Computer wakes from sleep automatically every night

Anonymous
2019-07-03T12:00:53+00:00

I put my computer to sleep before going to bed, but the signon screen is brightly lit every morning. Furthermore, when I launch Windows Update, it never seems to finish searching for new updates. In searching for a cause of the waking, I have come across the following potentially useful information. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

>powercfg -lastwake

Wake History Count - 1

Wake History [0]

  Wake Source Count - 1

  Wake Source [0]

    Type: Wake Timer

    Owner: [SERVICE] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Windows\System32\svchost.exe (SystemEventsBroker)

    Owner Supplied Reason: Windows will execute 'NT TASK\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Universal Orchestrator Start' scheduled task that requested waking the computer.

***Modified title from: windows 10 wakes from sleep EVERY night and the screen stays on until morning***

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Sleep and Power on, off

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2019-09-28T10:57:12+00:00

I think i found a fix that doesn't require downloading anything or complicated steps. 

It's worked for me so far.

1.  Go to: Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings (it may also be called Change plan settings)

     (you can alternatively just search for "Edit power plan" in the windows search bar)

  1. Click "change advanced power settings"

3. Go to "Sleep->Allow wake timers" and change the setting to Disable.

If this doesn't work, then using psexec like RichStevens2 suggested might be the way to go.

The directions i found on another forum was helpful:

"1. First go here to download PsTools. Extract it to a folder on your desktop. 

  1. Open Start and type cmd. Right-click the program and choose to run as administrator.
  2. Navigate to the folder where you extracted the tools by typing "cd C:\Users\Username\Desktop\Pstools", replace Username with your username and Pstools with the folder where you extracted the tools.
  3. When you have navigated to the correct folder, copy the following command without the quotes: "psexec.exe -i -s %windir%\system32\mmc.exe /s taskschd.msc".
  4. Open the command window and right click, choose paste. Press enter.
  5. Navigate to Task Scheduler Library -> Microsoft -> Windows -> UpdateOrchestrator.
  6. Right click the task called Reboot and click on Disable.
  7. The task should now be disabled"

Hopefully one of these two options works for ya'll

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-05-25T22:15:05+00:00

    RE: "Change Active Hours" - If you look deeper, e.g., at this support page, you'll see things like, "We’ll use that info to schedule updates and restarts..." 

    I've deleted the trigger numerous times under PSTools, but Windows will eventually spawn another one. As I prepare this, I can see in Task Scheduler that Universal Orchestrator Start is scheduled yet againat 10:14 am on 5/26/20.

    The thing to note is, it's 10:14 am. Before I changed active hours, this would be something like 2:55 am. But, your situation is definitely different than mine, since your machine go back to sleep while mine will not.

    If you do want to use PSTools, after you download it, the sequence is as follows:

    1. Open an Administrator prompt.
    2. Run this command: 

    psexec.exe -i -s C:\WINDOWS\system32\mmc.exe /s taskschd.msc

    1. In the left navigation pane, click the arrow (greater-than sign) next to Task Scheduler Library, then the one next to Microsoft, then the one next to Windows, then click UpdateOrchestrator. 
    2. In the right pane you will then see, amongst others, "Universal Orchestrator Start". Double click it, then on the Conditions tab,
    • clear "Start task only if the computer is idle for" checkbox
    • enable "Start the task only if the computer is on AC power" checkbox.
    • clear "Wake the computer to run this task" checkbox

    My warning is, don't be lulled when you don't see it for a couple weeks or a month - it will return. And IMO all we can do is live within the proscribed box usoft has created for us, all because they have decided for us that Windows Update is too heavyweight to be run during work hours.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-05-25T20:32:21+00:00

    Hi cniggeler, thanks for the response.

    It sounds like the Windows Update time setting in "Change active hours" only controls if the computer will automatically reboot or not if it thinks it needs to reboot.  My Windows Update time window is set for 9 am to 3 am.  I set it to the maximum 18 hour window allowed.  So my setting basically tells Windows that it can only reboot my computer between 3 am and 9 am if it's turned on (either left on by me, or woke up by Windows I'd assume).  I don't think this setting is actually waking the computer up from Sleep Mode as shown in my graph above.

    On my graph, Time = 0 is 12:30 PM, so it shows a time window from 12:30 PM back to 12:30 AM.  That 12 hour window includes time outside of the small 3 am to 9 am window where I'm saying Windows can reboot if it needs to.  So based on that, whatever is waking up my laptop doesn't seem to be associated with this setting.

    In my case, I could leave my laptop in Sleep Mode for 3 days, and it would wake itself up every 3 hours, stay on for 45 minutes (my Sleep setting) and then go back to sleep, then exactly 3 hours later wake itself up again.  That cycle will repeat forever if the computer is in Sleep Mode.

    I'm running Windows 10 Home, Version 1909, Build 18363.863 which is as up to date as possible.  If you're running an older version of Windows 10, then maybe that makes a difference on how other people's computers behave.

    The only thing I haven't tried yet is the PsTools fix (mentioned by a few in this thread) that allows system rights above the normal Administrator so tasks in Task Scheduler can to unchecked for the "Wake the computer to run this task option" setting.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-05-22T02:03:22+00:00

    You need to open and start the Command Prompt with "Run as "Administrator".

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-05-11T13:03:54+00:00

    My new PC does boot up faster so when it kept waking up, I did start powering down every night. I hibernate because there are multiple excel files I am working on that I like to keep open so I remember, along with various folders that I always keep open to access for my projects. It's a minor inconvenience to start things up every morning otherwise. And yes, I did open up the messages, and it was those few red that I didn't understand enough to triage.

    For the record, I disabled the wake function on Orchestrator again, and kept Chrome closed, and everything stayed asleep for 3 days so far. So I think it is something in Chrome for sure; I think when I ran that powercfg prompt that you had mentioned above, Chrome popped up and after I started closing that at night, it did stay asleep (until Orchestrator wake was re-checked).

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