Windows 10: Monitor turns off after 2 minutes of inactivity

After weeks of thinking I was going mad with all settings set to never sleep.. the above has FINALLY resolved all my sleeping after 2 minutes issues.. I just joined the forum to say thank you to the above poster.

*Biggrin

 

New to the forums, hello. I just finished doing what was mentioned in the first post. When I got to the part about "set it to 20 mins," mine is already set to 20 minutes. I actually have my computer set to never sleep or never shut down. I prefer to do this manually, myself.

I take college classes online, and am always afraid if I am taking a test and have to get up for a minute, my computer will shut down and end my test session before I am done. Sometimes it won't shut off for 3 hours, sometimes it shuts down (sleeps) after what seems like 35 seconds as I leaf through a textbook for info.

HP desktop, 8gb ram, forget what processor, but it's an amazing computer. I love windows 10 also, just not the sleep/shutdown thing. It came with win7, I did the free update to 10. Then formatted the computer and installed a fresh windows 10, hoping that would cure the problem. It hasn't, I just don't leave my computer if I'm taking a test.

 

HI all
I registered just to thank you .. and I feel stupid not noticing this ..

thank you again

 

My problem appears to have started or at least gotten much worse after I started using an external monitor and docking station.

The instructions below worked perfectly. Thank you!

 

Hi jax, I had full intentions to reply but I ended up getting distracted and forgot. Just thought about it again now as I plan to give my laptop a new lease on life. My laptop isn't new and although I would love to get a new one, I just can't for another year or 2. So I need to get a little more life from this one, which is easy enough, this is my second Toshiba in 10 years so I am pretty good at maintaining them to get the most out of them. I literally used my old one until she died, zilch, won't even turn on anymore haha *chuckle She rests in peace in my wardrobe still.

My second Toshiba, Satellite, that I purchased new around 2012-13, so it is abt 3-4 yrs old. This one ran fine up until the new windows 10 update that resulted in my sleep problem. Now I am having issues with the fan constantly running so it needs a clean out, replace fan, paste etc (hopefully cpu is all good, should be) and I plan to upgrade HDD to SSD. I will also get my graphics card checked while at it, thanks for the tip! I love the new OS also, hated 8!

Thanks again,

Shell

 

THANK YOU! This has been driving me crazy. Worked like a charm. I didn't even know that setting existed beyond the regular window with the power settings. Kind of dumb from MS to hide it, isn't it?*Huh

 

Tommy1977, I made the changes to the 3 sub-keys, changing the time to 20 minutes (1200 decimal) and now my system no longer goes to sleep after 2 minutes.
BUT, now it NEVER goes in to sleep mode unless I manually force this my clicking the WINDOWS key and POWER and selecting sleep.
The monitor does turn off after 20 minutes of no mouse or keyboard activity, but the system is NOT in sleep mode and I appreciate that.
Do you know which power plans the each of the sub-keys is for ?
Any idea why changing the values stops the system from entering sleep mode ?

Thanks.

 

an opened windows may prevent windows to automatically sleep.

 

Mfaklis: but my system had no problem sleeping with an opened window (Outlook) prior to make the registry changes Tommy1997 suggested. And even now it has no problem sleeping with Outlook open when I manually initiate sleep.
With the changes to the registry, the system doesn't seem to honor the settings in my Power plans (Balance, Power saver, High performance nor Stable Mode), which have different times than what I entered via the registry ? Interestingly it does honor the Power settings (or did prior to making the registry changes) when I only used my laptops monitor, but ignored them and went to sleep in 2 minutes when I only use my external monitor.

 

You can correct this issue in the Screen Saver options. windows 10 lockscreen - Microsoft Community

 

Andy,

Sincerely thank you for your post on this. I was literally losing my ****ing mind lol. Your directions were spot on and were simple to follow. I created this account just to say thank you, cheers bro.

 

1. Click on the windows icon
2. Type regedit
3. Right-click on regedit icon, click Run as administrator
4. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\7bc4a2f9-d8fc-4469-b07b-33eb785aaca0
5. Double click on Attributes
6. Enter number 2.
7. Go to Advanced power settings (click on Windows button, write power options, click on Power Options, in the selected plan click on the Change plan settings, click on the Change advanced power settings).
8. Click on the Change settings that are currently unavailable
9. Click Sleep, then System unattended sleep timeout, then change these settings from 2 Minutes to 20 for example.

 

Hi everybody with a blank screen problem my problem was of the past when i just changed my screensaver to none and rebooted

 

The most simplest way..

Right-click on desktop > Personalize > Lock Screen and turn this off: "Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen"

Just to be sure, enter below on Cortana lock screen settings and make sure the Lock Screen option is switched also off!!

Don't mention it, I switched to macOS for good!

 

I keep being interrupted by a timeout where the screen goes black after few seconds and keeps doing so even after I set the timeout to 5 or 15 minutes or longer. It always comes back on when I move the cursor a few times. Eventually the timeout delay gets longer than a few seconds but not until much later in my computer sessions. This interferes with my work so I hope someone can help.
*Sad*Sleepy