[Jason Dunn]

I read about this tip in Maximum PC, tried it myself, and thought I'd share it with Digital Home Thoughts readers. It's pretty cool! This tip will tell Windows 7 to generate a power report, telling you which devices are mis-configured for optimal power savings.

To generate this report, here's what you do: first, click on the Start button, then type CMD. Right-click on the CMD program that will appear in the filtered list, and select Run As Administrator. A command-line box will appear. At the prompt, type in powercfg -energy. Wait 60 seconds, and Windows 7 will generate an HTML file called energy-report in the Systerm32 directory. Go find it and check out the results.

In my case, when I ran it on an HP Slimline computer purchased in 2007 and now running Windows 7, it tagged a bunch of USB devices that do not enter the Suspend State properly. What's curious is that when I go into Device Manager and check out the details for the USB Wireless adapter for instance, the check-box for "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is checked. I suspect it's a driver issue - this was a Windows Vista-era computer, and while Windows 7 went on without a hitch, it's using generic Microsoft drivers rather than any that are from HP. I originally became interested in running this report because while this Slimline computer goes into sleep mode just fine, it has a habit of waking itself up for no reason - and I suspect a USB device is to blame. I've disabled the mouse and keyboard as devices that can wake the computer up from sleep, so we'll see how that goes...

[Jason Dunn]

I read about this tip in Maximum PC, tried it myself, and thought I'd share it with Digital Home Thoughts readers. It's pretty cool! This tip will tell Windows 7 to generate a power report, telling you which devices are mis-configured for optimal power savings.

To generate this report, here's what you do: first, click on the Start button, then type CMD. Right-click on the CMD program that will appear in the filtered list, and select Run As Administrator. A command-line box will appear. At the prompt, type in powercfg -energy. Wait 60 seconds, and Windows 7 will generate an HTML file called energy-report in the Systerm32 directory. Go find it and check out the results.

In my case, when I ran it on an HP Slimline computer purchased in 2007 and now running Windows 7, it tagged a bunch of USB devices that do not enter the Suspend State properly. What's curious is that when I go into Device Manager and check out the details for the USB Wireless adapter for instance, the check-box for "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is checked. I suspect it's a driver issue - this was a Windows Vista-era computer, and while Windows 7 went on without a hitch, it's using generic Microsoft drivers rather than any that are from HP. I originally became interested in running this report because while this Slimline computer goes into sleep mode just fine, it has a habit of waking itself up for no reason - and I suspect a USB device is to blame. I've disabled the mouse and keyboard as devices that can wake the computer up from sleep, so we'll see how that goes...

[lmychajluk]

"...telling you which devices are mis-configured for optical power savings."

Optimum?

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by lmychajluk

"...telling you which devices are mis-configured for optical power savings." Optimum?

Whoops! Thanks, fixed.

[Rob Alexander]

One of the most common causes for Windows 7 waking up by itself is that the setting for your NIC to wake the computer is turned on by default. You've probably already checked this, but it's worth mentioning just in case someone else finds their way here looking for the same problem.

Go to the Device Manager console and open the properties for your NIC, then choose the Power Management tab and be sure the box labelled, 'Allow this device to wake the computer' is unchecked. For me, it was the wired Ethernet card, but a wireless card may also do it. I'm not sure.

[Eriq Cook]

kewl. thx! I had 20 errors--but all 20 were result of having my computer in an "always on" state and reporting that nothing could be powered down. Not really but ok.