It’s handy to leave your computer in sleep mode so that you can quickly wake it up when you want to continue from where you left off.
But can your computer overheat while it’s left in sleep mode?
Can A Computer Overheat In Sleep Mode?
Your computer should not overheat in sleep mode because once put to sleep it will enter a power-saving state that will stop it from carrying out any tasks that could put its resources under pressure. Once sleep mode is enabled, any tasks you were working on or applications that were running will be moved to the system’s short-term memory (RAM) and your computer will go into a low-power state where it is still powered on but consuming very little energy.
However, the Windows and Mac OSs may wake a computer up from sleep mode to carry out tasks such as installing updates and running maintenance.
And if your computer wakes up, opens back up the browser tabs you were using and the projects you were working on, and then starts installing updates, your computer could start heating up – especially if it’s a laptop that’s been stored in a bag.
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How To Stop Your Computer From Overheating While In Sleep Mode
To ensure that your computer cannot wake up from sleep and start running tasks that could cause it to heat up you should disable all wake timers.
A wake timer is a scheduled event that will wake your computer up from sleep at a certain time to do a certain task.
You can disable wake timers in Windows 10 from within the Advanced Power Settings. Find Plan Settings, expand the Sleep option and then Allow Wake Timers. From here you can disable all wake timers.
For a Mac, navigate to System Preferences, then Energy Saver, and make sure the box next to Wake For Network Access is unchecked.
If you’re doing this on a laptop, you’ll want to disable wake timers for both On Battery and Plugged In.
Some laptops can also develop firmware issues – especially with the WD SN850 SSDs – leading to them being active when in sleep mode.
If this seems to be the case, try going into battery settings and setting the laptop to hibernate when the lid is closed.
Hibernate mode will do basically the same thing but it will save information to the hard drive instead of RAM, allowing your computer to be completely turned off consuming no power.
But just to be safe, you should probably turn off your laptop if you are storing it in an enclosed space.
In conclusion, your computer should not overheat in sleep mode because it will enter a power-saving state and stop running tasks.
A laptop can develop firmware issues, however, that could cause it to stay active while in sleep mode and this is what can actually lead to overheating on laptops.
You should ensure that your computers cannot wake up from sleep by disabling all wake timers.
A laptop can also be set to hibernate instead which should have the same effect of completely turning off your computer while still conserving its resources.
If you are storing a laptop in an enclosed space, it is advisable to turn it off completely to ensure that overheating does not occur.
