Windows 11 PC wakes up after a short bit, potentially wake on LAN - but I can't track down what's triggering it

Question

Sept 13th, 2022: My computer will go to sleep on its own at times, sometimes staying asleep through an entire night. Other nights it'll stay on the whole time. Sometimes during the day if I'm away long enough, I have the same issue - sometimes it'll go to and stay asleep, sometimes it won't. No idea what's doing this, it's clearly network related but I don't know how to track down the network traffic using something like Wireshark to figure out what's doing it.

I have a new computer running Windows 11 64-bit Pro, new install as of a few days ago with all updates applied. For some reason it will wake itself up from sleep after between a few seconds to a few minutes.

I've run the following commands and none of them indicate anything preventing the computer from sleeping or waking:

• powercfg -requests - nothing
• powercfg -devicequery wake_armed (Network is setup to allow wake on lan on new computer, but sleep had previously worked with this on. Bios is set to "Wake up event by: Bios" and "Resume by PCI-E Device: Enabled")
• powercfg -waketimers - no active waketimers
• powercfg -energy - shows nothing should be preventing the computers from sleeping
• powercfg -lastwake - shows wake history count 1 but nothing else

The computer's display turns off (But screensaver never turns on even though it should?) - it goes to sleep but wakes up shortly after.

I have Plex setup to allow for wake on lan, but unless it's actively running it doesn't show up on -requests. I've gone through device manager and turned off any "Allow this device to wake this computer" settings on everything except my ethernet.

The computer has the following in event viewer:

Source: Power-Troubleshooter, Event ID: 1

• System

  • Provider

  [ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Power-Troubleshooter [ Guid] {cdc05e28-c449-49c6-b9d2-88cf761644df} EventID 1 Version 3 Level 4 Task 0 Opcode 0 Keywords 0x8000000000000000

  • TimeCreated

  [ SystemTime] 2022-09-06T14:52:08.9667189Z EventRecordID 3161

  • Correlation

  [ ActivityID] {047fc231-274e-4d23-9f8e-4d44e437520d}

  • Execution

  [ ProcessID] 5184 [ ThreadID] 37880 Channel System Computer JonsDesktop

  • Security

  [ UserID] S-1-5-19

• EventData

  SleepTime 2022-09-06T14:51:51.4732916Z WakeTime 2022-09-06T14:52:07.9343569Z SleepDuration 772 WakeDuration 1433 DriverInitDuration 1365 BiosInitDuration 1530 HiberWriteDuration 0 HiberReadDuration 0 HiberPagesWritten 0 Attributes 1979728896 TargetState 4 EffectiveState 4 WakeSourceType 0
  WakeSourceTextLength 0 WakeSourceText WakeTimerOwnerLength 0
  WakeTimerContextLength 0 NoMultiStageResumeReason 0
  WakeTimerOwner WakeTimerContext CheckpointDuration 134

*My computer has following settings - 10 minutes for screensaver to come on, 15 minutes for display to turn off, and 30 minutes to go to sleep. Hybrid sleep is turned off, disallow waketimers, etc..

How can I figure out what's triggering my computer to wake up? I"m assuming it's something to do with Wake on LAN, but I can't figure out what. I've shut down literally every single service, program, etc. except for what comes with Windows 11 by default and it still happens. I've also unplugged every single USB device (Keyboard, mouse, headset) and it still wakes up.

Answer 1

These additional measures might help:

1. Pause updates in Settings > Windows Update and change active hours in Advanced options > Active hours.

2. Run Local Group Policy Editor, in Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update, double-click "Enabling Windows Update Power Management" and set it to Disabled.

3. Disable Automatic Maintenance : In the Start menu, search for "Automatic maintenance," and either change the run-time or disable by unchecking the box at the bottom.

4. Prevent network activity from waking the computer : Run Device Manager, find the network adapter "Network Adapters". Right-click it, choose Properties, and in the Power Management tab uncheck "Allow This Device to Wake the Computer". This will also disable Wake on LAN.

5. Disable scheduled tasks that may wake the computer : Run PowerShell and enter the command Get-ScheduledTask | where {$_.settings.waketorun}. Disabling is done in the Task Scheduler, double-click the task and in the Conditions tab uncheck "Wake the Computer to Run This Task".

6. To detect WOL packages on the network, you could use Wireshark with the filter set to wol. This could help detect the originating device by examining the WOL package.

Answer 2

To check what wakes up Windows use command powercfg -lastwake - in Friendly name: you will get the software or hardware name.

Then turn that off and computer won't wake up from that reason.

From my experience I needed to turn off ~Timer wakeup in Power Options in Control Panel, because there were some services waking up the computer.

Also there was hardware waking up, and in Device Manager I needed to turn off waking up by this hardware.

Both the above should make computer sleep as you may want.

Answer 3

Also be aware that Windows event log and powercfg can sometimes report the wrong wake source. Seems it is a known bug for some years. I had a PC waking on LAN but the Event log reporting it was the Power button.

Answer 4

For several years, 2 cooling fans and a lot of wasted time and energy I have seemed to solve the ACPI Wake ALarm issue. Having done all of the above, which at times would do the trick until the next update, I never was able to keep my pc asleep regularly. powercfg -lastwake would always yield the following: powercfg -lastwake Wake History Count - 1 Wake History [0] Wake Source Count - 1 Wake Source [0] Type: Device Instance Path: ACPI\ACPI000E\2&daba3ff&0 Friendly Name: Description: ACPI Wake Alarm Manufacturer: (Standard system device

To solve this open the registry registry editor, search for ACPI000E, it should be on line 021 you find "ACPI Wake Alarm". delete this entry. For 4 days now my pc has slept as expected.