Period of inactivity?

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Control Panel / Power Options / Change when the computer sleeps

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

"Peter Jason" wrote in message
...

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

Peter,

I'm assuming you are using a laptop. Some laptops have a history of
restarting when coming out of sleep mode and can be caused by a number of
things from an update to settings to bad drivers. The manufacturers site
may be the fastest place to find an answer for your particular model.

You did not indicate if you have any updates pending or having an update
problem but the #1 link below may help. Try using the Windows Update
Troubleshooting tool for Windows Updates to clear out any updates having
problems (if this is the cause) then you can look at other possible causes.

Rather than me typing this out, go here and see if this helps and see Method
2:

1.
https://merabheja.com/prevent-window...nstall-update/

and if you want to disable sleep mode entirely:

2. https://merabheja.com/windows-10-never-sleep-mode/

If none of that works, type reliability in the Search window to review
your computers reliability history and click on any events to see what
caused it. May be some clues in there as well as looking in the Event
Viewer Custom Views Administrative and in the other categories to see if
anything pops up in hardware or Applications.

--


Bob S.

Peter Jason wrote:
Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Go to the BIOS and disable Intel SpeedStep (EIST).

Then, on a Gigabyte board (at least), there's a BIOS
subsection for "C-States". Disable all of those,
save and exit.

In Windows, go to the Power control panel and select
the "High Performance" or "Always On" or similar
power schema, then disable screen saver and any
notion of "sleep after X hours". And so on.

When you're finished, the PC will remain running
at high_clock, with no "resting on its laurels".

That will not stop the kernel from getting itself
tied in knots, but it's sure going to reduce the
places it can hide :-)

*******

On the older OSes, we could change the "HAL" and
a side effect was, you would see "it is safe to
turn off your computer" on the screen at shutdown,
on a HAL change. But that's probably not an option
on Win10.

Paul

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:09:10 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

The setting I use for Screen turn off is:
( turn off after 30 minutes ). This is just my personal preference.

The setting I use for PC is:
( PC goes to sleep after - NEVER ).


HTH,

On 4/16/2018 12:38 AM, Monty wrote:
On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:09:10 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

In a perfect world, Windows can go to sleep and wake up right where it
left off.
This is easily configurable in the power setup.
Problem is that this is not a perfect world. I've had LAN cards that
prevented
the system from waking up after sleep.

There are settings for what the buttons and lid do and when the system
decides to sleep and if you need a password when it wakes up.

I can't give you a recipe, but there are plenty of settings to adjust.

The answer to your question is to google "windows sleep keep alive timer"

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-k...ing-the-mouse/

The setting I use for Screen turn off is:
( turn off after 30 minutes ). This is just my personal preference.

The setting I use for PC is:
( PC goes to sleep after - NEVER ).


HTH,

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 03:23:01 -0700, mike wrote:

On 4/16/2018 12:38 AM, Monty wrote:
On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:09:10 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

In a perfect world, Windows can go to sleep and wake up right where it
left off.
This is easily configurable in the power setup.
Problem is that this is not a perfect world. I've had LAN cards that
prevented
the system from waking up after sleep.

There are settings for what the buttons and lid do and when the system
decides to sleep and if you need a password when it wakes up.

I can't give you a recipe, but there are plenty of settings to adjust.


If I understand Peter's concern correctly, the settings listed below
may be all that he needs to do; at the very least, they work for me.



The setting I use for Screen turn off is:
( turn off after 30 minutes ). This is just my personal preference.

The setting I use for PC is:
( PC goes to sleep after - NEVER ).


HTH,

mike wrote:
On 4/16/2018 12:38 AM, Monty wrote:
On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:09:10 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

In a perfect world, Windows can go to sleep and wake up right where it
left off.
This is easily configurable in the power setup.
Problem is that this is not a perfect world. I've had LAN cards that
prevented
the system from waking up after sleep.

There are settings for what the buttons and lid do and when the system
decides to sleep and if you need a password when it wakes up.

I can't give you a recipe, but there are plenty of settings to adjust.

The answer to your question is to google "windows sleep keep alive timer"

But that's not what the thread is about.

While all the details aren't in the thread, Peters system
seems to be crashing on some sort of kernel power event. Almost
like the kernel was entering a low power state, and instead of
doing that, it crashed.

I've had *one* of these events here, possibly correlated with
the arrival of an update. I've not had a repeat.

You can look in your Reliability Monitor, and see if you have any.

I'm not convinced that fooling with Power Schema or similar,
will fix this. I don't even know how power states and the
kernel play together. So I can't say if "blocking" the ability
for the system to enter a low power state, is sufficient to
stop this particular bug from crashing the system.

My reliability monitor said "I did a dirty shutdown", which I
didn't. At the time, the system was quiet and not doing
anything. I wasn't standing in front of it. Some other log
I was looking at, said something about some kernel power state.
I don't know anything more than that.

It's pretty hard to study something, when you're not even sure
of the trigger, so you can reliably produce it. Even if I
could produce that on demand, I'd have to figure out what
passes for a kernel debugger, and learn how to use it. And
even then, without source, what could you possibly figure out
on your own ?

One possibility is a driver issue. The drivers and kernel
live in the same ring. But that's a long shot. It could just
as easily be an honest-to-goodness kernel bug.

Paul

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 21:25:04 +1000, Monty wrote:


If I understand Peter's concern correctly, the settings listed below
may be all that he needs to do; at the very least, they work for me.


