this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Windows PCs can't sleep properly, and Microsoft wants it that way (www.spacebar.news)
submitted 11 months ago by corbin@infosec.pub to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 37 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

That explains why my 2017 Dell XPS 13 9360 with an 8th gen i7 never went to sleep properly. Originally it would just keep running the fans and the battery would drain. Then after a while it seemed to start sleeping but never turned on again so you'd have to reboot anyway. In the end I wiped Windows 11 off it and installed OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Now shutting the lid works just fine.

I also have an XPS 13 9310 with an 11th gen i7 and Windows 11, and if I close the lid it seems to sleep but sometimes I come back to a completely dead battery.

I don't really understand the point of Modern Standby. Who wants the laptop to do things when it's closed and possibly in a backpack with no ventilation? That's when we want it not to do things.

[–] min0nim@aussie.zone 25 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is one area where Apple has it pretty right. A Mac will do somethings when ‘asleep’ like download emails and texts. It also can broadcast its location if the ‘Find Me’ function is on. If it’s plugged into power then backups will also run, and background app updates will happen. It does this in a low power mode, so it won’t get hot enough to need fans. It’s worked flawlessly for 20 years. Meanwhile all our PCs are set to ‘never sleep’ and just get shutdown when not in use. I never trust a PC laptop to wake successfully from sleep just by closing the lid.

[–] kayazere@feddit.nl 7 points 11 months ago

I have problems where when my Apple Silicon MacBook Pro will have been “asleep” for days in a backpack and then I try and use my Bluetooth headphones on another device, it will connect to the asleep Macbook.

I solved it by running a small program that kills Bluetooth when the laptop goes to sleep.

[–] Jesus_666@feddit.de 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

People are using their smartphones instead of their PCs. That hurts sales. So PCs need to behave more like smartphones, e.g. by being able to notify you of new messages at all times. Then people will surely ditch their smartphones again and buy laptops.

Intel, Microsoft et al never considered that that's fundamentally not how PCs should work.

[–] astraeus@programming.dev 3 points 11 months ago

My desktop is the same way, “sleep” means the lights are on but nobody’s home.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

So instead of looking into the settings and disabling fastboot, you decided to completely wipe the OS and install something else?

And here I thought Linux users understood technology...

[–] yum13241@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago

Fastboot has nothing to do with this.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 8 points 11 months ago

It's not at all a fastboot issue, and I had other reasons to use Linux.

[–] yum13241@lemm.ee 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To make it worse, newer Intel CPUs can't even enter S3 state.

[–] 30p87@feddit.de 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I was kinda shocked to switch from an i5-6300U to a i5-1145G7 and not find more options in /sys/power/mem_sleep, but literally only s2idle. At least it works (i believe).

Maybe actual hibernation works now, too.

[–] yum13241@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Go Team Red next time. They still support S3, and probably CSM too.

[–] 30p87@feddit.de 2 points 11 months ago

It's not like I had a choice, both (or rather: almost all of my devices) are just sorted out tech my dad brought home from work. Even old desktop PCs are good as servers. And my current Laptop just has some small marks, that wouldn't look good for an employee representing a company, but are irrelevant for me.

If I buy a Laptop, it will definitely be a Framework. Costs like a (cheap) MacBook, but is better in basically every way. And: Fully Team Red,

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The important part, for the lazy:

For Modern Standby to work properly, the device Windows is running on needs to support it. That includes hardware like network interfaces and USB, but also support from system firmware and device drivers. But Microsoft doesn’t seem to have any sort of certification process or runtime hardware check for Modern Standby compatibility.

[–] albert180@feddit.de 4 points 11 months ago

Easy fix, it will be a requirement for Windows 12, unfortunately you all need to buy new computers ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[–] rikonium@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 months ago

Ugh, I had a Latitude 7210 2-in-1 and upgraded the 2230 SSD to a Western Digital SN530(?) one. Turns out after hours of troubleshooting Modern Standby, poring over Sleep Studies ("why is it draining 8% of battery an hour asleep?") that the specific drive I put in didn't "support" "Modern" Standby?

Anyways I have a ThinkPad with S3 sleep now and the fans actually turn off when I put it to sleep so that's a win.

[–] Frederic@beehaw.org 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Good luck if you can, on some new motherboards you cannot disable S0x in the BIOS and cannot enable S3 as it does not exist anymore.

You can only use this "S0 idle" which is like your cellphone sleeping, meaning everything runs and/or is somewhat disabled in background. Instead of the BIOS disabling things, it's the OS and the applications and drivers that have to take steps to go sleeping but it's way from perfect and takes power anyway.

Problem is with laptop. A laptop in S3 (suspend to RAM) can last a few days, a laptop in S0 idle will last a few hours.

[–] rwhitisissle@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So if I have my laptop in bed at night and then close the laptop lid to go to sleep and wake up, the reason the battery is fucking dead is because the laptop never actually "sleeps" - it just enters a lower power state while still draining battery relatively aggressively?

[–] Frederic@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If it does not support anymore S3 mode, yes 😕

[–] rwhitisissle@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The insane thing is that it was working a few weeks ago but then it randomly went away. Like the computer would go to sleep like normal (S3) and then I'd wake up to at least 80 percent battery. Now? All I have is hibernate. Man, as bad as Windows is and always has been, I can't believe it's somehow getting worse with time.

[–] rikonium@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Some BIOS updates remove the S3 option so that's possible. It's also possible that Modern Standby was working before and something changed which broke sleep for you. You can run a Sleep Study (instructions on the web) to see how your computer has been sleeping but it sucks that you'd have to resort to that.

