I can't wake my computer up when it goes to sleep

United States
December 29, 2011 1:38pm CST
I don't understand why this happens. When my computer is idle it will go to sleep, and when it goes to sleep I cannot get it to wake up again. The only way I can get on my computer when it does this is to unhook the power source and take the battery out and then put the battery back in. Then I can start it back up. But as soon as it goes to sleep again I can't get on again because the screen won't come back on. Can you tell me what is happening and step by step how to fix it? Thanks in advance. PQ
9 responses
@lovedude (4447)
• India
29 Dec 11
Not getting you exactly.. you have to remove your laptop battery only way to restart? well it might be because your computer gets more heated? I don't know.. it happens to me too.. I do the same.. but I am not facing problem from few days.. what I did.. hmm.. I think I just had defragment harddisk and reset my laptop power options to default..
2 people like this
• United States
29 Dec 11
No it isn't overheating. It's just when I leave the computer for a few minutes the screen goes dark and I can't get it back unless I take the battery out and put it back. It's only then that I can get my Windows 7 screen to come up. Maybe I need to find a screen saver or something.
@smacksman (6053)
29 Dec 11
Change your power saving settings. You don't say what version of Windows you are using so it is impossible to give you step by step instructions. Go into Help and search for 'Change Power Settings' and change the settings to 'stay on all the time' for screen and hard drive. Then see if your problems go away. If it does go away, then go back and change the power settings to something you can live with. The longer it all stays on the shorter your battery life between charges. If the problem remains then you have an overheating problem and that is another subject entirely.
@ravisivan (14079)
• India
30 Dec 11
For me also it was not due to heating. I have decided to switch off the laptop whenever I do not need and then restart. You can also try opening only three or four windows instead of many.
1 person likes this
• United States
30 Dec 11
I guess I will have to shut down every time. I never had to do that before, but now for the last month or so I have had to do what I do to restart... because it won't come back after it has gone to sleep.
• United States
29 Dec 11
I don't think it is an overheating problem. It does it when it's not hot. Change power settings? what? Not sure what that means. I'm not computer savvy so I asked for directions. If I leave the computer for a few minutes, the screen goes dark and I can't get it back. I have to take the battery out and unhook the power cord and then put the battery back to restart because otherwise nothing is on the screen.
@stephcjh (38473)
• United States
30 Dec 11
I think you can go to your control panel and set the option for it not to go to sleep or only go to sleep for so long and then wake up on its own.
1 person likes this
• United States
31 Dec 11
I did that yesterday Steph and it worked! Yayyy!
@ravisivan (14079)
• India
30 Dec 11
I also experienced this problem yesterday. Browsing became very slow. I had to remove the battery and then restart. I removed temp files. Now it is somewhat better. Still I am not able to open more windows under chrome. Earlier I use to have 10 windows open at one time. Now I keep 3 windows only otherwise the speed is very low. may be due to virus.?
1 person likes this
• United States
30 Dec 11
I'm not talking about a slow browser. I'm talking about not being able to get my screen back once it has gone to sleep... I call it sleep when the screen goes away by being idle. I don't know what else to call it. Anyway I can't get it back.
• India
30 Dec 11
hey pointless, first i am just feel a sense of excitemeant whenever i write your name, i mean i am assuming . that what the point behind the choosing name pointless. anyway only you can explain it better. now lets come to your problem the problem with which you computer haing is that your computer battery has hasseled because of the excessiove use that why its not holding the electricity and falling in sleep again and again. you need to visit a engineer to ractify this problem.
• United States
30 Dec 11
I don’t think it has anything to do with the battery itself, because I am hooked up to an electrical outlet. It’s plugged in, in other words. I can run off battery for about 3 hours if I want to, but I hardly ever do. It’s just when the screen goes dark, I can wake it up if it just happened… but if it has been a few minutes I can’t wake it up. I have a full charge on my battery. Oh.. my name, PointlessQuestions is an oxymoron. I just happen to love oxy’s.
• India
30 Dec 11
hey oxymoron, have not consult any software and hardware engineer regarding this problem. the reason of battery i have given you is because i a have seen this kind of symptoms because of the battery problems.
@yongwyu (42)
• China
30 Dec 11
Hi, Do you use the notebook? From workstation, I never occur this problem. But when I tried some notebooks, the same problem happens. Normally I will disable the hibernate, even standby. So the problem is gone. :-)
1 person likes this
• United States
30 Dec 11
I guess it is a notebook.. it's a laptop computer. I have a notebook which is smaller and I don't have this problem with it.
@savak03 (6684)
• United States
1 Jan 12
Well, I was going to tell you how to stop it from going to sleep but I decided I would read what everyone has said first. I'm glad I did because someone else has already told you how to do that. However, I would caution you that leaving your computer on for extended time without doing anything on it or having a screen saver that moves around on the screen is not good for it. If your computer is a laptop, and I think you said it was, you don't usually use a screen saver because it uses so much memory. But leaving your computer screen on while not working with it could burn images into your screen. You can just close the top and when you open it you should be able to go right back to the page you were on unless this also causes you to not be able to open the page.
@indi15 (888)
• India
30 Dec 11
Well the same thing happens with my notebook also. I do not know why but when ever i leave it idle for some time , it just blacks out and do not return to normal even after pressing the on -off button. So, now i try to keep it in hibernate mode when i am not working for some time .
• United States
30 Dec 11
I just found the settings for it and I put ‘never’ for when it is to go to sleep and I want to see how that works. If it still happens, then I don’t know what to do.
• United States
30 Dec 11
Now it doesn't go to sleep. I can access my computer now even when I go away for an hour or so. I'm glad of that.
@FluxNL (503)
• Netherlands
29 Dec 11
When the computer is going to sleep you need to push the on/off button to start your computer up again. If that is not working you can also look on the internet if someone have the same problem as you.
• United States
29 Dec 11
Pushing the on off button doesn't work to bring it back... that's why I wrote this discussion.
@FluxNL (503)
• Netherlands
30 Dec 11
That is weird, maybe you can search the internet if someone has the same problem as you do? Maybe he/she can help you.