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I am running Windows 7 Starter on an Acer Aspire One laptop.

I want my laptop to automatically run a task (backup the HDD to a network drive) once a week in the middle of the night. I scheduled the task in "Task Scheduler" and checked the box to wake the computer to run the task. I also changed the advanced power settings to allow wake timers. This was half of the solution. It now works flawlessly when the lid is open... the computer can wake itself up from either sleep or hibernate mode to perform the backup. When the lid is closed however, its sleeping beauty.

Any ideas? I don't want to have to remember to open the lid once a week. It sort of defeats the purpose of an "automatic" backup.

Update: I discovered that it can wake from sleep (or hybrid sleep), but not from hibernate when the lid is closed. This is good news. I'd still be curious about how to get it to work from hibernate, but I'm pretty happy about waking from sleep at least.

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  • I cannot recommend against hibernate strongly enough.
    – Kara Marfia
    Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 2:26
  • OK, thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll just stick with sleep. I was thinking that hibernate would help my battery last several times longer, but I guess it will last long enough in sleep mode.
    – JD Pack
    Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 3:18
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    Hybrid sleep is hibernate. It starts out going into standby where everything but the RAM is shut down, then after a while, it saves the RAM to disk and turns off altogether. You can see the difference because in sleep mode, pressing a key turns it back on, but if you leave it long enough and it hits hibernation mode, you must press the power-button to turn it on.
    – Synetech
    Commented Jul 28, 2012 at 13:10
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    Running Windows 8.0 I have a similar problem. For me, though, the laptop actual does wake from sleep and run the scheduled task but the wireless network card does not work when the lid is closed. Since you're connecting to a network drive, this sounds like the same problem. Were you wired or wireless? And did you have to do anything to get the wireless NIC to turn back on?
    – cod3monk3y
    Commented Jan 17, 2014 at 16:02

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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It sounds like you have Windows 7 set to sleep when the lid is closed and perhaps this is what's preventing it from waking. In Control Panel choose Power Options. On the left side, click "Choose what closing the lid does." I'd set "When I close the lid" / "Plugged in" = Do Nothing.

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  • Thanks a lot for the suggestion! I should have mentioned that I had already tried this and it didn't work. :-(
    – JD Pack
    Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 1:36
  • Glad you got it working from sleep mode. FWIW, I don't use hibernate. I always sleep my laptop (post XP, another story). Since (I assume) your laptop is plugged in, you don't have to worry about exhausting the battery in sleep. Also, you could set up your backup to run then put the laptop back to sleep upon completion.
    – BillP3rd
    Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 3:17
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The lid may override the sleep settings. Happens on MacBooks as well. The solution on that platform is InsomniaX. Being as the hardware is different, I'm not sure if there is a solution.

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In advanced power setting set the wake timer "on" for AC and/or Battery mode. Once this is set a scheduled task can be set to wake computer.

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