Disable Power Management on Windows 7 or Vista
If you are using a desktop computer, chances are that you don’t want the computer to go to sleep automatically. This is even more the case if you are running Windows 7 or Vista in a virtual machine for testing purposes.
Disabling Power Management in Windows 7
Start by clicking on the power icon, and open up the More power options:
Under the “Additional plans” section, select High Performance, then “Change plan settings”:
Then change everything to “Never”, and save the changes:
Disabling Power Management in Vista
Disabling power management is simple and easy. First go to the start menu and click on the Control Panel.
Click on the System and Maintenance link:
Then click on the Power Options link:
Then select High Performance:
This will disable the automatic sleep mode, but will still turn off the display. You can click on Change Plan Settings to disable that as well if you want.
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Hi,
I cant get the screen to go off, no matter what power settings I use. Must be somthing running that stops it. It won’t turn the screen off. I disabled everything in MSCONFIG but it dosent help.
Vista ultimate RTM.
That’s interesting, because I had problems getting the screen to NOT turn off, which is why I wrote this article.
I’ll look into it.
Hi, Anyone figured how to get the battery subsystem working in windows vista?
Thankyou Geek!! you did it again…
Is there a way to completely remove the power management on vista? I would prefer using quickset from dell to do these tasks. Any help would be great!
Hi, I have a problem with Vista. I need my PC to stay on 24/7 so I can access it remotly from other locations.
Every morning, when I get to the office, the PC is on, I see my screen but the mouse and keyboard is locked up. Also if I try using logmein from another PC it tells me that the computer is offline.
The only remedy is to turn the PC off and on again. This happens every night.
Any ideas?
Hi,
Any progress on Kurt’s problem of November 28?? I can’t get any power plans to work,either to turn off display or sleep, on battery or AC.
Running Home premium on Toshiba P200/X01 laptop.
my new slimline (vista of course) is really slow on starting up. the lights on the tower turn on but nothing happens for a good 5 mins or so and the display often goes to sleep while waiting for the computer to come alive….how do I fix this so I don’t have to turn the computer on and off for the OS to finally start up?
I do all this and still can’t prevent vista from turing my screen off, and then it won’t come back out of sleep. The strangest thing is that if I’m in a game or similar program it turns the screen off even if I am being active.
I have the problem that my monitor goes off every 5 seconds. I have changed my power plan to high performance with never turning off the monitor. My dell monitor says “monitor is in power save mode. change through PC”. Help Please!
By way of information, running Vista in a virtual machine is against the EULA. Thanks for the article, though!
I regret buying Vista. I do not recommend. I got 2gig of RAM memory and I still have a slow machine.
Gates sucks.
I have a dell desktop and for some reason my system is in sleep mode and am unable to view anything except for when I press certain button it tell me that it is in sleep mode and to press any button however it does not change the status of the system any
I just bought a HP laptop dv 2000 . running vista home.
Any time i make the laptop turn off, hibernate, or sleep, the screen turns off right away.
Normally I dont concern with this. but the thing is, sometimes the system stuck, without going hibernation or sleep at al. I tried to wait for like 10 minutes, but it just stuck there. The lights are still on. But not going to sleep/hibernate at all. How can I know wat ’s going on? because the stupid screen is off already.
Any of you know how to deal with the problem? Thank you so much.
Ok, I’ve got a laptop here, and I can’t seem to fix my power buttons. When i change the options from Balanced, Power Saver, and High Performance they all do what they usially do.. dim the screen, lower a few setting etc. However! It does NOT change the fact that my laptop constantly enters hibernation mode when I close the lid. It does this on all the settings, and even when it says in the power options that it will sleep when the lids closed and shut down when i press the power button… it still hiberanates.
