PC goes to sleep during maintenance

pokeefe0001 · Jul 14, 2022

I have a PC that I usually access via remote desktop. Until recently I never had problems installing maintenance: download and install maint; initiate the restart; wait long enough for the 1st phase of the install, the automatic restart, and 2nd phase to complete; do a Wake on LAN if necessary; sign on. But the last two times I installed maintenance this did not work. It would never wake up. Both times I went to the PC and found it asleep. When I woke it, it was doing maintenance - 30% complete. In other words it went to sleep instead of, or right after doing the automatic restart.

Is this normal behavior now? Is there something in Remote desktop (or somewhere else) that I have to set to make this work?

neoopus · Jul 18, 2022

what do you mean by installing maintenance? Anyway try to use Caffeine or MS PowerToys (it has this feature now among other)

Caffeine

www.zhornsoftware.co.uk

But if Windows get stuck while updating, installing then went to power-saving mode, it should be something that you have to tweak in the BIOS to prevent this, or via some CPU tweaking tools but try first to switch power mode.

pokeefe0001 · Jul 18, 2022

neoopus said:
what do you mean by installing maintenance?

I was running Windows Update to download and install
2022-07 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 for x64-based Systems (KB5015814)

neoopus said:
Anyway try to use Caffeine or MS PowerToys (it has this feature now among other)

Caffeine

www.zhornsoftware.co.uk

I'll look into Caffeine. I use Coffee, but it prevents sleep based on network traffic but does not prevent sleep if the computer is just sitting there thinking (as when installing maintenance). However, neither product should have been needed. The computer had just done the automatic restart that it (usually) does at 30% of the installation. I have the inactivity timeout set for 30 minutes. Since Windows Update said the maintenance was (still) 30% complete when I woke the computer, and I woke the computer in less than 30 minutes after I did the manual restart, the computer should not gone to sleep in the first place.

I've never seen this behavior when installing maint on an attended computer so I assume Remote Desktop is involved somehow.

neoopus said:
But if Windows get stuck while updating, installing then went to power-saving mode, it should be something that you have to tweak in the BIOS to prevent this, or via some CPU tweaking tools but try first to switch power mode.

I don't think Windows got stuck while updating. I think it went to sleep when it should not have.

Hmm. I just discovered something strange. I went to change the "Put the computer to sleep" from 30 to 45 minutes and found it greyed out. I had to issue a "Change settings that are currently unavailable" in order to unlock the power settings fields. I don't have to do that on other computers. I think the update problem is maybe a symptom of some other power mode problem.