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Windows 10 keeps waking up from sleep on its own – no idea what's causing it
I put my Windows 10 PC to sleep before going to bed, and every morning I wake up to find it running. Sometimes it wakes up within an hour, sometimes after a few hours—no pattern I can figure out.
I've already checked the usual culprits:
Ran powercfg -lastwake – shows "Unknown" or "Wake Source: Device"
Disabled wake timers
Turned off "Allow this device to wake the computer" for my mouse, keyboard, and network adapter
Still happens. I'm not sure if it's a driver issue, a scheduled task I missed, or something deeper. Anyone else run into this on Windows 10 and actually found a fix?
3 Replies
At the command prompt, run:
powercfg /devicequery wake_armed
View the devices that can be woken up, and disable wake-up permissions for all non-essential devices.
In an elevated Command Prompt, run powercfg /sleepstudy. This generates an HTML report at C:\Windows\System32\sleepstudy-report.html.
You already disabled device wake sources and timers, but powercfg /lastwake is returning “Unknown” or a device. That is a clue, not a diagnosis: it reports last wake and may not name a scheduled task or firmware event. After the next unexpected wake, run powercfg /lastwake, powercfg /waketimers, and powercfg /devicequery wake_armed in an elevated terminal, then save the outputs with date and time. Generate powercfg /systemsleepdiagnostics too; it provides a history of sleep transitions. Check Task Scheduler for tasks configured to wake the computer, especially update, backup, or vendor maintenance tasks. In Device Manager, compare the devices listed by wake_armed with the devices you disabled; docks, Bluetooth adapters, and network controllers can re-enable wake after updates. Update BIOS, chipset, and network drivers from the PC maker. If reports still show no cause, test one night with Ethernet and external USB devices disconnected, then reintroduce them one at a time.
