How to Wake a PC from Hibernation / Sleep / Stand By on Windows 7

Windows 7 Does Not Come Out of Sleep Mode (Hibernation / Stand By)

With Windows 7 Microsoft took the sleep mode / power saving options a little to the extreme. Because of this some users have been having issues getting their PC to come out of sleep mode. After working with Windows 7 for awhile I have come up with several common fixes that users can try if they are running into these problems.

Using the Power Button to Wake to the PC with Windows 7

In some cases with Hibernation / Sleep mode under Windows 7 waking the PC by jiggling the mouse or hitting any key on the keyboard will not wake the computer.

In these cases users should try hitting the power button on the front of the PC to bring the computer out of sleep mode.

When hitting the power button hold the button for the count of “One, One Thousand” and this should be enough to wake the computer up without sending it into an instant off.

Changing Power Saving Settings under Windows 7

In some cases this issue can just be so annoying that users prefer not to deal with it altogether. If this is the case you can change your power saving settings under Windows.

To do this, do the following:

1. Right Click on the Desktop and select “Personalize” from the menu.
2. At the bottom right hand corner of the Personalize window click the “Screen Saver” icon.
3. At the bottom of the Screen Saver window look for “Power Management” and click the “Change power settings” link.
4. In the new Window you should see an option that says “Balanced (recommended)” with a link that says “Change plan settings”. Click the Change plan settings link.
5. In the new window you will be given two options. (“Turn off the display” & “Put the computer to sleep”.) To prevent your computer from going into sleep mode change the settings to “Turn off the display: 20 minutes” and “Put the computer to sleep: Never”.
6. Once you have done this click the “Save changes” button. The click “OK” on the Screen Saver window.

Your system is now set to not go into Stand By

USB Keyboard and Mouse will not Wake PC in Windows 7

In some rare cases you may continue to experience issues with your computer not coming out of sleep mode. This may not necessarily be caused by the computer being in Stand By. But it may be that either the PC or Monitor is in Power Saving mode or the system won’t accept input from your USB Keyboard or Mouse to wake it.

This is because in Windows 7 the system may shut off power to USB devices to save power. In order to make sure this doesn’t happen you would need to do the following:

1. Click the Start Menu and then right click “Computer” and select “Properties”.
2. In the new window select the “Device Manager” link that is in the upper left hand corner.
3. In the Device Manager window look down towards the bottom of the window for “Universal Serial Bus Controllers”. Click the arrow to the left of this section.
4. In the drop down menu look for any instances of “USB Root Hub”. When you find the first one right click on it and select “Properties”.
5. In the USB Root Hub Properties window look for the tab in the upper right that says “Power Management”.
6. Click on “Power Management” and uncheck the option that says “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”. Then click “OK”.
7. Continue to do this for every instance of “USB Root Hub” in device manager.

What we have just done is make sure that the computer does not turn off power to the USB ports when it goes into a Power Saving mode. This should allow us to always wake the PC by use of the USB keyboard or mouse.

Hope some of these suggestions help!