Sometimes your computer will fall asleep after you return to it after a brief break. When you don’t touch the keyboard/mouse long enough, your computer could even go to sleep while you are watching a video or presenting a slide. Windows includes a power-saving setting built into Windows that will activate after prolonged periods of inactivity. This is at most what Windows considers to be inactivity.
Windows hasn’t yet figured out how to tell if your computer is active while a video stream runs in the background. This is especially true if the stream is not being viewed in full-screen mode. These settings are useful for laptops, but you shouldn’t have to accept your computer sleeping while it is still being used.
How to Keep Your Computer Active Even When It Is Not Being Used?
There are many ways to keep the computer awake, without touching the keyboard or mouse. We’ve got you covered if your IT department won’t allow you to mess with your computer settings. Some users also find that Windows 10 doesn’t offer a sleep option or that Windows 10 won’t shut down when they need it to.
We first look at the tools you can use to keep your computer alive. Next, we will examine Windows settings that can be tweaked to achieve the desired behavior. We also look at a DIY, geeky solution that one reader shared with us.
Tools to Keep Your Laptop Active Without Touching the Keyboard or Mouse
Not: Most of the tools below don’t require setup or installation, except for Auto Mouse Mover. To run other tools, you will need to download the.zip file and extract it. The application icon will appear in the taskbar or system tray. From there, you can close it whenever you like.
1. Mouse Jiggler
Mouse Jiggler software makes Windows believe you are moving your mouse. Although Mouse Jiggler was designed to stop your screensaver popping up when it doesn’t need to, it can also keep your computer awake. Mouse Jiggler will not require you to alter any settings on your computer, so it is safe from the system administrator.
Mouse Jiggler is a program that allows you to stream movies, present a presentation, or take a break. The mouse pointer will start to move slowly. This is enough to fool Windows into believing you are still using your computer.
You can disable Zen Jiggle mode if you find mouse movement annoying. This will make the pointer disappear and limit movement to the background. This tool does not require any setup. Download the.zip file, run it and the tool will do the rest.
Mouse Jiggler is available for Windows .
2. Coffee
Coffee is software that works in the same way as Mouse Jiggler, except it doesn’t move your mouse but hits the F15 key instead. The F15 keys don’t exist on all keyboards, but they are recognized by Windows. So, if you don’t have the F15 key mapped to something, it’s likely that Coffee isn’t.
When you download files, or when files are being moved over the network, coffee will keep your computer awake. Your computer will not fall asleep halfway through downloading Steam games.
3. Caffeine Software
Caffeine software stimulates an F15 keypress every 59 seconds to keep your computer awake. Because it is the most likely to interfere with your current work, the F15 key was chosen. Your computer will think that there is movement at the keyboard, and therefore it won’t go to sleep.
After you have downloaded and installed it, it will be in your system tray. You can disable or enable the software by either double-clicking on the icon or using the options menu
4. Insomnia
Insomnia works slightly differently to the other tools. It can take over your computer and not let you turn it off until you turn it off. Our laptops can be set up to automatically go to sleep or by setting it manually after a specified time, such as 15-20 minutes, half an hour, and so forth. You can also set the display’s sleep settings separately.
This is a great way to save electricity and prolong the life of your computer’s display even if you don’t plan on using it. Sometimes you may need your computer not to go to sleep, even if it is OK to let the display go to sleep. Insomnia is here to help.
Insomnia will put your computer to sleep and turn off your display. It does so by calling the Windows system SetThreadExecutionState API that disables the sleep mode as long as the tool is running.
It can be seen running in the system tray and you can close it when it is not needed. Insomnia’s unique approach makes it very useful for servers that you want to access online.
5. Caffeinated
Caffeinated, a simple tool, is useful when you want to prevent your computer from going into sleep mode. This prevents your computer from going into sleep mode, or showing the screensaver while you’re doing tasks such as transferring large files and streaming music.
You can set the time the tool should keep your computer awake. It can be set up to automatically activate upon launch and remain active. Caffeinated can be used in the same way as other software. You can also enable or disable it by going into the system tray. Caffeine was inspired by Caffeinated, a macOS tool that is freely available.
6. Do not Sleep
Windows sleep settings can be used to make your computer not go to sleep when you need it to, but tools such as Don’t Sleep are more efficient and save you time. Don’t sleep is different than other tools because it uses a passive approach to keeping your computer awake, rather than an active one such as sending simulated keystrokes.