[–] MudMan@kbin.social 13 points 11 months ago

It's so bad for Widnows handhelds, laptops and tablets I've resorted to re-enabling hybernation and using that instead.

Which I'm sure will be disabled as an option at some random point in time with no warning.

[–] noddy@beehaw.org 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I feel like this is about tracking. As in microsoft want the PC to wake up and scan wifi networks to figure out where it is, so they can use this data for targeted ads they serve in the start menu and bing, etc.

[–] Sloogs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Maybe, but Microsoft's competitors are doing a lot better on the battery life front so they're leaving a lot on the table for competitors to swoop in by not fixing their sleep and wake issues. It was a big consideration for the company I work at to go with Apple machines because they do lots of field work and need the machines running all day. I can say from experience it's incredibly frustrating to leave home with my MS Surface on a full charge only for it to have majority of the battery drained by the time I pull it out of my backpack due to waking up when it wasn't supposed to.

[–] toothpicks@beehaw.org 10 points 11 months ago

Sad that the computers can't get any rest :(((((

[–] ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Huh, is this also why my gaming PCs the last 5 or so years are absolutely dogshit at staying asleep? I've never come across the term even though I've spent too much time troubleshooting and identifying which peripheral woke the computer up. The most annoying thing is that there is a toggle for "allow wake event" in device manager but it seems to be a mild suggestion at best... For some devices like keyboard and mouse it's 50/50 if it does anything it seems. I've resorted to just locking and shutting the screen off...

[–] Ralis@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I swear Microsoft is intentionally trying to drive me away to Linux. Tried everything you can imagine to stop my pc from waking up when I put to sleep or hibernation. Yet the best I can get is it always waking up first time and then properly sleeping after the second attempt. I'm only stopped because of VR and dumb Anti cheat in a few games.

[–] bufke@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're going to hate that laptops like the Dell xps 13 specifically stopped supporting the better, older s3 sleep. Though in some cases linux may work well with "modern standby". It still isn't as good as s3.

[–] yum13241@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Apparently S3 is "less secure" according to FWUPD. Fuck sleep to idle. I hope it dies and S3 (sleep to RAM) makes an epic comeback.

[–] bufke@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Interesting. The attack involves physical access cold boot attacks and messing with the ram. At that point threatening me with a $5 wrench may be more effective. But I get the idea and a very select few folks probably care a lot about this. Shame we can't just enable S3 in the BIOS.

[–] BehindTheBarrier@programming.dev 3 points 11 months ago

I don't have this issue, except once when I got my first desktop connected with wired internet. Turns out, yeah the wired internet (or the adapter/driver) can actually wake the computer... Turned it off and been mostly problem free from wakeups.

[–] kayazere@feddit.nl 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Doesn’t this waste more power being connected rather than actually sleeping? With a laptop lid closed, there’s no screen to show notifications on. What’s the point of this?

[–] Thisfox@sopuli.xyz 7 points 11 months ago

The point is that Microsoft can run malware whenever and however they like. It is not useful for the user.

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

c'mon Microsoft, your PCs are eepy

[–] taanegl@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Tell me why~!

[–] zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 4 points 11 months ago

Ain't nothin' but a heartache

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 3 points 11 months ago

So, this is why the laptop reboots while in my bag. Cool -_-

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Like all these complaints about Windows: this can be changed in the settings

[–] rikonium@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 11 months ago

Mostly incorrect, entering the BIOS and having the toggle to switch between S0 and S3 (or, "Linux") sleep does indeed exist but it is hard to identify what models have it (I hear Lenovo's BIOS simulator helps) and it's increasingly being removed in newer models or even removed in updates. Dell has no interest in putting it back and recommends hibernate or just powering off the machine when on-the-go.

I made sure the ThinkPad I own personally had the toggle but my work-issued one does not so it is now a Hibernate-only machine. No setting can help that.

[–] tojikomori@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

Apparently not in Windows settings:

If the BIOS says it supports Modern Standby, Windows takes it at its word and completely disables the ability to enter S3 sleep (classic standby). There’s no official or documented option for disabling Modern Standby through Windows, which is incredibly annoying.

Side note: for a while, there was actually a registry setting you could change to disable Modern Standby on the Windows side. Unfortunately, Microsoft removed it, and to my knowledge, has never added it back.

I'm not a Windows user, so I can't confirm one way or the other, but toward the end of the end of the article the author gives vendor-specific instructions for disabling the S0 Low Power Idle capability from BIOS.

[–] yesdogishere@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

the point is we shouldn't be having to do this extra work. MS is one shit misleading and deceptive crappy turd of a company and ll its directors and staff need to be thrown into prison as fucking criminals. no alternative.

[–] Helix@feddit.de 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well, two of my Arch Linux desktops recently don't like to shut down but reboot instead. What gives?

[–] yum13241@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Borked ACPI implementation. Lubuntu 18.04 used to do this on my HP 2000 Notebook PC (not my daily driver)

[–] Helix@feddit.de 1 points 11 months ago

on two completely different systems, one of which is an HP prebuilt desktop and the other a custom made one, when it worked flawlessly before and just suddenly stopped working with Kernel 6.1? Even if that's an ACPI fuckup by the manufacturer, they seem to have patched out the Kernel's mitigations for it.

[–] MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org 0 points 11 months ago

Bad behavior in Windows article up on the Fediverse for four hours and no one telling us how their Linux laptop doesn't have this problem?

My Linux laptop doesn't have this problem 😁.

Sounds like it's a combo of bad Windows behavior and buggy implementations, but had to deliver the joke first.