If You’re Computer Won’t Sleep Then Check Your Drivers

Part and parcel of building your own computer is that you need to look after driver upgrades yourself which can either be part a fun part of the ongoing tweaking process or an absolute pain. It can be particularly annoying when your machine just doesn’t behave the way you intended.

For instance, my computer has had a bad habit over the last couple of weeks of not going to sleep automatically. This is problematic as it is woken up in the wee hours of the morning for its backup but then remains on until I wake up (at which point I turn it off before going to work). Some people may not mind this at all but given the size of the last power bill I’m finding everything possible to switch off.

So I cast my mind back to think about what on earth could be causing the problem. It definitely wasn’t Windows Update (as I always refuse device driver installations after several bad experiences) and I haven’t installed any applications that would seemingly interfere with the power management governed by the operating system.

Then it occurred to me. About a month ago, I had upgraded my video card drivers as I thought they were a bit stale and I could perhaps use the latest version to improve my frame rates (not that they really need much improvement with the games I play anyway). Video cards are an important part of system standby modes as they are told specifically to go into a lower power state. If the drivers do not respond correctly to the request by the operating system then you may encounter something like a crash, system hang or perhaps nothing happens at all.

At any rate, I rolled back to my previous driver (which I had saved on the network) and everything is back to normal which is fantastic. It pays to take notice of what you do with your computer as that information may come in handy later on, particularly if you need the help of another person to work out the problem.

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