Find out whats preventing XP from going into standby?

Skeeter · 31 Mar 2008 at 18:11

Hi

Is there any way you can see what is running on an XP machine and what proccesses or applications are preventing the PC from going into standby. Ive got a clean formatted XP machine for my family, and after only a few days use it dosnt sleep on a couple of the accounts, and I cant for the life of me see why? Im looking for a simple app that will just tell me whats preventing standby?

Cheers

Greenlizard0 · 31 Mar 2008 at 18:30

This may have nothing to do with your problem, but I found out a while back why my computer wasn't staying in standby mode, it was because when trucks went past the house they vibrated my room to the extent my mouse moved enough to restart the machine. It *might* be that you can't touch your mouse at all after you've clicked to enter standby mode.

Skeeter · 31 Mar 2008 at 18:32

I dont tell it to standby. I have it set to automatically standby after 10 mins of inactivity. It just doesnt go to sleep.

Conrad11 · 31 Mar 2008 at 20:20

Skeeter said:
I dont tell it to standby. I have it set to automatically standby after 10 mins of inactivity. It just doesnt go to sleep.

So you have sat there for 10 minutes to see if it has done anything at all?

If not i suggest you unplug the mouse, keyboard, network cable and anything else that can cause "activity" and watch it for 15 minutes (set the standby to 10 mins) and see if anything happens...

....what i think is happening, is that something is causing your pc to remain active, be it your mouse (even the slightest of movements can trigger this), keyboard or network....or maybe another device.

Skeeter · 31 Mar 2008 at 23:25

No, its a case of leaving it, going away, coming back hours later and it still being on....

And it does go to sleep sometimes, and not others. I know cetrain things like torrents and Steam etc can stop a PC from going to sleep (I use it to keep my own PC awake) yet none of this is installed as is a clean XP install.

It goes to sleep on its own sometimes, and other times just doesnt. I want to be able to run something that will tell me what proccesses are keeping the machine awake, or what proccess have the ability to.

Conrad11 · 1 Apr 2008 at 23:39

Did you try what i said? My guess is that it would be the network card.

Just set all the devices to NOT wake the computer out of standby.

Skeeter · 2 Apr 2008 at 02:24

I havent tried yet, ive been busy being ill and writing my dissertation, but I will have a look.

I dont think it is a device however, as it sleeps on its own fine in my mums, dads and my desktop, but not in either of my sisters. This makes me think its a piece of software but I cant see anything that would cause it? there no additional software I can see.

Will have a look and let you know