While there are other perks to using Modern Standby, not everyone prefers it over the classic S3 sleep mode. If, for any reason, you need to disable Modern Standby in Windows 10 and 11, here we show you how.
What Is Modern Standby on Windows, and Why Should You Disable It?
Introduced in 2020, Modern Standby (S0) is a newer sleep state and a successor to the legacy Sleep Standby (S3) mode. It replaces the standard sleep feature and puts your laptop in a lower power state when idle.
In this sleep state, your system is kept awake under minimum power consumption to perform background tasks such as syncing email and notifications over the Internet, etc.
It also features an instant on/off feature that gives you a faster transition between the on and off state, similar to your smartphone.
On the flip side, Modern Standby is reportedly causing heating and battery draining issues, thus forcing some users to turn off the new power mode on their laptops.
Note that poor battery life and heating issues with your laptop are common occurrences and can happen due to several reasons. Also, due to the nature of Modern Standby, which requires the CPU to participate all the time, a moderate increase in CPU temperature is expected.
Before you decide to turn off Modern Standby, try these tips to improve battery life on Windows 11. You can also set a battery charge threshold for your laptop to increase the battery life span. Additionally, you can also troubleshoot your laptop for overheating issues by understanding the basics of overheating computers.
If you still need to disable Modern Standby in Windows 11, proceed with the steps below.
How to Check Your System’s Current Sleep State
You can use the powercfg /a command in Command Prompt to view and configure your system’s available sleep state. Here’s how to use this command in Windows 11:
Press Win + X to open the WinX menu. Next, click on Windows Terminal (Admin). In the Windows Terminal window, type the following command and press Enter to execute: powercfg /a If the system reports, Standby (S0 Lower Power Idle) Network Connected/Disconnected, then you have Modern Standby enabled. Next, check Standby (S3) status. If you see the “This standby state is disabled when S0 low power idle is supported” message, it means you can disable Modern Standby to enable Legacy Standby (S3).
1. How to Disable Modern Standby Using a Registry Script
You can use a registry script to disable Modern Standby in Windows 11 and 10. This is the easiest way to get things done without having to navigate your way through the Windows registry.
Before you attempt to make any changes to your Windows registry, we strongly recommend you create a restore point. This should help you recover your system in case something goes awry during the process.
Press Win + R to open Run. Type notepad and click OK to open a new Notepad file. Copy and paste the following script into the notepad file: Windows Registry Editor Version 5. 00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power]“PlatformAoAcOverride”=dword:00000000 Next, click on File and select Save As. Enter the File name as Disable_Modern_Standby. reg. Next, click the Save as type drop-down and select All files. Click Save to save the registry file. Next, double-click on the Disable_Modern_Standby. reg file and click Yes when prompted by UAC. Restart your PC to apply the changes.
If you need to re-enable Modern Standby, copy and paste the following script into a new Notepad file:
Save the file as Enable_Modern_Standby.reg. Next, double-click on the saved file and wait for the script to execute. Restart your PC to see if Modern Standby is enabled.
To confirm the changes, execute the powercfg /a command in elevated Command Prompt. If the Legacy Standby (S3) is enabled, you will see the following:
2. How to Disable Modern Standby Using the Command Prompt
You can use the Command Prompt to disable Modern Standby on your PC. This method uses the reg commands executed via the Command Prompt to modify the Windows registry.
Follow these steps to turn off Modern Standby in Windows 11 using the registry commands:
Press Win + X to open Run. Click on Windows Terminal (Admin) to open the terminal with administrative privilege. In the Windows Terminal window, copy and paste the following reg command: reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power /v PlatformAoAcOverride /t REG_DWORD /d 0 When the operation completed successfully message appears, close the Command Prompt. If you need to enable Modern Standby again, use the following command in the elevated Windows Terminal window: reg delete “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power” /v PlatformAoAcOverride /f Make sure you restart your PC to apply the changes.
You can use the aforementioned powercfg /a command to view the sleep status and confirm the changes.
3. How to Disable Modern Standby Using the Registry Editor
If the script and the reg command don’t work, you can manually modify the necessary registry entry to disable Modern Standby. Here’s how to do it:
Press Win + R to open Run. Type regedit and click OK to open Registry Editor. Click Yes if prompted by UAC. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following location. You can copy and paste the registry path into the Registry Editor for quick navigation: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power Here, right-click on the Power subkey and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Rename the value as PlatformAoAcOverride. Right-click on the PlatformAoAcOverride value and select Modify. In the value data field, type 0 and click OK. Close the Registry Editor and restart your PC.
Disable Modern Standby in Windows 10 and 11
Modern Standby, with all its advantages, doesn’t fit the bill for everyone. For many users, Modern Standby has resulted in poor battery life and heating issues.
You may work around this issue by setting your device to hibernate instead of sleep when you close the lid. Additionally, consider optimizing your power usage in Windows 11 to increase your battery life.