One thing I forgot to mention was that when you make the changes
(described below), re-boot your PC to effect the changes immediately.



The setting I use for Screen turn off is:
( turn off after 30 minutes ). This is just my personal preference.

The setting I use for PC is:
( PC goes to sleep after - NEVER ).


HTH,

On 4/16/2018 4:34 AM, Paul wrote:
mike wrote:
On 4/16/2018 12:38 AM, Monty wrote:
On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:09:10 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

In a perfect world, Windows can go to sleep and wake up right where it
left off.
This is easily configurable in the power setup.
Problem is that this is not a perfect world. I've had LAN cards that
prevented
the system from waking up after sleep.

There are settings for what the buttons and lid do and when the system
decides to sleep and if you need a password when it wakes up.

I can't give you a recipe, but there are plenty of settings to adjust.

The answer to your question is to google "windows sleep keep alive timer"

Re-inserting the snipped part...
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-k...ing-the-mouse/


But that's not what the thread is about.

I can't argue with your suggestions, but, if you look up half a page,
you find "Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer
is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? "
That is EXACTLY what this thread is about. It may not be the problem,
but it IS an answer to the question asked.

One diagnostic test is to push the sleep button or select sleep from the
shutdown menu to see if it crashes. Another is to run one of the
keep-alive programs. Another is to set the sleep timer to a very short
time to reduce the time to failure. Watching while it enters sleep
may provide some insight. Then there's the hybrid sleep/fast boot
issue. I haven't seen any info on the sleep mode or what is actually
crashing. Then, there may be a bios setting having to do with S1 or S3
sleep modes.

While all the details aren't in the thread, Peters system
seems to be crashing on some sort of kernel power event. Almost
like the kernel was entering a low power state, and instead of
doing that, it crashed.

I've had *one* of these events here, possibly correlated with
the arrival of an update. I've not had a repeat.

You can look in your Reliability Monitor, and see if you have any.

I'm not convinced that fooling with Power Schema or similar,
will fix this. I don't even know how power states and the
kernel play together. So I can't say if "blocking" the ability
for the system to enter a low power state, is sufficient to
stop this particular bug from crashing the system.

My reliability monitor said "I did a dirty shutdown", which I
didn't. At the time, the system was quiet and not doing
anything. I wasn't standing in front of it. Some other log
I was looking at, said something about some kernel power state.
I don't know anything more than that.

It's pretty hard to study something, when you're not even sure
of the trigger, so you can reliably produce it. Even if I
could produce that on demand, I'd have to figure out what
passes for a kernel debugger, and learn how to use it. And
even then, without source, what could you possibly figure out
on your own ?

One possibility is a driver issue. The drivers and kernel
live in the same ring. But that's a long shot. It could just
as easily be an honest-to-goodness kernel bug.

Paul

"Bob_S" wrote in message news

"Peter Jason" wrote in message
.. .

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:56:40 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:38:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Is there some way to fool Windows10 into thinking the computer is in
constant use? Maybe a wandering phantom mouse? I'm away from the
computer for hours sometimes and then come back to a restart! The
computer has never restarted while I'm using it.

Settings / System / Power & sleep / Sleep


My point is that the computer restarts when going into Sleep, and so I
want to prevent this.

Peter,

I'm assuming you are using a laptop. Some laptops have a history of
restarting when coming out of sleep mode and can be caused by a number of
things from an update to settings to bad drivers. The manufacturers site
may be the fastest place to find an answer for your particular model.

You did not indicate if you have any updates pending or having an update
problem but the #1 link below may help. Try using the Windows Update
Troubleshooting tool for Windows Updates to clear out any updates having
problems (if this is the cause) then you can look at other possible causes.

Rather than me typing this out, go here and see if this helps and see
Method 2:

1.
https://merabheja.com/prevent-window...nstall-update/

and if you want to disable sleep mode entirely:

2. https://merabheja.com/windows-10-never-sleep-mode/

If none of that works, type reliability in the Search window to review
your computers reliability history and click on any events to see what
caused it. May be some clues in there as well as looking in the Event
Viewer Custom Views Administrative and in the other categories to see
if anything pops up in hardware or Applications.



Monty,

You have two threads going on he

1. You have a problem with the computer restarting instead of waking up
after it enters sleep mode.

2. You asked for a keep alive method to prevent it from going into sleep
mode.

You have a "crashing" problem and until that is analyzed and solved, I doubt
anything else will be a real fix.

Here's an easy way to try and determine what is causing the problem. You
seemed to ignore the other troubleshooting advice so try using "WhoCrashed"
from

http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed

Very simple to use and you can post the results here if you don't understand
the results. Just be sure to read the instructions and once you have
installed the program and clicked scan *and* if you system is setup to log
crashes, then the results will be shown when you scroll down the window to
the results area.

If your computer is not setup to log events, the screen will provide the
steps you need to take to do that. Then *after* the next restart, run this
program and if it truly is a crash event, you will see the probable cause(s)
listed. If it says it found no logs to analyze (and you are setup
correctly) then even that info is important to know. It rules out a number
of possible causes at least.

But still go to the manufacturers site and search their Knowledge Base and
FAQ's for "Restarts after sleep" or words to that effect and see if they
don't have an update for the UFEI/BIOS (firmware) or for their drivers. If
they do, download and install the latest and see what happens.

How about posting the manufacturer and model of the computer - that may help
those trying to help you.

--


Bob S.