Computer stopped entering sleep

[Reachable]

My 4 year old Windows 7 PC had always been good at going into hybrid sleep at the times that the power settings indicated. However, just a few days ago it stopped doing that altogether. I can still put it to sleep with keyboard shortcut, etc., but it will not go into sleep on its own. I've fiddled with the power settings and it makes no difference. Sometimes I notice that the hard drive light comes on for an instant every few seconds -- an observation more than an explanation.

Why has my 4 year old stopped wanting to sleep? What's a mother to do?!

 

[lchu12]

As I would ask anyone that needed troubleshoot help at work...

Did anything change or was installed/uninstalled lately from the computer in question?

 

[Reachable]

Gee, now that you mention it, it was not long ago that I had to use System Restore to remedy a situation where basically everything stopped working as it should. But System Restore did the trick. The only other change I can recall lately was installing Skype, but I haven't been using it and don't leave it open.

edit: Also, the new version of Zone Alarm.

 

[gbhall]

Sometimes happens with Win 7 that it decides it knows better than you. One way to deal with this is enter powercfg.cpl in the windows search box, then choose advanced settings and go through them all, resetting to what you want.

Some people find the most reliable way is to create a new power plan entirely (say 'mypower') set all the settings and make that the default.

 

[Reachable]

Thank you, gbhall, for the two promising suggestions. I had tried resetting the power options previously, but I had never created an entirely new power plan, so that I did. However, that also did not work.

What I'm really concerned about is whether the change in behavior might be due to malware. I ran my anti-virus scanner and it found nothing. I won't worry about it too much, but I would like to know what's accessing the hard drive and keeping the computer from acting properly.

 

[gbhall]

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/find-out-what-program-is-secretly-accessing-your-hard-disk-drive/

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/easily-d...oftware-is-secretly-connecting-to-internet-2/

http://superuser.com/questions/1753...s-constantly-accessing-my-hard-drive-in-windo

and others from google of 'what program is accessing hdd'

 

[Reachable]

I've been busy or preoccupied and haven't visited the thread for a long time.

From the link gbhall provided I downloaded Process Monitor. It generated massive amounts of data, almost all of it over my technical head.

But, the problem seemed to more or less repair itself. One time, after an aborted boot, I ran that diagnostic or repair tool (the name of which I don't remember) that Windows suggests after an improper start-up. I did not run it for the full duration. Nevertheless, the computer has been going to sleep on its own since then.

However, it now wakes up every so often for a mysterious reason, and goes right back to sleep. Sleep apnea, but I'm sure that's curable also.

 

[gbhall]

However, it now wakes up every so often for a mysterious reason, and goes right back to sleep. Sleep apnea, but I'm sure that's curable also.

Not necessarily !! If a $1billion spacecraft can have power saving problems (Rosetta), what chance have we got ? Rosetta woke unexpectedly in 2012, woke again when required, but immediately pressed the snooze button and had another half-an-hour zzzz, so was late getting to work......