Sleep mode in Windows is a valuable feature that allows you to turn off your PC briefly, such as when you leave your PC to get a coffee or take a short break. 
Sleep mode uses very little power, the PC starts up more quickly, and you can return to where you were. Some of us may prefer sleep mode over shutdown. However, as your PC is ever randomly woken up from sleep mode? How to deal with this problem?

If your PC keeps waking up randomly in sleep mode, here are some settings you can follow to ensure that the sleep mode feature on your Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC keeps running correctly.

Find Out What Woke Your PC

When your PC randomly wakes up in sleep mode, open the Start menu and search for "cmd", then right-click Command Prompt and select Run As Administrator. After that, type the following command and press Enter:

powercfg -lastwake

Windows knows what woke up your PC last time. If you're lucky, it will give you a clear answer. If it successfully detects the program causing your PC to wake up randomly in sleep mode, you can adjust or uninstall the program's settings.

In other cases, the command may display a list of specific hardware devices, and you can jump to the relevant section in this article or do a web search to find out what settings to change on those devices. If that doesn't provide any helpful information, try this command:

powercfg -waketimers

You can also try your luck by searching for information in the Windows Event Viewer. 

1. Click the Start menu
2. Search for "Event Viewer", then run this tool
3. In the sidebar, go to Windows Logs > System, then click "Filter Current Log" on the right side of the window (In Windows 11, this is called "Custom Views").

If your PC still wakes up randomly next time, try some of the solutions below.

Tweak Windows Update, Scheduled Maintenance

Set your Active Hours and delay updates until you have time to install them, and you may be able to solve this problem quickly. 

Windows 10 users
Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update to pause updates or change the active hours.

Windows 11 users
You can go to Settings > Windows Update to pause updates. To change the active hours, click Advanced options > Active hours.

Dive Deeper into the Local Group Policy Editor

If you need to drill down deeper into your settings, you'll need a Pro or Enterprise version of Windows to access the Group Policy Editor. If you have a version other than the Home edition, you can open the Start menu and search for "Group Policy."

With the Local Group Policy Editor open, go to Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update, then double-click Enable Windows Update Power Management and set it to Disabled.

Windows also runs a series of Automatic Maintenance tasks once a day. 

1. Open the Start menu
2. Search for "Automatic maintenance."
3. Open the resulting option in the Control Panel

You can change the execution time or uncheck the "Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time" option to prevent it from randomly waking up your PC in sleep mode.

Find the Misbehaving USB Device

Windows may tell you that a USB device is waking up your PC, but you need to find the problematic device. It is most likely your mouse or keyboard device.

However, if you're having trouble figuring out which device is the problem, disconnect all USB devices when you put your PC to sleep, and see if it wakes up on its own. If not, leave one device connected while you put it back to sleep. Keep doing this for each USB device until the problematic device is found.

Once you've found the problem hardware, open the Start menu and search for "Device Manager." Find the device in the list that appears-say your keyboard and right-click on it. Select Properties and the Power Management tab, then uncheck the Allow This Device to Wake the Computer option and click OK. 

Once the problematic USB device is found:

1. Open the start menu
2. Search for "Device Manager"
3. Find the problematic device then right-click and select Properties
4. Select the Power Management tab
5. Then uncheck the "Allow This Device to Wake the Computer" option 5.
6. Then click OK

Suppose your BIOS has the option to disable USB waking. You can also try utilizing that option in your BIOS if your PC still wakes up randomly.

Restrict Your Network Adapter

If your PC wakes up due to Intel(R) I211 Gigabit Network Connection or other network adapter devices, network activity is waking up your PC regularly. You can fix this from the Device Manager.

1. Open the start menu
2. Search for "Device Manager."
3. Find the Ethernet or Wi-Fi adapter in the "Network Adapters" section
4. Right-click and select Properties
5. Go to the Power Management tab
6. Then uncheck the option "Allow This Device to Wake the Computer"
7. Click Ok

As the USB waking option in the BIOS described earlier, you can also disable the Network wakeup option if your BIOS has one.

Other alternatives if you need Wake-On-LAN to access a sleeping PC remotely are:

1. Check the "Allow This Device to Wake the Computer" option.
2. Check the "Only Allow a Magic Packet to Wake the Computer" option.
3. Click Ok

This will ensure that Wake-On-LAN still works, without allowing any network traffic to wake your PC from sleep mode.

Disable Other Wake Timers

If none of the above fixes your problem, you may need to find out about the wake timers on your PC, i.e. the scheduled events that are allowed to wake up your PC. To open the Wake Timers settings follow these steps:

1. Open the Start menu
2. Search for "Edit Power Plan"
3. Click Change Advanced Settings on the Edit Plan Settings window
4. Go to Sleep > Allow Wake Timers
5. Change to Disabled (Both on Battery and Plugged-In mode)

You need to repeat this process for all your power modes in the drop-down menu at the top, not just the one you currently use.

Notes: This is a sweeping setting designed to affect all wake timers, which may mean too much for you (if you have specific wake timers you want to enable).

With that in mind, here are recommended commands you can run in cmd or powershell.

Get-ScheduledTask | where {$_.settings.waketorun}

This command can display a list of scheduled tasks to wake up your PC. If you find a task that you want to turn off:

1. Open the Start menu 
2. Search for "Task Scheduler"
3. Navigate to the task in question using the sidebar
4. Double-click to edit it
5. Select the Conditions tab and uncheck the "Wake Computer to Run This Task" box 5.

Random wakeups can be tricky to solve, and you may need to dig deeper to find your specific problem. However, hopefully, the options above will at least point you in the right direction. Just remember that you may have to return and do this in a few months if it happens again-new. Programs, new hardware, and Windows updates can always cause the problem to reappear. It's a curse, but at least now you can control it.

Your PC waking up randomly in sleep mode can be a tricky problem to solve, so you may need to dig deeper into your specific situation. Some of the options above should point you in the right direction. Remember that you may have to go back and do this in a few months if it happens again with new programs, new hardware, or Windows updates that can always cause the problem to reappear.

Reference:
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/stop-your-computer-from-randomly-waking-up-from-sleep-mode

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