Sleep mode being blocked

It seems that every program can pretty much prevent Vista from going to sleep.

People signing into Live Messenger, messaging me on Steam or XFIRE, and all sorts of other things.

My computer simply stays in a permanent screen saver state, rather than transitioning into sleep mode at the 45 minute mark.

Of course, the whole idea of sleep mode is for it to take over and save power when i step away from the computer -- So the idea of quitting these programs in order to facilitate sleep mode makes no sense.

I HAVE tested sleep mode, and my computer CAN go into it if it's left alone with no active programs... And it boots up just fine. But with all my crap running, sleep mode is now useless.

Is there anything i can do? Possibly use a third party app to force sleep mode if no mouse movement is detected?

Thanks.

Hello Ramzy,

You might check the items in this guide to see if it can help you find out what is preventing your computer from going to sleep.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/63567-power-options-sleep-mode-problems.html

The usual items to check for this is your network adapter "Do not allow to wake computer" and "Allow computer to turn off" settings, and the Power Plan Options (step 2) Multimedia settings for "Allow the computer to sleep".

Hope this helps,
Shawn