Windows 10: Nvidia dGPU blocks modern standby on laptop

I am asking for a friend, who owns a Dell XPS 9570, and his modern standby is broken since months now, always draining the battery in 2-3 hours by around 25%. I looked on the laptop via teamviewer, and tried everything to optimize it, deactivated all background stuff, tried out different versions of Nvidia driver, ect. Nothing worked, and it still drains battery. Same on 1909 as on latest 2004.

Sleepreport always hints to that the Nvidia dGPU was running, or not in sleep mode:





Everything was closed for this test, no application running. The dGPU was off before triggering standby, checked via HwInfo.

Any way to debug, why this is happening? The worst is, you cant disable the dGPU, or modern standby wouldnt even work at all. If you disable the Nvidia dGPU in device manager, modern standby also would cause a total drain.

Any modern standby experts here, who know if there is a way to debug this? Any special workaround maybe possible, to disable the dGPU with a different way of ticking it to disable in device manager?

:)

 

Can't enable Modern Standby

You need an exclusively UEFI PC (without Legacy support) for Modern/Connected, at least it's what I've heard. I guess if that Z390 doesn't have it, I am not really expecting any consumer desktops to implement it, I assume it would require manufacturers to kinda rewrite their BIOS. It is also indirectly suggested on Anandtech that the feature depends on the onboard WiFi:

Personally I love my Ethernet cables and 1Gbit speeds, and WiFi would be the last thing I'd do to my PC, but I would like to test this feature when I buy a new PC, since Z370 is clearly out of question. Considering that Z390 basically has onboard WiFi and Z370 doesn't , it further solidifies this as a potential WiFi only feature. Maybe it's possible for the PC to switch to WiFi for Connected Standby and then back to wire after it wakes up? That would be nice.

Edit: there's also this:
"Modern Standby is only available on some SoC systems. When it's supported, the system does not support S1-S3."

Yeah... S3 is the "normal" standby. So if your firmware manufacturer supports that, it's bye-bye Modern? Ouch.

 

Which Laptops support Modern Standby ?

I called the Microsoft Store, Dell Support and Lenovo sales support.

I asked which systems they had that supported Modern Standby (Consumer or Business Systems).

No one had heard of Modern Standby. The Microsoft Store person didn't even recommend the Surface Pro, which I found out through a PCmag Review, has Modern Standby but Microsoft Sales support did not confirm.

Thanks,

Steve

 

Is there any OS function that let us check system is going to enter modern standby?

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



Windows 10 Modern Standby (Modern Standby) expands the Windows 8.1 Connected Standby power model. Connected Standby, and consequently Modern Standby, enable an instant on / instant off user experience, similar to smartphone power models. Just like
the phone, the S0 low power idle model enables the system to stay up-to-date whenever a suitable network is available.



We would suggest you to refer these articles for additional information:

What is Modern Standby?

Prepare software for modern standby

Modern standby SleepStudy



However, as you are into software development. Let me point you in the right direction, where you would get the appropriate help for this issue. I would suggest you to post your query in
MSDN forums, where we have experts and support professionals
who are well equipped with the knowledge on Modern Standby to assist you with the appropriate troubleshooting steps.



Regards,



Aditya Roy

Microsoft Community – Moderator