When you are on your computer and walk away from it for a few minutes, on returning, it appears your computer has gone into power saving mode. In other words it has gone to sleep. This is all fine, providing you can now wake your computer from this deep power saving sleep.
Too many computer users move the mouse, tap on the keyboard, and even turn the monitor on and off, to try and wake the sleeping computer.
This Automatic Power saving mode is a great feature when it works like it was supposed to. However when you are right in the middle of writing an important document you have been working on for over two hours and haven’t had the chance to save yet, the Automatic Power saving mode can be sheer disaster.
You walk away to get a cup of coffee and come back to a blank computer screen or maybe a black screen with cursor, but either way you have a non responding computer. If you cannot wake the computer from this power saving sleep, than your all your hard work will be lost.
How to wake up from power saving mode?
As there are so many different brands of computers and computer components, there are a few different ways to wake your computer up from a power saving sleep.
- The obvious way is to press keys on your keyboard or move your mouse.
- Basically we need to shock it into waking up. Sometimes people perform a hard reboot.
- You can remove all cords and power to the computer. Press on the power button when nothing is connected. Then reconnect all cords and start your computer.
- If you have a laptop you can remove the battery and the cords.
- Sometimes it is necessary to remove the memory and then put it back. Then start the computer again.
Why won’t the mouse and keyboard wake up the computer from the power saving sleep?
To use a mouse or the keyboard to wake up a computer from power saving mode, sometimes you need to enable this feature. Hopefully this is the answer to your problem because this is the easiest problem to solve.
These steps are the first to try and if this doesn’t solve your problem I will give you some extra things to try.
- Go to the start menu.
- Right click on My computer and choose properties from the menu that pops up.
- System properties will open. In Windows Vista click on Advanced Settings in the right menu.
- In both Windows XP and Vista you can go to the hardware tab.
- Click on the Device Manager button.
- Find your mouse in the devices list. To open sections click on the + sign next to the word. Click on the device to make it blue.
- Then right click on it and choose properties from the menu. See the screen shot below.
- When your mouse properties open go to the Power Management tab.
- Put a tick in the box next to Allow this device to wake the computer.
- Press OK. See the Screenshot below.
Extra steps to take when your computer will not wake up?
- Disable power saving mode altogether.
- Check to see if your computer has an overheating problem. If it does it will not restart until it is cooled down.
- Download all Windows Updates.
- Make sure your computer doesn’t have a under rated power supply.
- Check your hardware. Graphics cards and motherboards are common culprits for this problem.
- Clean the motherboard and other inside components of dirt and dust. Dirt causes static and static damages the board. Please see how to open computer cases safely and how to clean inside your computer
Let us know how you wake up your computer from sleep mode?
My computer went into sleep mode yesterday and now I can’t get anything on the screen – not even a flashing underscore. However, the green monitor light is flashing. Are you able to assist, please? By the way, I did have a usb data stick left in but this has now been removed. I have also turned the computer off and back on, no change. And also turned the monitor off at the wall, left it and turned back on. No change.
Hi Gwenda
Can you try to get into safe mode by pressing F8 when starting your computer and choosing it from the menu of choices. If you can, let’s start up in safe mode and then shut it down correctly. Let me know if you can do this?
Sometimes you just have to tap the power button on the front of the Computer, same with a lap top. Sometimes hibernation can be confused with stand by but do not hold it down or yeah that will restart the pc all together. Although most programs now like MS Word have excellent restore features as do most browsers.
Thank you very much! Couldn’t think of why this wasn’t working on my new build until I came across this. Keep up the great work!
Thanks! I didn’t have to ask my husband to help and that is always a good thing.
My computer had both the keyboard and mouse enabled to wake up the machine. I’ve noticed that it’s when I leave photoshop up and walk away that it gives me trouble and won’t wake up. Or when it does wake up a black screen stares at me for awhile. I’ll just need to save everything before I walk away.
hi mitz have tried the steps above but it doesn’t work why
Your computer might not be asleep..
Hi, thanks for explanations!
Earlier, my PC was not powered by UPS. I has noticed that when PC is in sleep mode, and AC power goes off – yes, this is often in Ukraine – then I cannot wake up PC in any way, except by resetting BIOS.
Now my PC is powered by UPS. Sometimes PC does not wake from sleep, again. Can it be failure in UPS? Should I buy newer motherboard, or change UPS battery?
Hello Mitz,
My laptop has a blue screen with a flashing cursor, I have tried turning it off ctrl. alt delete, powering it down F2 and F12 nothing works. Any additional ideas you may have for me to try.
ED
my computer is a windows xp i can,t go to anything ,because time i push the power to turn the computer on, the monitor screen stays black and says entering power safe mode and power light goes out.
power button when pressed does nothing except “light bulb icon flashes” on my emachine notebook
I just had my power supply unit changed after my orig one failed. I used to have a 425W in there and the techie put a new 650W in. After bringing it home, my comp now goes into power save mode on start up and won’t wake up (something it didn’t do before the PSU was replaced). I have a Vista comp that is about 4 1/2 yrs old.
Can someone pls tell me how to fix this issue? Many thx!
Anna
I cleaned the dust out of my PC recentlly, I also made sure everything was seated good. When turned it back on everything sounded good (fans, no beebs) but my monitor is in power saving mode and i have no cursor and no power to my keyboard. I changed memory cards and grafix card. i hooked up my monitor to another PC and it worked fine. So i cant seem to figure out whats wrong, Please help.
i have a IBM desk top computer
I have tried every avenue to solve this and still no results
Turn on Computer and goes to ThinkCenter ,then to BoardCom. then to Think Center again, then you are told it might not have been shut down properly and you can go to Safe mode and others,Click on safe you start to get all of the information then it goes right to Windows and Back to Power saver mode. This keeps repeating the same thing over and over and i tried the F8 nothing, cleaned everything nothing, and disconnected all plugs and replugged nothing is it he monitor or is something just stuck
Did you go to the power saving options or hibernation to change them and disable sleep mode?
my desktop was in sleep mode and power went. but now when switched on, it boots half way and monitor goes to sleep mode and so does my keyboard. My desktop is a self configured one and running on windows vista.
Any suggestions highly appriciated..