Cannot Disable Keyboard from Waking the Computer

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I have an Alienware M15 laptop running Windows 10 21H2, OS build 19044.1826.  I cannot get it configured so that the keyboard will not wake it from sleep mode.  Here’s what I’ve done so far.

• I’ve gone into Device Manager and unchecked “Allow this device to wake the computer” under Power Management for the keyboard (for the mouse too, for what that’s worth)
• I’ve run “powercfg /DEVICEQUERY wake_from_any” from an Administrator command prompt and found the keyboard listed there, along with many, many other devices.
• I’ve run “powercfg /DEVICEDISABLEWAKE “HID Keyboard Device (003)” from the Administrator command prompt but see that device listed in the DEVICEQUERY command listed above immediately after.
• I’ve checked through BIOS settings but didn’t find anything relevant.

Does anyone have thoughts on what else I could check?

I don’t know if it is relevant, but the laptop will sometimes wake itself up from sleep even when the keyboard has not been touched.

Thanks for any suggestions.  Gary

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You may have already seen this ghacks.net How to find out why your PC wakes up, and how to stop it article.

Does a powercfg -lastwake query (in an elevated console) shed any light?

Hope this helps…

1 user thanked author for this post.

garypetersen

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The powercfg -lastwake command shows Fixed Feature Power Button regardless of whether I hit the power button or any key on the keyboard.  That seems odd to me as I am definitely tapping the keyboard and not the power button.

I hadn’t seen the ghacks.net article, but had tried most of the suggestions in it, having got them from other sources.

Thank you for the suggestion.  I’m more than eager for anything else you might suggest.

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I do not have any experience with the laptop mentioned, but on my desktop setting that control wake-up have to be set in the bios. Check the power state of USB ports during sleep and a setting similar to “wake up on USB”

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Hi garypeteresen:

Does your Alienware M15 laptop support Modern Standby? If you aren’t sure enter powercfg /a in a command prompt and see if Standby (S0 Low Power Idle) is supported. See the MS support article Modern Standby vs S3, Dell employee DELL-Chris M’s FAQ Modern Standby and Laptop Mag’s Email While You Sleep: How to Use Windows 10’s Modern Standby for more information. If Modern Standby is causing your computer to spontaneously wake from sleep when it tries to run a background task then I think the only way to turn it off is with a registry hack.

My Dell Inspiron 5584 does not support Modern Standby (S0) (see the attached image) so there are very few background tasks that could wake my system when it is in sleep mode [the “old” Standby (S3)]. However I did find that my laptop would always wake exactly 3 hours (180 min) after entering sleep mode. I eventually discovered that this problem occurred because my default Dell power plan was scheduled to automatically hibernate after 180 min of sleep (which it never did) and this would cause my computer to wake with an ACPI Wake Alarm. The solution was to change the advanced settings in my Dell power plan so that Sleep | Hibernate After: was changed from 180 min to Never (for both On Battery and Plugged In) to prevent my laptop from attempting to hibernate while in sleep mode. See my Dec 2019 thread Inspiron 15 5584 Wakes After 180 Min of Sleep (ACPI Wake Alarm) and the attached image for more information.

In addition to the powercfg /lastwake command that Rick Corbett suggested, commands like powercfg /waketimers, powercfg /requests (to see if any application and driver Power Requests are preventing the computer from automatically powering off the display or entering a low-power sleep mode) and powercfg /energy [which generates a detailed report called Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report (energy-report.html)] might be helpful. In my case, Event Viewer would log an “information only” event at Windows Logs | System (Source: Power-Troubleshooter; Event ID: 1; Wake Source: Device – ACPI Wake Alarm) that pointed me in the right direction.

Out of curiosity, why do you want to prevent your keyboard from waking your computer from sleep mode? I also had a problem on my Inspiron laptop where I occasionally couldn’t wake my computer from sleep mode, and I couldn’t restart from Ctrl+Alt+Del so I would have to perform a hard shutdown by holding down the power button for ~ 10 to 15 sec. Nothing suggested in the Dell support article Steps for Fixing Windows Computers that Do Not Wake Up or Resume from Suspend or Hibernate Mode but Will Power On helped and I eventually had to perform a reset to factory condition after my system refused to boot up after one of these hard shutdowns. Since my reset to factory condition I’ve been able to wake from sleep by pressing a key on my keyboard, but tapping / swiping my touchpad or moving a mouse doesn’t work. This inability to wake from sleep is a common problem with many Dell models (search the Dell Laptops | Alienware board for “wake from sleep” for several examples) and I’m worried that if you prevent your keyboard from waking your computer you might find yourself in a difficult situation one day.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H2 build 19044.1889 * Firefox v103.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2205.7-1.1.19500.2 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.5.13.208-1.0.1740 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.6867 * Dell SupportAssist v3.11.4.29 * Dell Update Windows Universal v4.6.0 * Inspiron 5583/5584 BIOS v1.20.0

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