I upgraded to Windows 11 last fall (November) and for the most part everything has been working ok. Within the last month, I’ve had an issue where my desktop will not enter sleep mode. If I select sleep, my keyboard and mouse will shut off but my desktop will idle with the fan periodically cycling for about ten minutes before the desktop shuts off altogether. The only way I can turn my PC back on is by using the power button, which reboots the device.

There are two other issues that have started around the same time, which may or may not be related to the above:

  • when I connect to my second monitor, a number of icon images on the start bar on the second monitor won’t display
  • a few times while using Google Chrome, my PC slows down considerably, the memory used by Chrome maxes out in Task Manager (and stays maxed out even when I shut Chrome off), and I am unable to see anything I type in any application I have open (not just Chrome) unless I alt-tab between applications – I have to restart for my PC to become usable

I’ve tried a number of suggestions related to fixing the sleep mode issue but none have worked for me so far. Here’s what I’ve tried:

  • Run the power troubleshooter
  • Disabled my network adapter from waking the computer
  • Using powercfg to disable processes that disrupt sleep mode
  • Disabled fast startup
  • Tried a clean boot and had the same issue
  • Updated the latest drivers, Windows 11 updates, and BIOS version
  • Disabled hybrid mode
  • Scanned for viruses
  • Ran system file checker and DISM tool
  • Deleted the hiberfil.sys file

Solution

You can check the registry information.

Press win+R, enter and run “regedit” to open the registry

Find this value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power 

Find this value on the right:

AwayModeEnabled 

Change the value to 0

If this value is not present in the registry, you can add it and save it. The value is selected in hexadecimal.

Hope it helps.