Screen turn for win 11 using enter key

How can I set up my Windows 11 laptop to power on by pressing the Enter key instead of the power button?

Right now, I have to use the power button to turn it on. The screenshot for my current system setting is attached herein.

I am not aware of any systems that will allow you to actually power on by just hitting ENTER. Typically, pressing a key on the keyboard will only wake a system from sleep, but not power on when the system is actually off. However, my not being aware of this does not mean that there may not be the odd machine or two capable of this. But that would be something that is controlled by the BIOS, not Windows.

Could you possibly tell us the make and model of the laptop so that we can try to do some research on your system to see if this is possible?

TIP: You may want to add your system info so we don't have to ask for it for future issues. That way you can just say "this is about system #1 in my profile" or something similar.

EDIT: Apologies, you do have your system specs. I misclicked and missed this. Ignore that request!! Let me research...

Power on means turn on when laptop is completely off. There is no way to power on a machine from a cold start except using the power button.

If you have your terminology mixed up and mean "Can I wake from sleep using the keyboard (any key)" then go to device manager. Expand "keyboards" category.
Right click on your keyboard, select properties, select power management tab, check the box "allow this device to wake computer" OK

If you mean something else please clarify.

Now if you mean the options in your screenshot., the drop arrow beside each option is ALL the choices available for each option.

Take a look at this page, especially the option called "USB Wake Support" in the BIOS:


Dell specifically notes that the fingerprint sensor can be used to wake the system FROM STANDBY although it makes no mention of being able to do when shut down. If the keyboard is connected internally via USB then I would imagine the same limitation.

I didn't see anything that specifically addressed being able to wake the system from a powered off state using the keyboard.

I wish I could have been of more assistance.

One correction: I guess that there are indeed systems that can be powered on from shut down.

My roommate just reminded me that both of us had a really old 4th gen Intel box with an MSI motherboard that allowed the USB ports to wake the system from power off and that included a keyboard. He remembers this because the KB backlight would annoy him when sleeping so he had to disable that. Think of this to being loosely like Wake On LAN . With WOL the network adapter still gets power when the system is shutdown. The same is true for the USB ports on that system.

Again, this was controlled in the BIOS.

I have questions. In your images, what exactly is the point of having screen off/sleep/hibernate all instigate after the same period of time? 5min.
If you want to wake your PC you should be able to go into device manager and open the devices, instruct to be allowed to wake the PC.

I see no point in assigning or reassigning the Enter key to do this when you should be able to press any keyboard key, move a mouse or click a mouse button to do it natively. In which case, the Enter key (or any other key) should wake the PC

As this is a laptop, there is a way to wake the PC using the keyboard, although I am not 100% sure how that is done.
Also, if your mouse is Bluetooth, there is a possibility that the mouse might not be able to do this as Bluetooth can often be disabled in Hibernation state.

Personally, I disable Hibernate, the PC Sleep mode suites me fine. And in my opinion, is no different. There is zero activity on my PC after sleep. Except maybe that some USB devices can still charge, like a phone plugged into a USB port.

I think my PC is setup as follows

Screen off after 15min
Sleep after 45min
Hibernate never, or maybe 8 hours, I can’t remember.

Having everything activate after the same period of time makes zero sense, to me at least.

Search your manual for USB Wake Support to enable wake using the fingerprint scanner and possibly other methods. I believe USB wake support needs to be turned on in the BIOS.


Also, last comment. I believe the power button for this Laptop is at the top right corner of the keyboard? A few inches away from the Enter key?

hsehestedt said:

I am not aware of any systems that will allow you to actually power on by just hitting ENTER. Typically, pressing a key on the keyboard will only wake a system from sleep, but not power on when the system is actually off. However, my not being aware of this does not mean that there may not be the odd machine or two capable of this. But that would be something that is controlled by the BIOS, not Windows.

Could you possibly tell us the make and model of the laptop so that we can try to do some research on your system to see if this is possible?

TIP: You may want to add your system info so we don't have to ask for it for future issues. That way you can just say "this is about system #1 in my profile" or something similar.

EDIT: Apologies, you do have your system specs. I misclicked and missed this. Ignore that request!! Let me research...

Click to expand...

I mean

hsehestedt said:

I am not aware of any systems that will allow you to actually power on by just hitting ENTER. Typically, pressing a key on the keyboard will only wake a system from sleep, but not power on when the system is actually off. However, my not being aware of this does not mean that there may not be the odd machine or two capable of this. But that would be something that is controlled by the BIOS, not Windows.

Could you possibly tell us the make and model of the laptop so that we can try to do some research on your system to see if this is possible?

TIP: You may want to add your system info so we don't have to ask for it for future issues. That way you can just say "this is about system #1 in my profile" or something similar.

EDIT: Apologies, you do have your system specs. I misclicked and missed this. Ignore that request!! Let me research...

Click to expand...

hsehestedt said:

I am not aware of any systems that will allow you to actually power on by just hitting ENTER. Typically, pressing a key on the keyboard will only wake a system from sleep, but not power on when the system is actually off. However, my not being aware of this does not mean that there may not be the odd machine or two capable of this. But that would be something that is controlled by the BIOS, not Windows.

Could you possibly tell us the make and model of the laptop so that we can try to do some research on your system to see if this is possible?

TIP: You may want to add your system info so we don't have to ask for it for future issues. That way you can just say "this is about system #1 in my profile" or something similar.

EDIT: Apologies, you do have your system specs. I misclicked and missed this. Ignore that request!! Let me research...

Click to expand...

I mean wake a system from sleep it also cleared from attached screenshorts

asadermo said:

I mean wake a system from sleep it also cleared from attached screenshorts

Click to expand...

Okay, now we are getting somewhere!

First observation: You have sleep and hibernation both set to 5 minutes. Don't do that! I suspect that this means that your system will not sleep, it will go straight to hibernation. Hibernation means that the system will save the current state to your HDD or SSD and then SHUT DOWN completely. The KB will not wake it in that state.

As a test, try this: Leave everything else alone but change the hibernation to something like 1 hour (just for testing).

Wait for the system to enter sleep but don't wait so long that it hibernates. Try the KB and see if that will wake it.

If that still does not work, leave the power settings alone (with hibernate at 1 hour) and verify that your display driver IS A DRIVER SUPPLIED BY DELL and not a generic driver installed from Intel, Nvidia, or AMD. Having a non OEM display driver is a very common reason for a system not being able to wake from sleep because the OEM very often make modifications to the generic display drivers, especially on a laptop.

Let us know if any of this helps!

EDIT: As I think about this, I suspect the display driver less likely to be an issue in your case because you said that the power button will wake the system. If the problem was the display driver, more than likely even the power button would not properly wake it or at least the screen might remain black. So try the hibernation setting first.