Laptop restarts after lid opens?

Arilyboo · Jan 4, 2024

Hello, on my laptop after shutting the lid and later coming back and opening the lid it appears the laptop is restarting after sleeping. I try to login and it would be loading up windows as if I just restarted the computer. I turned off automatic restart in Advanced System Settings to try and see if I could catch any an error screens. Unfortunately now when I open the lid after awhile the screen stays black even though the computer is still on. It doesn't respond to mouse or keyboard input and I have to force shutdown. I turned back on automatic restart, but is there a reason why it's restarting after sleeping and how can I fix it? It's only happening when closing the lid and reopening the lid later.

Bree · Jan 4, 2024

Arilyboo said:
Hello, on my laptop after shutting the lid and later coming back and opening the lid it appears the laptop is restarting after sleeping. I try to login and it would be loading up windows as if I just restarted the computer. I turned off automatic restart in Advanced System Settings to try and see if I could catch any an error screens. Unfortunately now when I open the lid after awhile the screen stays black even though the computer is still on. It doesn't respond to mouse or keyboard input and I have to force shutdown. I turned back on automatic restart, but is there a reason why it's restarting after sleeping and how can I fix it? It's only happening when closing the lid and reopening the lid later.

It varies between makes and models of laptops.

If the laptop sleeps when you close the lid, then almost all will wake when you open the lid.

If the laptop has hibernated, then some of mine resume from hibernation on opening the lid, with the same spinning icon as when starting up. Others won't wake from hibernation until I press the power button. There's often a switch in the bios to control the behaviour on opening the lid.

Arilyboo · Jan 4, 2024

In Power & Battery Settings it's set to Sleep when lid is closed. Also usually it awakes just fine and resumes when the lid is open after logging in. It's the times when I open the lid and it has in fact restarted because all programs I've left open are now closed and it's like the computer is starting up/loading windows after restart.

hsehestedt · Jan 4, 2024

A common cause of that problem is having incorrect drivers for the system. In particular, the display driver is often at fault here. Laptop makers often modify the display driver and using a generic driver from Intel, Nvidia, or AMD can cause issues like this.

Try reinstalling the latest driver available directly from the laptop manufacturer and see if that helps the situation.

Bree · Jan 4, 2024

Arilyboo said:
...usually it awakes just fine and resumes when the lid is open after logging in. It's the times when I open the lid and it has in fact restarted because all programs I've left open are now closed and it's like the computer is starting up/loading windows after restart.

How long was it asleep? More than a few days and the battery may have run down. If so it would have had to start up from scratch. It's also possible that the system crashed on sleeping, or on trying to wake.

For any of the above you should see 'Windows was not properly shut down' reported in your Reliability History.

Arilyboo · Jan 4, 2024

The computer may have been asleep from anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour and it remains plugged in during that time. I do have a Windows was not properly shut down message. So what does this mean? How can I fix it?

allan · Jan 4, 2024

Open an elevated command prompt (run as administrator) and type the following:

chkdsk /r

then press enter. NOTE: there is a space between chkdsk and the forward slash, but not between the slash and "r"

You will be told the disk is in use and asked if you want to run at the next boot. Type YES, then exit. Reboot. Checkdisk will run - it may take a while depending on the size of the drive and whether or not it needs to move any data from bad sectors - allow it to complete.

This may or may not fix the problem, but it certainly won't do any harm.