When a screensaver is to start or the display is to go to sleep, Don’t Wake informs the system it has’very crucial tasks’ and prevents it from taking any action. It also informs the system of its ‘highest shutdown priority’, so it is not only notified first if it intends to shut down but can also intercept and stop it.
It’s a lightweight tool that gives you more control over the Shut down, Restart and Hibernate functions.
7. Auto Mouse Mover
To prevent your laptop from disconnecting, Auto Mouse Mover can be an option. This software is extremely configurable and requires an installation process that is different from any other software. If you do not want to perform it manually, auto-exit can be enabled.
You can even choose when the mouse should start or stop. If you’re looking for an advanced and customizable tool to keep your computer awake, and to prevent your laptop from falling into sleep, Auto Mouse Mover might be the tool for you.
Windows settings can be changed
You can adjust the power settings to prevent your computer from downloading software. These settings allow you to control how long your computer is awake. These settings can be used to limit the time your computer stays awake.
Windows 7: Change the Power Settings
Navigate to System and Security > Power Options. Next to your default power plan, click Change plan Settings.
You can also type power-saving settings into the Search tab of the start menu, and then click on the option.
You can now access the Plan Settings. There are two options: Turn off your display or Set the computer to sleep. Each option is available via dropdown menus. You can choose to have your computer go to sleep after 1 minute, 2 minutes, 1 hour, or never. There are many options available. Select the setting that you like and save it.
You can also change the Edit plan Settings setting if your computer wakes up locked. Click on the Advanced power settings button at the bottom. Next, locate the Password required for Wake up option. Then choose No from the drop-down menu.
Other power settings can be changed here. For example, you can adjust whether your computer is kept awake while media plays in the background. If you don’t know what you are doing, we wouldn’t recommend that you do too many changes here.
Windows 10: Change the Power Settings
Windows 10’s power settings can be changed almost exactly as Windows 7, with some minor differences to keep your computer awake.
Go to Control Panel. Click on Security.
Next, go to Power Options and then click on it.
You will see Plan settings. Click on it to modify the power settings .
You can customize the options To turn off the display and To put the computer to sleep, use the drop-down menu. Select Never if you want your laptop never to shut down.
You can do this to keep your computer awake while you stream a movie or transfer large files. This additional information may be helpful to you when your computer wakes from sleep. You can easily disable this feature if you don’t wish your laptop to lock when it wakes from sleep. Continue reading to learn more.
The Requires a password to wakeup option was removed from Windows 10. It was previously part of Windows 7. You can add Unlock the password on wakeup option, but this will require you to tweak your computer’s crucial settings. This may or may not cause any problems with its functionality. It’s better to use the default Windows 10 settings. Instead, you can go into Account Settings and use the Sign in Options. For more information, please refer to the below process.
You can disable your computer from being locked upon its wake-up. To do this, visit Account settings shown in the next image. If you don’t have admin privileges, you won’t be able to do this.
Note To use this feature, you must have a password to access your admin account. To log in, make sure that your admin account has a password. If you don’t already have a password, create it and then log in.
After you have logged into Account settings, click on the Sign in options that you can see to the left of the current window. Select Never from the drop-down menu under Require Sign-in. This will remove the need to enter your password every time your laptop wakes from sleep.
This DIY solution is a genius way to keep your computer or laptop awake.
C Glenn, a reader, shared an interesting solution to this problem. C Glenn uses external hardware and a script to create an effect that is similar to jiggling your computer’s mouse. This keeps your computer awake.
“If system administrators are really serious, they might have lists of software that will flag if found. None of the solutions above will work in this instance. I bought a TeensyLC Board for $11 and set up a simple program (using Arduino) that sends a 1-pixel down mouse movement every 5 minutes, followed by a 50-milliseconds-long 1-pixel-up mouse movement. It’s configured as a combination keyboard-mouse-touchscreen device. The PC believes it is a mouse but it only jiggles once per 5 minutes. It takes less than 30 minutes for you to install Arduino and Teensyduino extensions. The code is then compile and loaded onto your computer. Finally, plug the device in to your work PC.
Conclusion
We believe that the best way to keep your computer or laptop awake is to download Mouse Jiggler or Coffee. This software, along with any other options, is the safest and easiest.
This will allow you to save more power on your tablet or laptop by not having to change your Windows power settings. You might want to change your power settings if you are using a computer instead.
