Find out what's keeping your PC (or screen) awake — via Microsoft Learn

Commandlow riskNeeds adminWindows 11Windows 10

If your PC never sleeps or the screen never turns off, an app or driver is holding a "power request". This read-only command lists them — a browser tab playing media, a download manager, an audio driver — so you know what to close or update.

Takes effect right away

Command

Run in an administrator Command Prompt / Terminal window.

powercfg /requests
Run it while the problem is happening. Nothing is changed, so there's nothing to undo. Power users can make Windows ignore a specific caller with powercfg /requestsoverride (see the Microsoft reference for syntax); run it with no arguments to list existing overrides.

Sources

Source reviewed
2026-11-02
Link checked
2026-11-02
Tested hands-on
Not by Oddbyte.Me

Oddbyte.Me hasn't tried this on every Windows build, so keep the undo handy.

sleepwon't sleeppower requestpowercfgdisplay stays on

More in Performance & Power

Check memory pressure, not 'free RAM' — via Apple Support

Tricklow risk

A Mac that shows almost no free memory is usually fine: macOS keeps recently used files cached in RAM so apps reopen faster. The number that matters is the Memory Pressure graph in Activity Monitor, which combines free memory, swap and cached files.