Stop Windows from Waking in Sleep Mode

Here's the right way to stop your Windows 10 or 11 PC waking up at random from sleep mode. Let our new PCArmour Guard app fix it for you and keep it fixed, or work through the manual steps further down.

Every fix on this page, done for you

The manual guide below takes six steps, a trip through Device Manager and, on Windows 10, a file-permissions workaround to stop the Reboot task coming back. PCArmour Guard covers the lot from the tray.

• Finds what last woke your PC and removes the cause, with no digging through powercfg output or device instance paths (steps 1 and 4).
• Neutralises wake timers and maintenance wake (steps 3, 5 and 6).
• Switches off automatic restarts and Fast Startup (steps 2 and 5).
• Optionally stops Windows Update altogether, including the orchestrator, the scheduled tasks that re-trigger it and any update-driven reboots (the UpdateOrchestrator Reboot task in step 3).
• Holds every setting in place through reboots, cumulative updates and Windows' 'self-healing', which replaces the Windows 10 Reboot task workaround.

More than a wake fix

Alongside sleep and wake control, Guard includes six more lockdowns for machines that need to stay exactly as you set them.

Prefer to fix it by hand?

These are the manual steps that PCArmour Guard automates. If you only need the wake fix on its own, our standalone Stop Windows Waking utility is still available to download. Like all our code, it's safe, secure, spyware-free and 100% private.

1. Find out what's waking the PC

   Open a Command Prompt and type powercfg -lastwake to see the last device that woke the PC. Then type powercfg -devicequery wake_armed for a list of every device that's allowed to wake your system.

   Some results are vague, such as 'PCI to PCI Bridge'. To track these down, download NirSoft's USBDeview and sort by 'VendorID' or 'ProductID'. The VID and PID columns match the instance path shown in the Command Prompt results, so you can see what the device actually is.

   If the device is easy to identify, open it in Device Manager, confirm it using 'Device instance path' on the 'Details' tab, then untick 'Allow this device to wake the computer' on the 'Power Management' tab. Otherwise, carry on with the steps below.

2. Stop automatic restarts after a system failure

   Open a Run box (Windows logo key + R), or stay in the Command Prompt, and type systempropertiesadvanced. On the 'Advanced' tab, find the 'Start-up and Recovery' section at the bottom and click 'Settings'. Under 'System failure', untick 'Automatically restart' and click 'OK'.

3. Check scheduled tasks

   Open a Run box and type taskschd.msc. Select 'Task Scheduler Library' on the left, then sort the tasks and look for any set to run, or due to run, at unusual hours. Right-click a task and choose 'Disable', or open 'Properties' and untick 'Wake the computer to run this task' on the 'Conditions' tab.

   On Windows 10, also find 'UpdateOrchestrator' in the left-hand pane and disable the 'Reboot' task in the main list.

4. Stop devices waking the PC

   Open Device Manager from Control Panel or by typing it into the Start menu. Find the device (usually a network card), right-click it and open 'Properties'. On the 'Power Management' tab, untick 'Allow this device to wake the computer'.

   For a USB device, check under the USB controllers and the NVIDIA USB-C properties and disable the wake option there. For a keyboard, open the 'Keyboards' section and change its power settings in 'Properties'. For harder cases, trace the device using the 'Hardware Ids' property on the 'Details' tab.

   If the culprit is a network card, also disable 'Wake on Pattern Match', which is usually at least halfway down its 'Power Management' or 'Advanced' list.

5. Turn off Fast Startup and wake timers

   In Control Panel (Large icons view), open 'Power Options' and select 'Choose what the power buttons do' on the left. Click 'Change settings that are currently unavailable' and untick 'Turn on fast startup (recommended)'.

   Back in 'Power Options', click 'Change plan settings', then 'Change advanced power settings'. Under 'Sleep', set 'Allow wake timers' to 'Disable'.

6. Stop maintenance waking the PC

   In Control Panel (Category view), choose 'System and Security', then 'Security and Maintenance'. Expand 'Maintenance', click 'Change maintenance settings' and untick 'Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time'.

If Windows 10 turns the Reboot task back on

Windows 10 can quietly re-enable the UpdateOrchestrator 'Reboot' task. To stop it:

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt: tap the Windows key, type cmd.exe, hold down Shift and Ctrl, and press Enter.
2. Run takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Reboot
3. Open File Explorer and go to C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator.
4. Right-click the file called Reboot (it has no file extension) and select 'Properties'.
5. Switch to the 'Security' tab.
6. Select the 'System' account and remove its write access to the file.

PowerCfg and PowerShell reference

• powercfg -a shows the sleep states available on the computer.
• powercfg -devicequery wake_armed lists every device that can wake the computer.
• powercfg -devicequery wake_programmable lists every device that can be programmed to wake the PC.
• powercfg -devicedisablewake "exact device name" disables wake for that device.
• powercfg -deviceenablewake "exact device name" enables it again.
• powercfg -lastwake shows the device that last woke the PC.
• powercfg -waketimers lists all active wake timers.

In PowerShell, Get-ScheduledTask | where {$_.settings.waketorun} lists the scheduled tasks that are set to wake the computer.