-1

I wrote a program that outputs the amount of time my Windows 10 laptop's input is idle (e.g. GetLastInputInfo()). It does so every 1 second. If I do not touch the keyboard or mouse, the idle time will climb. Every 24 seconds, the idle time will reset back to zero. I suspect that some process is sending input. How do I figure out which process is sending input?

This prevents my laptop from going to sleep and hibernate.

  • Autoruns does not show any new processes under the Logon tab.
  • All categories of powercfg /requests show none
  • The network cards are allowed to turn off
  • powercfg /energy does not show anything useful
  • powercfg /lastwake is from days ago
  • WinSleep shows that the user idle time is being reset
  • Two different keyloggers did not show any keystrokes when the idle input time is reset
  • I wrote a key and mouse logger. It shows key and mouse events when I type or move the mouse but does not show any events when the idle input time is reset
Nathan
  • 1,266
  • 5
  • 16
  • 34
  • [That kinda question is more proper to ask on *SO*. You've much more chance of getting some answer there.](https://stackoverflow.com/) – Jorge Luiz Apr 09 '21 at 05:22
  • @JorgeLuiz the program appears only to be to demonstrate a symptom, not be the actual problem. The real problem being the machine not sleeping. – Mokubai Apr 09 '21 at 05:27
  • Can you try the advice from the answer at https://superuser.com/questions/1206582/how-do-i-troubleshoot-something-thats-preventing-sleep and post the results? – Mokubai Apr 09 '21 at 05:32
  • 2
    If you run that same app on another machine don't occur the same issue? Because if do, so the issue's app itself. Please, make that test just in case and report it on your post. – Jorge Luiz Apr 09 '21 at 05:34
  • Also https://superuser.com/questions/145700/what-is-keeping-my-pc-from-sleeping and https://superuser.com/questions/532993/why-wont-my-computer-go-to-sleep-automatically (the winsleep application looks interesting) – Mokubai Apr 09 '21 at 05:36
  • @JorgeLuiz The app is not the problem. If I stop the app, the laptop will still not go to sleep. The app simply tells us that something is keeping the laptop awake by resetting the input idle time. – Nathan Apr 09 '21 at 15:52
  • Ok. Could you *reinstall* Windows (only Windows with its respective drivers, just it) that laptop and to try out that app again? Because could be some other software causing that issue. – Jorge Luiz Apr 09 '21 at 22:13
  • @JorgeLuiz That seems to be overkill. Surely, there must be a simpler way to figure what is resetting the input idle time. – Nathan Apr 09 '21 at 23:02
  • That isn't overkill at all in my humble opinion. I highly advise you to reinstall Windows pure and nothing else (just mobo's drivers if really necessary), then you can try out your app. That's a procedure, a step-by-step for finding out your real issue. Some other software could be causing some conflict in background, for instance. But you don't need to do it if you don't want to. – Jorge Luiz Apr 10 '21 at 01:02
  • A reinstall of the OS and eventually install all of the software, configure the software and restore my data is going to take me 20 hours. I would rather find/write a tool or a way to figure out what process is causing the problem than spend 20 hours randomly trying things. – Nathan Apr 10 '21 at 15:39

1 Answers1

1

I have a wireless mouse and wireless keyboard from Logitech. Logitech has a receiver that plugs into a USB port. If I remove the receiver, then the idle time is not reset. If I insert the receiver and turn off the mouse and keyboard, then the idle time is reset. I thought the Logitech receiver is going bad. I bought a new receiver. It did not solve the problem.

I then disabled half of the running Windows Services. This fixed the problem. I then reenabled half of those services. The problem did not come back. I kept reenabling or disabling half of the remaining services and eventually figured out that the service called Alienware Command Center Service is causing the problem.

In Windows Task Scheduler, I created a task to run every day at 5:30 am and when the laptop goes idle. The task executes the following commands:

  1. sc config AWCCService start=disabled
  2. sc stop AWCCService

These commands disable Alienware Command Center Service from starting and stop it if it is currently running.

Recently, I upgraded some Alienware software. This reenabled the service. The above task disabled the service. I have not had a problem since.

Nathan
  • 1,266
  • 5
  • 16
  • 34