Windows 7 Tool Troubleshoots Sleep Mode Problems

Windows only: Ever wonder why your laptop’s battery seems to die too quickly? The Windows Help blog points out a hidden command-line switch that generates a report with loads of helpful troubleshooting information.

The report lists all of the devices that are causing problems with sleep mode, explains the different power saving modes your computer supports, and even gives you detailed information on your battery—invaluable information when your system takes forever to go in and out of sleep mode. Generating the report is easy enough—just open up a command prompt in administrator mode using the context menu -> Run as Administrator option, and then type in the following:

powercfg -ENERGY

The utility will take a while to generate the report, sometimes more than the 60 seconds it quotes you—but when it finishes you can open up the generated file in your favorite web browser. Once you’ve examined the report, you can figure out if you need to do some tweaking or update a driver.

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