Any ideas?
i’m using vista,i have set a time to trun off display but it does not function
I guess I can add my experiences to the list above. I just got a HP Pavillion dv9000 laptop running Vista Home Premium for Xmas. I have messed with all the power settings trying to stop the laptop from shutting down the monitor and disks after an extended time of non-use (say 12 hours). I leave the laptop on all the time and just close the lid when I am done. I have noted that the disk light flickers up until the 12 hour time and then everything just locks up. All power and lights are on but I don’t know how to get it out of standby mode. The only solution is to press and hold the power button and then reboot. This all sounds the same as many of the posts above. Has anyone posted a solution?
I, too, am having trouble with Vista Power Settings, but only on my desktop and not on my laptop. The laptop is a Sony n320E with Vista Premium. The desktop problems sound very much like the listing from Memmons, where the desktop cuts out after a period away from the computer and shuts off. Nothing will bring it back, until you reboot by pressing Start. Then I get a windows error message and it tries to restart in Safe Mode. I choose Restart normally and it does, slowly, but I notice that the time function is off by hours and has to be reset. I hate all of this and have sent the desktop back to eMachines/Gateway two times without result, and now they want me to send it back a third time. Not sure they know how to handle it. They suspect Vista, and are waiting for patches that haven’t come, and they suggested I come here (or just Google it). I have tried the High Performance Options mentioned by others, with no effect. Help would be appreciated
i turn my computer on . turn the screen on then the green light on the screen turns orange. and the screen goes blank can any 1 help please .
my toshiba l40 celeron laptop won’t turn the srceen on but the power button is light up.
what can i do to make it work?
Hi,
I am Using Win Vista on my hp laptop i have a problem on my laptop
when i shutdown my laptop laptop is going to shutdown but all LED is blinking continous.\
please help me …
thanks
hey guys, with my sony vaio when i changed power modes from optimized or high performance to POWER SAVE it sometimes stops playing music.
I cnat even reactivate it by using a different Power Sheme.. I have to restart computer fully.
Restarting in any mode even Power Saver and the sound works again.
Just switching between Power Shemes and Power Saver does result in not playing any sound.
Want to know how I can disable the power button in vista on the login screen as my son who has autism likes the red button and shuts off my computer?? That way I can lock the desk top and not have to go and restart again??? as in xp the nt screen thebuttons where al one color and he could not or didn’t shut the computer down !!
Thank you so much. I will try it
Hi,
I disabled the power management on my Toshiba Satelite P200 but it still goes into hibernation. While this is annoying it isn’t that big of a issue but what is a issue is that it stays there. Pressing a button or even the power switch has no effect whatsoever. It usually stays in hibernation for a couple of days until the battery runs out after it will finally reboot. I guess you’ll have to starve the sucker to get it to listen to you.
It runs on windows vista home premium. Other that this i really have no other problems. As long as you avoid the standby function like it was the plague it runs just fine.
Guys, I have Dell XPS M1330 here. I want my laptop not to run power saver. I disabled pwoer saver. I tried changing every settings in powr saver, power management etc. put settings all in “never”. even tried 1 hour setting to hibernate, sleep and power save. take note. i always click save settings in eberthing i have done.. and presto! nothing has changed. it sleeps every 2o minutes. Vista power saver really sucks! i tried attaching a keyboard and pressing all letters innit.. but stilllllllll.. iwww~ it sucks! what can i do? pls help me!
I have had the problem with my monitor also where it goes to sleep and then loses the DVI signal and will not come back on. I have to push the power button to shut down the computer most of the time in order to get the monitor back on. I called HP and they say its the NVIDIA but I downloaded their “fix” and it doesn’t seem to be working. I will try the power settings and see if that helps.
I have an HP Pavilion desktop with vista. When I leave mine on for a lengthy time and it is in sleep mode, when I return to it I have a blue screen with an error report. It has happened a few times now but only after it has been in sleep mode awhile. If I turn it off each time and on again when I return, so far it hasn’t happened. Only when in sleep mode. Isn’t that odd? I assume sleep mode isn’t healthy for the machine.
I have noticed that my secondary hard drive switches off after a while and when I access data from it it comes back to life.
In general I think that’s a good idea but I’m just afraid that if its switching on and off frequently, the life time of the hard drive is shortened significantly because HDs are meant to run in one go – not like a DVD drive which only operates when accessed.
