A reader asks: Why won’t my network connection restore after sleep mode?

Reader George asks (via the Contact link):

“Fred, I have two PCs and when they are not in use I put them into ‘sleep’ mode. When I wake them up one or both of them do not connect to the internet but when I restart them they then make the connection just fine. Any thoughts on what’s going on? How to fix? Both PCs use the same router/modem.”

Sure, George: It’s almost surely a power-management issue; your networking adapter powers down fine, but doesn’t respond to the operating system’s commands to wake back up. Instead, you have to kick it in the pants with a reboot, to get its attention.

This is most often caused by miscommunication between the operating system and the device’s software drivers: Each is trying to control the power-state of the device — each is saying “I’m the one in charge here!” — with bad results.

The usual solution is to let one power-saving method or the other take charge; and not to have both methods active at the same time.

Try this:

Open Device Manager, right-click on the malfunctioning device (e.g. a troublesome network adapter), and open the Power tab. Enable (checkmark) the setting for Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.

Here’s what it looks like on my PC:

With the PC now in charge, things should work more smoothly.

However, if the “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” setting is already enabled, try disabling (unchecking) it; returning power-state control to the device driver itself.

If neither setting works, I’d suspect the driver is corrupted, obsolete, or otherwise incompatible with your current system.

Visit the support pages for the device in question, and make sure you’re using the latest-available drivers for your operating system version; and exact brand, type, and model device.

With that, you should be good to go!

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