Basically every laptop I’ve owned I’ve had to disable sleep when the lid is closed as I often leave them plugged in and want background tasks like downloads or updates to be able to run while I’m not using the machine. However, I don’t think PC laptops have a way to switch to a super low power state and just run background tasks like downloads, alarms and notifications or running scheduled tasks without just being left on in regular power mode. Why is this not just a default feature of laptops, given that phones and tablets have been doing this kind of thing for the last decade or more?

Does anyone know if there are plans to make power management for laptops allow for running certain tasks in Windows or Linux in the future? My smug Apple using friend tells me his Macbook already does this, but is the lack of this feature on PCs software related or something innate to x86 vs ARM architecture?

    • @linearchaos
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      11 year ago

      Microsoft has been trying to tackle that bear for years. In some cases, making sure to pull your power for a minute before you close the lid seems to solve the issue. Supposedly s0 is supposed to be nixed if you’re on battery, but the code that checks battery doesn’t always get called from s0.