That is not such a big problem, but when the second HD is idle and I switch off Windows Vista, a few seconds before the system goes off the HD comes to life and starts spinning – just to switch of afterwards. I think that can’t be good for the drive though.
Hi all
Have read all the articles visible on Vista Power “Madness”.
I have the same problems with lock up in sleep mode.
I’ve tried enabling wake up on devices as recommended as a fix by microsoft – this still did not work.
I’ve tried adding a ps/2 mouse because my bios supports wake up on PS/2 mouse – this still did not work.
I’ve tried running powercfg on the command line (this is the power configuration exe file) and edited sleep modes, times, wake up devices etc – this still did not work.
I’ve even tried hacking the properties of powrprof.dll then removing the file from windows\system32 folder -DO NOT TRY THIS EVER or your system may not boot up into vista, fortunately I had a safeguard, – this definitely did not work.
I then tried editing the registry to delete the power schemes – you cannot delete all the references only some – I don’t know yet if this will stop the power off madness – I’m waiting to see when it goes into sleep mode, if it does?
So the question is does anyone have a real solution???
Please!
On 15 August 2008 I posted a comment and mentioned my biggest problem was that sleep mode locked up my systems. I then tried to totally disable sleep mode but found that it still went to sleep without me wanting it to. This was regardless of how I edited the plan or whether I used high performance or otherwise. I then tried deleting all possible lines concerning power madness from the registry. This didn’t work either and the systems still went into unwanted sleep mode.
* My next attempt at solving the issue was to select the high performance power plan as my preferred option.
* I then created the following batch file called: (PConfig1.bat)
* I then ran the batch file from the command line.
What it does is turn on hibernate and alters all the timeouts in your preferred option to 15 hours (900 minutes) before it shuts down.
This enables me to run programs overnight without it going to sleep and of course locking up.
The disadvantage is that I have no real power saving function that I can rely on. I haven’t tested to see if I can wake up the system after it hibernates.
Batch File: PConfig1.bat
***
powercfg -x hibernate-timeout-ac 900
powercfg -x hibernate-timeout-dc 900
powercfg -x standby-timeout-ac 900
powercfg -x standby-timeout-dc 900
powercfg -x monitor-timeout-ac 900
powercfg -x monitor-timeout-dc 900
powercfg -x disk-timeout-ac 900
powercfg -x disk-timeout-dc 900
powercfg -hibernate on
exit
***
It may not be a perfect solution (or a pretty batch file – for those who remember the days of MSDOS)
But at least I can run the system overnight without shut down.
I wish Microsoft had added a “NO POWER MANAGEMENT” button to Vista Power Options as they did with XP. The never go to sleep option does not work. The least they could have done is put all the command line and registry line options into the Power Options Window and make the NO SLEEP option mean no sleep, no standby, no partial shutdown??
Oh well maybe next time!
Make a custom setting for power options select it all to never after that’s all done click the “change advanced power options” (yes because there is more sleep/hibernate options! )
Under the “change advanced power options” change every thing in the “sleep” options to never..
for those complaining about the monitor turning off on them in the same area (below the sleep stuff) go to the following:
Display
turn display after
setting: Never Network and sharing center -> Manage Network connections
right click on your network adapter and choose properties click “configure” then change to the “power management” tab.. Uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.”
those are the common issues I currently know about I hope this helps someone
In answer to A Guy
Unfortunately Vista Ultimate’s options of “Never” in the advanced power options doesn’t always mean Never.
Under normal circumstances the sleep options A Guy refers to should work. But many people are having problems with their computers going to sleep even with settings set to “never”.
It would be nice if Microsoft could create an update with a single NO POWER MANAGEMENT option.
For those who wish to play with the hidden power management options in Vista Ultimate, (I havn’t tried it in Vista Premium or Basic), you could also try:
Open / run “gpedit.msc” and go to Computer Configuration>Administrative
Templates>System>Power Management>Sleep Settings
Lots more configuration options. If you change a setting you might find it changed or greyed out in the advanced power options section.
