Windows 11 Does Not Turn off The Screen When Locked

CascadeHush on 10/03/2024 - 21:42

I just discovered by accident that my windows 11 laptop does not sleep the screen when locked… which means the screen has been running all night for who knows how long. It did not do this when I got it, so some update has either 'improved' things or thrown away whatever settings I used to have.

Web search is useless, it's just pages and pages about how to disable the lock screen. Bing Copilot gave me incomplete instructions that turned out to be something maybe was in windows 10 but is definitely not in windows 11, called 'Console lock display off timeout'. I've never heard of it before.

The laptop is always connected to power, and I need it to run 24/7 (it needs to connect to the internet regularly) so I have it set to never power off, and I have the screen set to never power off since I need the display to be active during the day, even though I may not directly interact with it for hours at a time.

But the screen should power off when locked. Pretty much every computer I've ever used had sleep disabled, and pretty much all of them still put the screen to sleep when the computer was locked (which I don't do very often).

Any ideas?

Computing Microsoft Operating System

Comments

  • ihfree on 10/03/2024 - 22:02
    +3

    Been past this page?

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-clien…

    If so, tried shortening the timeout?

    • Aureus on 10/03/2024 - 22:07
      -1

      ^ That is the solution. It should be set to 1 minute by default, so dunno what would have changed that.

    • CascadeHush on 11/03/2024 - 11:07

      Thanks, this is the answer, well half of it anyway.

      There seems to be a bug in windows 11. If the power saving for the display is set to 'never' that overrides the Console Lock Display Off Timeout. I explain this more fully in my other comment.

      I don't know why the 'Console Lock Display Off Timeout' setting is hidden on my PC, probably something Dell did. When I enabled the setting, it was set to 1 minute for both power configs and yet the screen did not sleep.

      I had to set my display sleep timeout to 5 hours, the longest possible time, and now the display goes to sleep 1 minute after being locked. 5 hours should be enough that I don't have the display going to sleep on me during the day.

  • vince088 on 10/03/2024 - 22:04

    setting the the sleep/screen timer should turn off the display while locked, since you set it to never it will always stay on

  • JimmyF on 10/03/2024 - 22:18
    +3

    I just discovered by accident that my windows 11 laptop does not sleep the screen when locked… which means the screen has been running all night for who knows how long.

    Oh ok.

    The laptop is always connected to power, and I need it to run 24/7 (it needs to connect to the internet regularly) so I have it set to never power off, and I have the screen set to never power off since I need the display to be active during the day, even though I may not directly interact with it for hours at a time.

    Insert face palm here

    So sets device to never power off, never turns screen off, then is surprised that the devices screen never turns off.

    • Aureus on 10/03/2024 - 22:58
      +1

      Insert face palm here

      They just want the screen to only turn off when computer is locked. ihfree even posted the solution above.

      • CascadeHush on 11/03/2024 - 10:59

        As per the link provided above, to quote Microsoft themselves:

        the PC monitor turns off after 1 minute. Changing the setting "Choose when to turn off the display" under Power Options in Control Panel does not change this behavior. This setting can be used to adjust the display timeout used when a user is logged in and idle but does not affect the timeout used when the PC is locked.

        They actually say twice here that the power saving setting should not effect the computer turning the screen off when locked, and I also said that it was always the case with whatever computer I owned that locking the screen would put it to sleep regardless of the power saving setting.

        Turns out that is not what happens, this appears to be a bug in windows 11 introduced some time in the last 12 months since it contradicts Microsoft own documentation.

  • Muzeeb on 10/03/2024 - 22:50
    -1

    You are confusing yourself and now others. Even the AI algorithm is probably stuffed with your confusing question.

  • Nillionaire on 10/03/2024 - 23:19

    ⚙️ Settings

  • randomusername2017 on 11/03/2024 - 05:53

    screen set to never power off

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