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A simple browser search for "Surface Sleep of Death" will result in thousands of pages instructing you how to turn on a Surface that won't wake, but I want to know how to prevent it. I had a Surface pro 3 charging for four days uninterrupted before it finally booted.

I don't want this to happen again. I am not the primary user of this tablet so I need to be sure that it will not fall into eternal sleep again after I hand it back over.

I need a tried and proven method that will prevent the Surface from falling back to this ridiculous power management system. Is there a way to disable it?

Reubens4Dinner
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1 Answers1

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There have been numerous firmware updates to the Surface Book for sleep/wake issues since its release. These have resolved the issue for most people but not for some, among which may be your Surface.

The post "Sleep of Death" on Surface Book: What the Problem Is and How Microsoft Should Resolve It has explanations and advice on preventing the sleep-state that Microsoft has invented for the Surface, called "Modern Standby" and also known as "S0ix".

The procedure used by the author to solve his problem might also work for you:

  • Turn on hibernation, by running in an elevated Command Prompt the following command:

    powercfg -h on

  • In Power Options, use the Change Plan Settings button and then:

    • For both On battery and Plugged in, set "Turn Off the Display" and "Put the Computer to Sleep" to "Never", then click Save changes.

    • Click Change Advanced Power Settings and under Power Buttons and lid, set all Lid close, Power button, and Sleep button options to Hibernate.

  • Back in Power Options, click Choose What the power buttons do, click Change settings that are currently unavailable and disable both "Sleep" and "Turn on fast startup".

  • Instead of turning off the computer screen when idle, use an economical screensaver.

You will find more information and explanations of these in the linked article.

harrymc
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