Hi.
My name is Brittani. I just got a vista desktop a few months ago and it hasnt worked. Dell finally fixed it and sent me replacement parts. It ended up being something with the monitor. Now, my monitor has a reddish bluish tint and it wont go away. Ive tried changing the red blue and green settings and it doesnt work. Then I decided to change the blue analog cable to the white digital cable and the color was normal but then before the computer even loaded all the way, it went into power save mode. And it only does that when i use the digital cable and digital input on the monitor, but thats the only way to get the right color settings. How do i get rid of the power saving mode?
Brittani
Have you checked your monitor menu to see if there is a power save mode? Most monitors these days allow your to set a time to power down the monitor separately to the operating system?
Regards
Philip
Hi,
Mostly when I go play my laptop on battery mode. At half way it just fades into black. I thought it might be hibernate or stand by. But it just stays like there. I shake it, stills black. Idk y.
My computer keeps shutting off. Not the whole computer just the monitor.The hard drive lights are still on.?
milissa
My desktop computer wont start. I just says it is in power save mode and it gives instructions to touch any key, move mouse etc. but when that is done, the screen just shuts off
Thanks geek. I have been trying to download a rather large file that would have taken all night. Well I woke up this morning and power save was on, and it stopped the download. It was at 44% when I checked it last and then it was at 46% when I woke up this morning. It was going faster than that before. Im just glad I was able to get that off
hi i was wondering if anyone could help me out i just got a new acer 7530 travelmate and i’ve turned all the power options in the power management to never turn off but for some reason everytime i go to watch a movie through my inter video windvd 8 player 20 minutes into it my computer screen goes black and then the power light goes off but as soon as i go to turn it on again it goes straight to my windows sign-in screen and then as soon as i sign in i am back in my windvd program again. it’s really wierd but if anyone is having any sort of the same problem or if they know of a way to fix this i would be trully very thankfull
hey..
i dont necessarily know what im talking about lol but ive got a laptop with windows vista on it. the problem i have is every time i try to listen to music in medi player, or watch a video on you tube or watch a tv programme online it only lasts a few minutes then it just turns itself off!! i then have to turn it back on and it can take 2 or 3 times sometimes to start up properly..
hope someone can help.. no one else seems to have aclue.. lol
thanks..
Hi All, Im running windows Vista 2 my PC @ home but when I left maybe about 10 min the screen swich it off and I cant wake it up I have to press the restart button so that I can work again I tried many options to power options its doen’t help me..anyone knows what can I do?. Thx guys
As per my previous comments – carefully check your power save options on both your monitors and in Windows Vista. Especially make sure your multimedia settings are correct for those having problems playing DVDs.
The other thing that I have found is that those who have previously unchecked windows startup applications and services items in the MSCONFIG file may actually have caused an even greater problem.
Sometimes in Vista, especially ultimate, by removing a windows service to improve speed or regain ram, you are preventing an important part of Windows from running correctly. You should only use MSCONFIG and REGEDIT if you know what you are doing. So if you have fiddled and problems are occurring – put them back to normal. Then re-run the Power Save app – carefully checking every single setting including your monitor menu settings.
If this still doesn’t work – sorry I’m out of suggestions.
Regards
Philip
I am having similar problems with the power save and it only happens when java is in use. I usually in the middle of a game and my screen says.. going into power save mode and the only way to get the computer back on is to restart the whole computer itself. I tried to clear the cache in java but it doesn’t seem to work. If any one has details on java and any trouble shooting advice please leave feedback.
I have DELL PC and it is in hibernate mode and I have no knowledge how to get it back to normal. WHen I comes on the screen only shows in hibernate mode so I cannot access any thing to try and correct this. HELP PLEASE I also have Vista Premium on the PC – trying to avoid called Dell been there, done that a while ago for another issue and worst experience.
Thanks Roxanne
Roxanne
Not sure if I clearly understand all of your problem so I may be a little out in my explanations!
