Solved Lenovo laptop won't sleep when plugged in

That page detects my model and tells me the instructions do not apply. It then sends me to another general page with no information on graphics.

But -- I finally figured out how to get some use out of the discrete GPU. It's tied to the Lenovo "intelligent cooling", which is tied to the power plan, which is tied to some settings in the NVIDIA CP and some settings in Win 11. What a mess! Basically, my computer has to be set to Ultra Performance instead of Balanced. I can now see usage of the NVIDIA GPU in Task manager. I say it's a mess because information and settings are scattered all over the place and don't always agree.

For instance, I can set the power plan to Best Performance in Windows settings, but Windows Control Panel still shows the plan as Balanced. Another example: A program that cannot be set in NVIDIA to use that GPU, can be set to use it in Windows (and it does). Of the seven programs capable of this adjustment in Windows, five tell me the discrete GPU is NOT recommended and could cause problems. And the utility I previously mentioned still says that no displays are connected to the NVIDIA GPU. Right. Seems to be a poor implementation by Lenovo.

There is no overall setting that works globally, despite what the NVIDIA CP seems to show.

Anyway, I've gotten away from the subject of my own thread, which is S0 sleep that fails. I'm debating if I should try fiddling with a clean boot, or a repair upgrade.

Phil_C said:

how to get some use out of the discrete GPU. It's tied to the Lenovo "intelligent cooling", which is tied to the power plan, which is tied to some settings in the NVIDIA CP and some settings in Win 11. What a mess!

Click to expand...

Holy Crapola! It's more than a mess. Why would Lenovo ship a device equipped with dual graphics (for which the customer pays extra for) and then not have a means readily accessible (and understandable) for the customer to use the resources and capabilities of both GPUs. Whether it has anything to do with your sleep problem or not, you are very intelligent to have put the pieces of this puzzle together as you have.
I'd be screaming to the highest level of Lenovo and wouldn't stop until I got satisfaction of some kind.

Back to original post-FYI if you have read enough of the posts here on the forum and across the web about varied sleep issue and modern standby, you know how varied the solutions have been (and in some cases no solution could be found). From a Windows standpoint, repair installs worked for some while others had to do a clean install. Some had to disable sleep altogether and use hibernate instead. Many resorted to shut down every time. From a consumer perspective, the entire modern standby is a mess and MS and the OEMs do not seem to be working together to resolve it. It's been an issue for years with new weird problems (like yours) popping up all the time.

glasskuter said:

Holy Crapola! It's more than a mess. Why would Lenovo ship a device equipped with dual graphics (for which the customer pays extra for) and then not have a means readily accessible (and understandable) for the customer to use the resources and capabilities of both GPUs. Whether it has anything to do with your sleep problem or not, you are very intelligent to have put the pieces of this puzzle together as you have.
I'd be screaming to the highest level of Lenovo and wouldn't stop until I got satisfaction of some kind.

Back to original post-FYI if you have read enough of the posts here on the forum and across the web about varied sleep issue and modern standby, you know how varied the solutions have been (and in some cases no solution could be found). From a Windows standpoint, repair installs worked for some while others had to do a clean install. Some had to disable sleep altogether and use hibernate instead. Many resorted to shut down every time. From a consumer perspective, the entire modern standby is a mess and MS and the OEMs do not seem to be working together to resolve it. It's been an issue for years with new weird problems (like yours) popping up all the time.

Click to expand...

Your reasoning on Lenovo is well expressed. I will talk with them at some point, but I have to get myself in the right mood to do it properly.

These Modern Standby problems remind me of sleep issues on laptops from twenty years ago. Back to the future.

I might have time to try a repair install in a couple of days. I will report back here with results. Meanwhile, thanks for your input.

Phil_C said:

Your reasoning on Lenovo is well expressed. I will talk with them at some point, but I have to get myself in the right mood to do it properly.

These Modern Standby problems remind me of sleep issues on laptops from twenty years ago. Back to the future.

I might have time to try a repair install in a couple of days. I will report back here with results. Meanwhile, thanks for your input.

Click to expand...

Repair install is a good idea. You can keep apps and files.

glasskuter said:

The following are suggestions I found on the MS forum for this specific sleep issue on AC.
Please try these options one by one with the laptop plugged in and check after each option.

5. As a last resort, you should perform a Windows 11 repair upgrade

IMO, this issue can also be related to modern standby which is a different form of sleep than the old S3 sleep that we are accustomed to. In fact, modern standby is actually not sleep at all and I do not know why MS refers to it as such. If none of the above suggestions help, report back and we can make suggestions from a modern standby perspective.

Click to expand...

Success! The repair install has restored properly working S0 sleep. I should not have been hesitant to try the repair. My brain falls back to olden times when this type of operation could be clunky and dangerous. This repair was easy with no snags. It installed an earlier Windows build, and then required three more groups of updates to get back to the latest build. I did cringe a bit during each update, thinking that it might be the one to cause the sleep problem. But, no! All is working since last night.

Many thanks for all the advice.

***

I don't think my graphics issue was related, but the repair did have some effect there. Where only seven apps had appeared in Windows Settings as adjustable for the NVIDIA GPU, now there is a long list of apps. I also found that apps can be added to the list manually.

The NVIDIA Control Panel has a note (which was there previous to the repair) that "Windows OS now manages selection of the graphics processor" with a link to the appropriate screen in Windows Settings. That's where the list of individually customizable apps is located. I can force many of these apps to use the discrete GPU. And this works even in the Balanced power plan.

Does this mean the NVIDIA CP is useless? Dunno. I only know that this is one cumbersome way to get some use out of the T550 GPU.

The manual references an Ultra-Performance mode that does not exist in Windows. To enable that, you have to find special software on the Lenovo support site and install it. It does not come installed on the computer. More complexity.

I think many owners of the P16s will unknowingly be running without the NVIDIA graphics or Ultra-Performance mode.

To reiterate your earlier comment, Holy Crapola!

Thank you for posting your solution. Glad you got it working. Yeah, times have changed the way of doing things. Some things that were once either very hard or impossible to do are now a piece of cake, but for some things that were once cut and dried, we now have to jump through hoops. Keeps us on our toes.