Dell Inspiron 3147 won't wake from sleep mode

I bought a second hand Dell Inspiron 3147. It's running the A12 BIOS. I can't for the life of me get it to wake from sleep.

I tried researching this issue but nothing seems to work. I have a fresh Windows 10 Home install. I went to the Dell website and downloaded all the suggested drivers. I looked for power management settings under keyboard but it is missing on my machine. It's also missing in the mouse options. I ran the follow command in an elevated command prompt: powercfg -devicequery wake_from_any. Doesn't show the keyboard or mouse as being able to wake the machine. The touchscreen was listed but that doesn't work. The power button is listed but it doesn't wake the machine either. I set all of the HID devices to be able to wake the laptop, no go.

In power options, I tried setting the machine to shutdown once the lid is closed but it just goes black. I tried setting it to do nothing but my touchpad driver crashes after the screen turns back on. I have to reboot using the keyboard every time....


Also, suspend mode doesn't work in linux which leads me to believe it's an issue with the BIOS. Should I try reverting to another BIOS?

I should mention that I did have to take this computer apart to install a new DC jack. I had to remove the main board in order to get to the DC jack. Any chance a loose connection could cause this issue?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

AndreTen said:

I've checked Dell's forum for your issue, and seems that most of users reverted back to A07 BIOS.

Check here:

dell community Inspiron-11-3147-Wake-up-problem

Only one response, that running Power troubleshooter solved the problem

Go to Settings / Update and security / Troubleshoot

I tried running troubleshoot. It did not work.

I just read through that thread. It sounds like I need to reinstall windows after reverting to the A07 BIOS...... I don't feel like doing that. That's if I can even find it. I searched and couldn't locate it. Oldest I could find was the A11.

Maybe I'll uninstall the Dell touchpad driver and try using the built in Windows driver. Then at least it might not crash.

Hopefully they put out a new BIOS and fix it. Dell has really been dropping the ball. I have a 9360 that has severe audio issues, distortion. I don't think I will ever buy another Dell.

I also discovered that they have chips inside their chargers that force you to use their adapters.

AndreTen said:

Hope you'll fix it. I had similar issue with HP desktop. But managed to resolve it by roll back Windows update and reset Windows. Don't think it will help you.

For now I'm going to just uninstall the Synaptics driver that keeps crashing. Then set it to 'do nothing' under 'change what closing the lid does'. I'll have to just remember to shut it down if I want to conserve my battery life. Not the greatest work around but it will have to do.

I read through the rest of that thread. Some users claimed that you can get around reinstalling windows by booting into safe mode..... I just got through doing a fresh install of windows and linux on this machine though..... I'm going to just cross my fingers and hope that they do a BIOS update in the near future.

I only bought this computer to do road trips with so it's not my daily driver.
Thanks for your help.

AndreTen said:

How do you have set sleep? Hibernate, or just sleep? Sometimes hibernation works. Or changing max sleep state in BIOS, but I have no idea about your BIOS settings.


One thing, could missed it.. What does powercfg /all and energyreport says?

I have it set to sleep, disabled hibernation. Is hibernation okay to use with an SSD?

I'll check to see if there are sleep state settings in BIOS.

I ran powercfg -energy and it gave me a report. I'm going to try and attach it.

powercfg /all gave me invalid parameter error. Is it supposed to be powercfg /a?

Powercfg /a tells me that the firmware on this machine does not support this standby state for all three. S0, S1, and S2.

I missed the first part.

powercfg /a: The following states are avilable on this system.

Standby (S3)
Hibernate
Hybrid sleep
Fast startup

I originally disabled hybrid sleep, fast startup, turn off hard disk after, and hibernation via power settings. When that didn't work I ran powercfg /h off.

I will try enabling hibernate now. Fingers crossed.