To start up out of sleep mode usually shaking your mouse or pressing a button on your keyboard is sufficient – providing that method of “wake up” has been activated.
To start up out of hibernate mode press your power button once and windows will start up to your last user password screen or if you haven’t activated users it will start up normally.
If this doesn’t enable you to start windows try pressing and holding down the power button for several seconds.
If this still doesn’t enable you to start windows or it starts then stalls make sure that all your USB devices (other than keyboard and mouse) are disconnected then try powering up again.
If there is still no success turn off the power switch at the back, wait several seconds then turn it back on then power up normally.
When you have started windows go to control Panel, system maintenance, Power Options, Select a Power Plan, choose High Performance, change Plan Settings and carefully select the way you want the power modes to operate, don’t forget to save your changes on exiting settings.
Sorry I can’t give more specific explanations – not seeing exactly what is happening makes it harder.
If all this doesn’t work you will have to resort to Dell India’s Hell Desk! Just be careful and specific of your explanations with them and patient. A glass of wine alongside the phone helps.
Regards
Philip
I have a dell Stdio 15 laptop and am using Vista.
When i shutdown my laptop its going to shutdown but the POWER BUTTON blinks continuosly.
Please help me in this regard.
thanks
I’m using Windows Vista. My 16 months old daughter kept pressing the power button when she’s around. I want the computer to ask me what I want to do instead of shutting down right away when the power button is pressed. Any ideas? email to naispro@att.net
Hi. I have a desktop with vista and I’m having some serious power issues. About a year ago i started having problems with the computer just shutting off. no warning or anything just shutting completely off. I changed the power supply and this fixed the problem for awhile but now its doing it again and much worse than before. As soon as the computer boots up and gets to a logon screen it shuts off…completely. But it doesn’t seem like its the computer or the power supply because I can run in dos mode forever with no issues at all. It seems to only happen when I run windows. Ever heard of this? Any ideas of what it could be or do i just need to take it to a professional?
Thanks for posting this article! It is very helpful.
the power icon doesn’t show on vista (basic) when it is on safe mode
i had a power outage and cant get my computer to come on, u barely see it says power save mode or safe mode.
how can i get in my computer? screen stay black, is there a keys to push to get into it
You have not answered the question !
Question: Disable POWER MANAGEMENT on Windows Vista
Answer: This will disable the AUTOMATIC SLEEP function on your system, but will turn off your monitor, you can further customize your options by clicking on “Change plan settings”
This just CHANGES the power plan, it does NOT disable it!
thanks, have german OS so it’s a pain to change things without screenshots
I have a Toshiba Satellite P200 running Windows Vista. It’s worked just fine for the last two years, now I have an issue with the “sleep mode”. It isn’t even consistent, but lately the screen turns off and then the battery and power icons stay on. Normally in sleep mode, the power icon is orange. However, this is not the case lately, the power icon is not lit up at all. When I press the power button (how I normally get it out of sleep mode), the hard drive engages and the hard drive icon flashes, and then nothing. I have tried hitting “any key” and wiggling the mouse, but eventually have to use the power button to shut it off and then reboot. Which is a pain.
The only change I have made to the power settings (about three months ago) was to “do nothing” when I close the laptop lid, as I am running an FM transmitter off the laptop so I can have Internet radio on my stereo system and don’t want it to stop when I shut the lid.
I have also added an external docking station connected via the USB port. To be honest, I am not sure if this problem started before or after the docking station, although this seems to happen even when the laptop is not in the docking station.
Any suggestions?
I had same screen display going off every 5 min; this is an Energy star issue; you can fix it at Energy Management section and change turn off Backlight setting to “Never” ; I found this option at ALL Programs==> Lenovo ==> Energy Management ==> Power Management Options; If your system is not lenovo; please check for whatever is the company’s folder is eg: DELL or Toshiba.
Thanks; Sam
thank you, although i didnt find the power options in the control panel. i had to use search to find it in control panel, so u must be missing a step. anywho, thanks for the tip. When i asked help how to fix problem, it told me i had to change sleep mode in bios