Explain Sleep Mode

JWalker · 12 Mar 2017

I use sleep mode often to save a little time in starting up and I have noticed some things. When going into sleep mode the light on the power button goes off and on for around 30 minutes and returning to ON is fast during that period. I can push the power button to return to the On mode or I can use Fn + 4. After 30 minutes or so in sleep mode the power button light stops turning on and off and I can only return to On by using Fn + 4 and it takes a little longer to return to On. What is going on with sleep mode. It seems that when going to sleep mode the only thing that happens for the first approximately 30 minutes is that the screen goes dark and after that it goes to a more powered off mode which would be what the sleep mode of previous Windows versions provided. I can't speak for Windows 8, but versions before that had the On and sleep and nothing in between. Any insights. I know this is rather trivial but I am curious.

Gurn Blanston · 12 Mar 2017

I believe that the system goes into Hibernate mode after 30 minutes in your case. My PC does the same thing.

Unless I'm totally wrong about that. Then just ignore this post. :)

maranna · 15 Mar 2017

When ever I am not computing I select sleep and after about 5 seconds the machine does just that. The power button is amber and the PSU[fan] and machine are sleeping.
When I want to awaken the PC, I just wiggle the mouse and it awakens right away. I sign in to my home screen.

JWalker · 15 Mar 2017

maranna said:

When ever I am not computing I select sleep and after about 5 seconds the machine does just that. The power button is amber and the PSU[fan] and machine are sleeping.
When I want to awaken the PC, I just wiggle the mouse and it awakens right away. I sign in to my home screen.

Your computer behavior is different than mine. I definitely have two stages of going to sleep mode as described above. My mouse cannot return the laptop from sleep but any key can return it. I have a SSD so there is no fan to turn off and that may change the way Windows 10 goes into sleep mode. Might your computer be a desktop? I don't know if that makes a difference.

maranna · 15 Mar 2017

Mine is a 6 year old desktop, HDD no SSD and an old BIOS no UEFI.

bro67 · 15 Mar 2017

S3 state controls everything. You have to look at the Power Config report to see what is going on as it goes into S3 state and when it may wake up from a IRQ request. Sleep which is just taking components down to where only the CPU is running at a minimal state with a snapshot of what was running before just turning various components offline but still may run the fan to keep the CPU cooled.

Hibernate takes a snapshot of the system and all running processes and programs, then stores that information on the hard drive in a file that can vary more than the Prefetch which can shrink and grow, depending on how quickly Windows needs items to start up and bring it up to function properly for the user. Hibernate can end up with a corrupted folder and you end up having to fix the hard drive if it causes windows to not properly run.

AndreyT · 16 Mar 2017

This mostl likely indicates that the computer is descending into deeper sleep states. This might depend on the OS, as well as on hardware capabilities and BIOS settings. Older systems typically recognized "Sleep" command as an order to directly enter S3 sleep state, in which virtually everything is powered down except memory. More modern systems might actually begin their sleep from S1 state, in which all system clocks stop, stopping the CPU and the rest of the hardware, but still keeping them partially powered.

In your case you might want to take a look at the CPU fan in the first sleep state. On many (all?) machines the CPU fan continues to spin in S1 state. In S3 is always stops. Does your CPU fan keep spinning during that first 30 minute period?

bro67 · 16 Mar 2017

maranna said:

Mine is a 6 year old desktop, HDD no SSD and an old BIOS no UEFI.

Depends on when it was manufactured. The two six year old laptops from Toshiba that I gave one to my ex for her to use and my wife uses my son's old one that we kept. Both had UEFI and were installed with Windows 8. Even my wife's company laptop from that year that her company installed Windows 7 on has UEFI.

JWalker · 16 Mar 2017

AndreyT said:

In your case you might want to take a look at the CPU fan in the first sleep state. On many (all?) machines the CPU fan continues to spin in S1 state. In S3 is always stops. Does your CPU fan keep spinning during that first 30 minute period?

The fan can't help determine my sleeps state because with SSD I don't have a fan. I am sure that my laptop goes through two stages of sleep because in the first stage the power button light alternates on and off. In the second stage it is off all the time. In the first stage I can return to operation by pushing the power button or Fn + 4. In the second stage I can only return to operation by pushing the power button. Returning to operation is a little faster in the first stage of sleep.

bro67 · 17 Mar 2017

JWalker said:

The fan can't help determine my sleeps state because with SSD I don't have a fan. I am sure that my laptop goes through two stages of sleep because in the first stage the power button light alternates on and off. In the second stage it is off all the time. In the first stage I can return to operation by pushing the power button or Fn + 4. In the second stage I can only return to operation by pushing the power button. Returning to operation is a little faster in the first stage of sleep.

Read the post. Yes a Laptop does have a fan. Because it has a SSD, the sleep states are still the same. Open up a Command Window and type in Powercfg. You will get a list of commands. Make sure that you change to your My Documents folder for when you run Powercfg with the flag to save the output of the information of what is going on.

Sleep State is set by Power Settings, but you also have to go into the Device Manager and Bios to change other settings of hardware that is not handled through the Power Settings.