How to wake up a PC from sleep mode?

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Oleg Volk

My new keyboard has a “sleep” button on it. The cat presses it regularly. Every time that happens, I have to hard reboot as the computer won’t come out of sleep mode. That isn’t the case if the sleep is invoked from the software menu. Short of using glue to keep the button from being depressed at all, is there a solution to this? How can I coax a Windows 7 machine out of sleep mode?

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16 Responses to How to wake up a PC from sleep mode?

  1. RabidAlien says:
    November 23, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    Not on a 7 machine right now, so this is going off the top of my head, but if you go into the Control Panel, there should be a keyboard option (may have to click on “Classic View” or use the dropdown menu to select large/small icons). Just disable the Sleep button on your keyboard. I’ve yet to run across one that actually works. Another option is to go into the display properties, and down near the bottom right (again, off the top of my head, so take it with a grain of salt), go into the screen-saver settings. You can click on the power options here, and look for a spot that says something like “choose when my computer goes to sleep” or something along those lines. Select “Never”. Theoretically, you should be able to hit ESC to get out of sleep mode, but usually it just locks up the computer. So I disable sleep and hibernate on every computer I repair.

  2. Jingles says:
    November 23, 2012 at 2:10 pm

    Poke around the control panel; I don’t have a dedicated sleep button, but Windows 7 does let me set my preferred action for the power button. Since you have the extra control devices, your power management settings MAY let you control their actions.

  3. Lyle says:
    November 23, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    You’d think that one person at least, in all of Micrtosoft, would have noticed this and fixed it before release.

    Anyway; I got tired of fat-fingering (accidently hitting) the shift-lock button on my work computer keyboard, so I pried that key out of the keyboard. Problem solved.

  4. dogdays says:
    November 23, 2012 at 3:16 pm

    Simple and cheap. Take a narrow cardboard box and place over keyboard when not in use.

  5. Jason says:
    November 23, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    You should be able to either press the space bar or move the mouse if it is in sleep mode. If in hibernation, you will need to press the power button quickly.

  6. Dig Douggler says:
    November 23, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    I had the exact same problem and I solved it by taking the keyboard apart and cutting the traces for the switch that leads to that key. Key still works mechanically, but not electronically.

  7. Ken Smith says:
    November 23, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    No need for surgery unless you enjoy recreating the scene from “Marathon Man”. Nothing like using a soldering iron to remind the computer who’s boss…

    Start Button / Control Panel (in the right column) / Power Options
    Click “Change plan settings” for whichever Power Plan you have selected.
    Click “Change advanced power settings” just above the line
    Scroll to “Power buttons and lid” and click the “+” to expand
    Click the “+” next to “Sleep button action” to expand
    Click whatever text is blue next to “Setting” (mine is Sleep) to enable the drop down selection box
    Select “Do nothing” then OK at the bottom of the dialog box
    Close the Power Options window and you should be good to go

    I know this sounds involved, but it took me at least 5 times longer to type it than it takes to adjust it.

  8. ARC says:
    November 23, 2012 at 5:12 pm

    I just popped the key out of the board with a screw driver. You can still activate the sleep function with a pencil.
    Alan

  9. CarlS says:
    November 23, 2012 at 7:05 pm

    Depends on who manufactures your keyboard.

    If LogiTech, visit their website ( http://www.logitech.com/en-us/support ) and get their keybord/mouse software so you can assign functions to keys.

    If Microsoft, go here ( http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/downloads ) and get theirs. MS now has an all-inclusive package called Mouse & Keyboard Center.

    Also look into customizing your Power Save functions via Control Panel.

    FYI, I used to disable Sleep Mode, Hybernation, and the Pagefile ( got lots of RAM). I always had the “Won’t Come Out Of Sleep” problem. After a certain MS Update (I forget which one), the problem went away. Coincidentally, at the same time, I stopped disabling Hybernation and Pagefile. I don’t use them; I just no longer disable them, and Wake From Sleep hasn’t failed for , oh, 3 months now.

  10. Paul Koning says:
    November 23, 2012 at 7:34 pm

    Yes, it’s more expensive. But my computing life has been a whole lot better since I switched to a Mac about 4 years ago.
    In some areas of business, a PC is hard to avoid. But for someone working in graphic arts, the best advice is to spend the extra money and switch. You’ll be glad you did.

  11. Mark says:
    November 23, 2012 at 8:14 pm

    I had this same problem and after changing the power settings and disabling hybrid sleep my computer would still refuse to wake up after being put into sleep mode. The problem ended up being that there was no wake up key or button assigned in the BIOS. While your computer is starting up look for a message that says press [some key] to enter setup. From there you should be able to access the BIOS and the system configuration. While you are there you can disable sleep mode entirely or assign a key that will wake up your machine. On my PC I ended up setting the space bar and left click as the only keys that will wake the machine.

    Hope this helps.

  12. Kristopher says:
    November 24, 2012 at 11:13 am

    You should be paying attention to the cat and not the PC, regardless.

    You can use the PC when the cat is asleep.

  13. Brian Battles says:
    December 1, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    The problem is actually in Device Manager.
    By default all flavors of Windows have power saving settings turned on for all USB connections (keyboard and mouse are usb these days) and network connections. If you right click on Computer and select Manage you will see Device Manager on the left. Select that and hit the plus sign next to Network Adapters and right click on the first device and select Properties. If there is a tab that says Power Management uncheck all check boxes on that tab. This will prevent the computer from turning off your network connections (even very briefly) to save power. Do this for all Network devices and then move to the bottom to perform the same set of steps for all USB devices. This should allow you to wake the system from sleep. One last tip: As was stated above, you can change the system power settings in Control Panel. You will probably want to turn off the hard drive power settings as that will prevent the system from responding if in sleep or hibernation as well. Green computing is a pain in the rear.

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