Question Display remains active?
Question Display remains active?
This issue has been haunting me for years and still didn't find out what's causing it. I even asked AI for help, did everything but still no fix. I don't have a hope that someone figures it out here, but just in case I'll still tell you. Here's the situation:
If I turn on my PC or if I restart my PC, it's working absolutely fine, meaning that display goes to sleep in 5 minutes like the way I want, HOWEVER, later something prevents to do it. One thing I know for sure what prevents it is playing a Battlefield 2042. If I play that game and then exit. Display sleep gets broken. It doesn't go to sleep after that. But it's not only Battlefield. At one point, I had uninstalled that game and didn't play any EA game at all, but still something was causing this problem. Now, interesting thing is that I asked my buddy who also plays Battlefield if he's having the same issue and he said no. And lastly, before you suggest me to reinstall my Windows, I'm not gonna do that, simply because I already did it. I reinstalled it several times already in recent years and this problem still exists. I think something is causing this problem, but I don't know what. Oh and when display sleep breaks, restart helps. So clearly, something is triggering and causing to break lockscreen/display sleep.
Also, this year, I upgraded my PC, particuralry CPU, RAM and motherboard and this problem was even before this upgrade.
I will give you my full specs of my system now:
CPU: Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 Processor 265KF
COOLER: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 Pro
MOTHERBOARD: MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi Gaming
GPU: ASUS TUF RTX 3080 V2 GAMING OC 10GB
RAM: VENGEANCE® 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 DRAM 5600MT/s
STORAGE: Solidigm P41 Plus 2TB SSD + 2TB HDD + 4TB HDD
PSU: XFX PRO1050W Black Edition (80+ Gold)
CASE: Zalman Z9 Iceberg MS Black
MONITOR: Dell S2721D 27"
KEYBOARD: A4tech FX50 Ultra-Slim
MOUSE: Razer Basilisk V3
MOUSEPAD: Marvo MG010
SPEAKERS: Microlab Solo7C
HEADSET: VOKALEN Hyper Pro
CONTROLLER: 8BitDo Ultimate Controller with Charging Dock
OS: Windows 11 64bit
I asked for help from Gemini (Google AI), so she told me to use the built-in Powercfg command-line utility. She said that the output would show a list of active power requests that are preventing my computer from sleeping. It would categorize these requests by DISPLAY, SYSTEM, AWAYMODE, and AUDIO. For each category, it would list the process, driver, or application that is making the request. I did use that method and it gave me display: None result. At this point, I'm ready to give up that I will ever find the cause of this problem.
Launch an elevated command prompt and type powercfg /requests. Capture the output screenshot. Also run powercfg /systempowerreport, generating an html report saved as C:\Windows\System32\sleepstudy-report.html.
I just got back home, started playing Battlefield 2042 for two minutes, then turned it off. No issues have appeared yet. It seems another cause might be involved. We should wait and check the display sleep again when it breaks. I'll update this thread with a report as soon as I can.
It finally occurred once more – the display won’t shut down. Pressing the Windows logo plus L locks the screen, yet the display remains active. I have a screenshot of the CMD command and the link to download the sleepstudy-report.
run cmd.exe with admin privileges then
powercfg.exe /lastwake
to check if your system fell asleep and then quickly woke up.
(my bluetooth mouse with annoying lights does that to me.)
you might also think about disconnecting from the network and trying to sleep.
for when another device on the same network is preventing your machine from sleeping.
this happens with my wife's machine or sometimes with my external Xbox talking to my PC.
I had to turn off the Xbox features on my machine to avoid that block, removed a share she used to send files through.
uncertain about your logs, I notice the reason for sleep exit was keyboard input.
Yeah, nothing looks out of the ordinary, which makes it tough to identify the person responsible. Taking the network off seems like a poor choice for me. Also, according to my first message, I didn’t mention any issues with sleeping through the system. The real problem is with the display (monitor); the system still works normally when it goes to sleep.
Check Reliability History/Monitor and Event Viewer for any error messages, alerts, or informational logs around the time of sleep-related issues or actions. The timeline view might help identify recurring patterns. Also, verify if the monitor drivers are installed correctly via the Dell support page. If needed, reconfigure or reinstall them.
When the monitor can enter sleep mode, you should launch Task Manager, arrange processes by CPU activity, and capture a screenshot. Then, when the issue arises, reopen Task Manager to check for any running processes that weren’t active before the problem started. Also, consider if you’re using tools such as MSI Afterburner and Riva Tuner.
If the screen never turns off completely, even briefly, Windows may still be processing and won’t shut down the display, which is why it activates sleep mode—often showing a message like “no input detected, activating sleep mode.” However, if you notice a brief black screen followed by a restart, it suggests Windows is attempting to power off the display but the monitor refuses to shut down, possibly due to an ongoing process.
This behavior could stem from a process blocking Windows from turning off the screen. If the display remains black with backlight on after shutdown attempts, the problem might lie with the monitor, its connection, or the graphics driver.
A few points need to be clarified: Monitor does enter sleep after a fresh start or restart. Shortly afterward, an issue arises that prevents it from entering sleep mode completely.