @Bruce !

Ummm, i checked "never" for going to sleep on both 'on battery' and 'plugged in'
Also I tried powercfg command that you recommended.
I dont know about any other settings which could cause this.

By going to sleep i mean the screen turns off, and when i try to wake it up, it opens on the sign in screen in which i have to enter my password. The hard disk stops(because i hear it stopping). I can turn it back on with keyboard buttons, power button, mouse button, any kind of button...
It's just the typical sleep in windows.

Yes it only happens while watching videos.
I do lots of programming and gaming with this laptop and it has never happened during anything else. Always while watching videos.
If i wake up the laptop and resume watching the video
It goes to sleep again in a short time
Overall, it happens 1 to 5-6 times in a row, and then continues to work just fine. 1 or 2 bursts happen each day which actually is everytime i watch videos.
 
#5
hmmm.... that sounds like a screen saver kicking in.
my theory being when you play games or program, you continually hit the keys, not so when watching movies.
dumb test would be to watch a movie and every minute or so, tap a key (something that wouldn't trigger an event, like maybe the Ctrl key)

I'll assume this is for Windows 10, if so, click the Start button, and start typing 'screen' (with the quotes) and click Turn screen saver on or off and see if that helps.
 
#6
Ummm, i dont use a screen saver. And also i can try the key-tapping test you said but i dont think that's it.
Because i also read pdf books on my laptop and it never happens while reading. Also i sometimes leave my laptop for a long time and it turns the screen off without going to sleep!
And if it happens because im not tapping anything, why does it happen for the 2nd time and 3rd,...

If it's not happening because of any hardware issue let me know. Because i was planning to reinstall windows(to install ubuntu alongside windoes). And if it's the windows that's causing the problem i can just go on with my plan and solve this issue too!
 
#8
but as you read your ebooks, don't you have to regularly tap keys to change pages?
and those times when you leave you PC for longs periods and the screen turns off - that means there is still some power save settings kicking in.
 
#10
until you turn ALL power save features off, I don't think you can rule out the obvious things first.
turn off screen sleeping, HDD sleeping, hibernation mode, standby mode, sleep mode, etc - basically any and all settings you can find that deal with saving battery. and trurn on anything that talks about increasing performance (cause that generally turns off sleep related features).

the common factor in your problem if I've got my head around this right is that if the PC doesn't detect some activity in some time frame, it turns off the screen. and touching the mouse or keyboard brings it back to life.
 
#12
@Bruce i did the test you said i should try

Every minute or so I clicked random different keys of the keyboard (that didnt do any action or the action wasnt important) and it went to sleep not 2 seconds after clicking some keys on the keyboard!

I didnt move or click on the mouse though! But i can try that if you want!

Another thing that i found out
Is that if after waking it up from sleep, i pause the video, it doesnt go to sleep for the 2nd and 3rd times (even if i leave the laptop for a long time, it wont go to sleep)
But if i dont pause the video it will keep happening in a burst as i said!

I think the problem is in "playing videos" and not "inactivity"

Also im not sure if this is 100% true and im just telling what ive been experiencing, i watched 2hours of mp4 video, and it didnt go to sleep at all
And also i have experienced going to sleep when playing mkv & wma.
I haven't tried any other types...
 
#13
OK, you have my converting to your logic now.....
not inactivity after all perhaps.

so what media players have you tried - you say you have Potplayer, I assume you have tried VLC.

have you tried watching something that goes to sleep on your PC, on another PC to see if it repeats?

(starting to get a bit weird now - type of player?, types of media format?)
 
#14
@Bruce I know it's weird, that's why i'm freaked out about the hardware!

I have tried mpc(k-lite) and potplayer.
I haven't tried vlc but i will do it right now!

I don't think the videos themselves are the problem since some of them are tutorials used by thousands of other people and i dont think they've had any of this problem.
And also i have replayed the same videos to see if something's wrong with the video, and it doesn't always happen with the same video.

And i think i should repeat that i'm not sure about the type of video affecting the sleeping because i've mostly watched mkv and vmw videos(mkv for tv shows - vmw for tutorials)
And i have tried mp4 only once and for a 2hour movie and i didnt have any sleeping problems.


Also, and important thing that i forgot to mention, is that sometimes for example it goes to sleep once, and i wake it up and it goes to sleep for example 10 seconds later, i wake it up again and it goes to sleep 6 seconds later, then 3 and on the 4th or 5th time that i wake it up, it goes to sleep before even the screen gets the chance to turn on!

This sleeping in a millisecond is making me freak out that it's a hardware issue!


Also sorry for tagging you with each comment but i'm just too worried to wait around!
 
#16
@Bruce
It happened again.
I changed to KMplayer and shockingly it was fine for 3 days and there was no problem.
I thought it was fixed but didnt mention it here to make sure.
And it happened again.
It wasnt the same when i changed to potplayer, it started happening right the day i changed to potplayer
And all of this makes me think the media player is not involved either.

What else could it be?
If it's malware or hardware what should i do?
 
#20
as to hardware being the issue - i cannot definitely rule that out, but it's unlikely, as if it was, you'd see the problem at lot more than the times you are.
it seems to be software, as sort of proven with your KMplayer versus PotPlayer test.

personally, I'd be chasing 3 avenues - 1) complete malware scans looking for gremlins, 2) thorough PC cleanup including uninstalling unwanted software, and 3) fresh install of Windows if the first 2 didn't help.
 
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