So I have the computer set to go to stand by after an hour. It rarely does. What do I need to do? I also have a freeware program called “wake up from stand by” that is supposed to wake the computer up in the early AM and load iTunes so my daily podcasts will be waiting for me when I wake up. It only works maybe 75% of the time. This morning it didn’t work, but after I woke the computer up myself the program seemed to think it had woken the computer up.
This is really frustrating. This computer is used for the kids to play games and to load my podcasts. That’s it. Why is it so hard to get this to work? It’s not that complicated.
I’m running Windows XP home with all the latest updates.
That app may just be poorly programmed. There are many reasons sleep may not work properly, particularly on older machines and Windows.
Applications may keep the computer awake by keeping it running above the idle threshold anytime during the sleep timeout period. Things like defragging, downloading updates, bittorrent, search indexing, etc.
Applications can also generate keep-awake requests. Like streaming apps. Or Flash, Quicktime, iTunes, Acrobat, etc. Or anti-virus software. Or backup software.
Hardware may also keep it awake. Network traffic, printers, UPNP or DLNA.
Try to figure out if there’s anything in common when it doesn’t sleep vs. when it does. An app you ran one time but not the other for example. Look at the list of running processes in Task Manager before you leave the computer.
Try updating your accessory applications. Install PSI and see what’s out-of-date.