Windows 7 randomly sleeps/hibernates (for no apparent reason)

[SngBrdb]

Searched the forums, didn't find a topic on this...

Windows 7, x64

Intel Core 2 Duo

4 GBs RAM

Plugged into UPS

Windows randomly goes to sleep/hibernates (not sure which one it is) for no apparent reason. I have everything sleep/hibernate related disabled in my power config settings. I have disabled hibernation via powercfg -hibernate off. I have edited the group policy to disable hibernating on any low or critical alarm. It continues to sleep/hibernate on me.

I was here today when it did it, working on my laptop... the UPS was silent, so it wasn't in response to running on battery (normally I get shrill beeps if I'm running on battery). The last two times it slept were at 4:48 PM and 4:43 PM on different days (indicated by the signoff timestamp in Pidgin), but it does not happen every day... sometimes it will go a couple of weeks without shutting down; the last two times were within three days of each other.

There's nothing in my event viewer related to hibernating... all I get are a bunch of startup-related events when it's resuming.

This is driving me crazy... it kills my downloads, kicks me off IM, and generally wreaks havoc on my PC.

Any ideas why Windows insists on going to sleep? Or hibernate, whichever it is??

Thanks in advance!

James

[cluberti]

When you wake it back up, do you get any Event 42 (Kernel-Power) events in your System event log?

[Stoic Joker]

I've run into this three times where the cause ended up being a malfunctioning multi-media keyboard (1 wired & 2 wireless). If your keyboard has a sleep button, try changing the keyboard.

Obviously there are other possible causes, but this is worth checking (if applicable). The first time I'd spent months trying to trouble shoot an intermittent issue for a client before finding out it was the blasted keyboard.

[SngBrdb]

cluberti> Yes! I must have overlooked it... "The system is entering sleep. Sleep Reason: Battery" But the ups didn't go down on me... I wonder if the ups is dying, sending a bad signal or not enough juice. Wonder if there's a performance counter to watch the battery...

I've unplugged the usb connector to the battery for now... hopefully that will keep the battery from signaling to sleep.

Stoic> That's a good thought, that hadn't occurred to me. I did just recently get a new keyboard, and this has been happening both before and after the new keyboard, so I'm inclined to think it's not that. But I will keep that on the back burner to investigate if messing with the UPS doesn't do it.

Thanks, all!

[cluberti]

Well, assuming a desktop connected to a UPS, if the battery indicated it was running out of juice and the defined state when that happened was to sleep, that would make a lot of sense.