Prevent Your PC From Sleeping When Watching Movies Or During Presentation

Sometimes when I’m watching a movie on my laptop, the system will sleep after a few minutes of inactivity (no mouse or keyboard input). This is normal because that is the default power settings of Windows. When a PC has not been used for a while (idle mode), it will enter sleep mode which can benefit the user from a significant reduction in electricity use, heat generation, component wear, etc. It’s easy to wake up your computer, just press a key or move your mouse. All the same applications continue running, and the windows are open as if nothing happened.

Sleep mode is a great feature, however, when you’re doing something like watching a movie or burning DVDs and then suddenly your system will sleep, that’s a bad thing because you’re still using it – even though you’re not actually using it because you’re not doing anything like moving your mouse or typing keys. That’s why most of the media players and other programs now have the capabilities to tell Windows not to sleep while they’re running. But how about those programs or internet activity that do not have the ability to block sleep mode such as downloading a large file, presenting a PowerPoint, etc.

Actually, there are three ways to prevent your PC from entering sleep mode. First is adjusting the Power Settings of your PC.

Go to your Control Panel and then double-click Power Options and adjust the settings based on your preferences. However, you have to undo everything once the task is finished which is quite annoying because you have to repeat these steps every time you want to prevent the sleep mode.

If you don’t like the first option because it requires a lot of work, check out Insomnia.

Insomnia is a free, small, and portable application that prevents your PC from sleeping. It calls the SetThreadExecutionState API to disable sleep mode for as long as it’s running.

Download Insomnia

The third option is by using another application called Caffeine.

Caffeine is almost the same as Insomnia. It prevents your PC from sleeping by simulating a key press once every 59 seconds, so your machine thinks you’re still working at the keyboard. It’s also a portable and very small application.

When Caffeine is running, it will add a “cup filled with coffee” icon in your notification area.

If you want to disable it, just double-click the icon and the cup will be emptied. Just double-click the icon again if you want to activate Caffeine.

Download Caffeine

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