On Windows laptops and other PCs, you can set how quickly the display and the whole computer go to “sleep” when you take a break from working on it. This is a kind of a power stand-by feature. It is primarily used to save laptops’ battery life.
For instance, you can set the display to turn off after 3 minutes of inactivity. If you don’t type anything and don’t move the mouse pointer for 3 minutes, the display will be turned off. The same can be applied to the whole laptop computer, which will enter the sleep mode after inactivity period you selected in Windows’ Power & Sleep settings (as shown below). In the sleep mode, the laptop’s display is turned off, while the main internal components “sleep”, with a very low power consumption involved.
On laptop PCs, Windows 10 provides separate timeout times for when the laptop runs on the battery and for when it is plugged into the power source.
Let’s say you want to turn off the display after 3 minutes and put the whole laptop to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity while it is running off the battery. And 30 minutes and 1 hour respectively while the laptop is plugged in. Here’s how to do that.
Go to Settings > System > Power & Sleep. You can reach that window manually via Settings or by typing Power & Sleep in Windows Search (search icon in the lower-left corner of the screen, then click on the Power & Sleep settings search result).
The Power & Sleep window will appear on the screen. Use the drop-down menus to select desired timeout times for the screen and sleep of the whole system.
On the other hand, some users might actually want to prevent the laptop from turning off the display or entering the sleep mode. In that case select Never on the relevant drop down menus. But, keep in mind that selecting Never on the battery power-related drop-down menus can seriously reduce the battery life.
As a side note, waking up the notebook from the sleep mode may require you to enter your Windows password. This security feature can be disabled in the Sign-in section of Windows Settings as described here.
Another side note: The same display and system sleep timeout settings can be found in the old-fashioned Control Panel (Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings). The easiest way to reach that Control Panel section is to right-click on the battery icon on the taskbar in the lower-right corner of the screen, click on the Power Options item on the menu that will show up and click on the Change plan settings link on the Power Options window.
My Toshiba Satellite laptop goes to sleep if I close the device: screen down. If I want to restart most of the time the backlight will not light up. So the screen remains dark. I tried connecting another monitor which revealed that the device works normal, only the backlight doesn’t work. When I force a shut down by holding the power button until it flashes three times and I count to twenty, move the screen forward to half open, after a short push on the power button the backlight turns on again and everything looks normal. The screen works then in every position. What could be the problem?
second question:
I have a “new” refurbished computer with intel COREI7 10TH generation. I think I should be able to configure the music sound to a mode that makes my listening more pleasurable. For example I much prefer more bass as less bass often is not relaxing for me.
How can I access the controls to allow me to do that. I am not expecting a full equalizer, but one that allows me minimal control for greater listening pleasure/
sometimes i will instruct my computer to “sleep” after which I will close the computer ( screen down). Sometimes when I open the computer again to use, the computer freezes and i get the desktop picture with no prompt to sign in. My only solution is to turn the computer off, wait a minute or so, then turn it on again.
This happens on more than one computer. Why does this happen?