An Investigation into My New Laptop’s Stubborn Refusal to Sleep
Why “Modern Standby” mode has been keeping me (and many others) awake at night
Note to the reader: while this article is primarily focused on Windows, its lessons may apply to Linux as well. Macs don’t seem to have this problem, however, as Apple appears to have implemented Modern Standby fairly well on both a hardware and software level.
The Problem
After many years of abuse, my pre-2014 Windows laptop and 2013 Macbook have been struggling to keep up with my workload* so I finally bit the bullet and invested in a new Windows laptop. A co-worker who’s particularly passionate about hardware was happy to jump in and make some recommendations, I was convinced, and the new machine has been simply fantastic. It’s a real workhorse, it beautifully does All The Things.
And there was much rejoicing.
For reasons that will become apparent I won’t immediately name the manufacturer, but in the months since purchasing it I’ve failed to find a solution to some very weird behaviour that I assumed was caused by me and my development configurations — my laptop never sleeps.
I close the lid and the fans continue to blow. I regularly hear notifications in the middle of…
