Windows 11 goes to sleep mode after a long time in lock mode even though I have set "sleep after" to "never" in Power Setup

I am running Windows 11. I have set "When plugged in, put my device to sleep after" to be "Never" in Settings > System > Power.

When I lock the screen and leave for a long time, the device still enters some kind of sleep mode. The power LED changes from blue to red and when the device wakes up, I need to input my BitLocker password again. Somehow, it seems my hard drive is put into off mode too.

What causes this? How can I tell Windows to stay awake forever even when the computer is locked? There are some network services running and it should never be off.

1 Answer

By using the command powercfg /SLEEPSTUDY from the help of @harrymc and @Ramhound, I figured out the device entered Hibernate STATE with the cause System Idle from the report at C:\Users\<user>\sleepstudy-report.html.

By reading this article, it shows how to set the Hibernate after value in Control Panel.

Thus the problem happened because Windows 11 Settings App does NOT provide a way to turn off Hibernate after timeout value. Setting Settings > System > Power > sleep: never and Power mode: Best Performance will NOT change the true Power Plan and will not disable Hibernation.

To turn off the hibernation completely, it has to be done in Control Panel.

Go to Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options.

To turn off the hibernation,

1. either change the Plan to High performance from additional plans,
2. or Modify the Hibernate after value from Change plan settings for the current plan > Change advanced power settings > Sleep > Hibernate after

Note that if you change the plan to High performance successfully in Control Panel, The Settings App > System > Power will show a warning message "Power mode can't be set while the high performance plan is used."