Surface Pro keeps going to sleep every 1-2 minutes of being idle

Sorry for the late follow up, been busy with finals over the past week, and didn't want to bother creating a new user account until my Surface Pro was all setup as my old Laptop  and backed up.

Thank you Bettelkeda! That seems to have fixed it, for now. I too didn't have the "Reset Security Policies" option under user accounts in the classic control panel, and after I had removed all my non-microsoft accounts from the Mail app, the bug still persisted.

I have my customized power plan (based off the Balanced power plan) set to put the Surface Pro to sleep after 30 minutes when plugged in, and after 15 minutes when on battery. Just tried as Bettelkeda stated then I put my Surface Pro to sleep (to ensure it wasn't just cause it recently booted up), woke it up and it didn't go to sleep after over 15 minutes (while plugged in) :D On battery, I timed it, and it went to sleep right after 15 minutes :)

Thanks again Bettelkeda AND daov! Really appreciate it! Hopefully Microsoft stops thinking its the users fault, accepts it is 1 of several bugs in Windows 8 and fixes it with a Windows update.

--EDIT--

Appears I kinda spoke too early, lol

After the second sleep cycle following the change in the Group Policy (when it went to sleep at the right time), it appears that the bug has overpowered the power plan again....I rechecked the group policy and the timing is still set to 99999 minutes. So, I double clicked on it, simply clicked the "OK" button, and the computer still went to sleep after ~2 minutes....

Will create a new user account soon tonight.

We should probably unmark this thread as "answered" as it is clearly not answered.  I do thank everyone for their help thus far, unfortunately a solution has not been found.

I really hope Microsoft steps in and provides a fix.

As a last resort i had to reset windows.  A big pain, but the problem has been fixed.  I no longer have any sleep issues.

This is definitely being caused by an outside influence enforcing timeout policies via ActiveSync. This has been the case in every instance and the setting is somewhere in Group Policy depending on how it is enforced or what exact setting is being enforced.

The prior solution of resetting security policies apparently was disabled by a Windows Update (for some people) from Microsoft so it is no longer a valid solution it seems and in addition, domain admins were given the right to disable resetting the policy once it is enforced. The setting was first noted here and the poster there posted where the setting is located in the Exchange Console and since he was a domain administrator within that domain, he disabled the enforcement of the policy. This same setting can be caused if you simply connect to a wireless network that pushes particular policies as well.

Other email accounts and Outlook and other mail applications can cause this as well but it is not clear which ones or what that timeout is. For instance, Gmail is definitely setting a timeout policy (for some) but I have yet to discover the official word on that or how to disable the setting or how long is the timeout.

If you mirror all of the settings and actions on the Surface Pro on another Windows 8 machine, the same issue will occur. I tested this on multiple non-Domain machines running Windows 8 Home, Pro and Enterprise. Every machine experienced this issue.

In the same forum post above, the last commenter states:

This fixed it for me on my desktop.   Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Local Security Policy> Local Policies> Security Options> Interactive Logon: Machine Inactivity Limit> I set it to 1800 seconds so that it will not go to lock screen till after 30 minutes.  By default, it was set to 60 seconds. 

I would recommend trying that but realistically, finding the account or outside influence causing this setting is best. For me, it was my work's Exchange account. What was worse is that even if I removed the account, the policy did not un-enforce. At the time, I was able to reset the security policy and fix it.

Sevenforums.com has a solution that may fix it, which resets all Group Policy settings to default. Please try it to see if the issue is corrected. I would recommend creating a restore point first.

Another possible Group Policy setting that may be enforced by an outside account is:

Computer configuration->Administrative Templates->System->Logon->Allow users to select when a password is required when resuming from connected standby