Has your computer stopped going to sleep on it’s own?
Mine certainly did and it bugged the hell out of me! Here is what I found after trying lots of other suggestions.
- It was not caused by Windows 7
- It had nothing to do with the “Power” settings for my laptop
After some time investigating the issue – this meant trying different things, then waiting for the computer to go to sleep – it ended up being something completely different.
I traced it back to the Google Chrome browser. When I shut down Chrome, my computer went to sleep. WooHoo! But, I didn’t want to shut down Chrome every time I stopped using it. So I started turning off my Chrome Add-ons and finally worked out that the “Awesome Screenshot” plugin was the culprit that was preventing my computer from going to sleep. WooHoo! I finally found the root cause.
Awesome Screenshot just happens to be a plugin I use an awful lot, so I was unhappy about disabling it. After looking into the options, I found a hidden section called Advanced Option. In here is a setting that enables the developer to collect anonymous usage statistics (see screen shot). If you uncheck this box, your computer will be able to go to sleep again.
If your Windows computer is not going to sleep, Awesome Screenshot could be the reason. Simply uncheck the “Advanced Option” check-box and restart Chrome. Your computer should go to sleep normally again.
