How to Stop Dell Laptop from Sleeping When Closed (Keep Laptop On!)

When it comes to computers and technology, Dell boasts of some of the best products in the world, as they produce high-quality and durable computer devices. But we can all agree that working on your laptop can get a bit frustrating if sleeps just because you close its lid, especially when your intention was just to close it briefly.

The good news is there is a way you can actually keep your Dell laptop on, and prevent it from sleeping when its lid is closed. All you need to do is change the power options of your Dell laptop in the control panel to “do nothing” after clicking on the “closing the lid” drop-down menu.

In case the description above wasn’t clear enough, or maybe you are the really cautious type, and you’d like to be extra sure about what to do. Keep reading below to get detailed step-by-step instructions on how you can stop your Dell laptop from sleeping once its lid is closed, and other settings your laptop can obey with a closed lid.

How to Stop Your Dell Laptop from Sleeping When Its Lid is Closed

When your purchase a Dell laptop, irrespective of what model you get, by default your laptop goes to sleep once its lid is closed. This isn’t really an ideal situation if your intention was just to briefly keep your laptop out of sight.

Rather than going through the entire booting process of your Dell laptop, here is a simple way you can actually prevent your Dell laptop from running into sleep mode whenever its lid is closed.

• Click on the start button on the lower left-hand side of your laptop’s screen.

• From the list of displayed options, select the ‘Control Panel’.

• Once you enter the control panel, select System and Security and then click on the ‘Power Options’.

• After clicking on the power options, on the left side of your screen, select the ‘choose what closing lid does’ icon, and you will be taken to a new page.

• On this new page, you will see three power and sleep button and lid settings namely: when I press the power button, when I press the sleep button, and when I close the lid. For each of these three settings, you will have two actions to take, one on the battery, and the other when plugged in.

• Go to the drop-down menus next to the when I close the lid setting and change it from the hibernate option under the on battery category, and change the sleep option under to plugged in category to do nothing.

• Once you are done making these changes, click on the save changes button to ensure that all your changes are saved.

After making these changes, your Dell laptop, will keep running, and no longer go to sleep after its lid has been closed.

Can The Dell Laptop Only Sleep When Its Lid Is Closed?

As we previously mentioned, your Dell laptop automatically goes to sleep once its lid is closed, because of its default setting. However, your Dell laptop can obey four different commands when its lid is closed.

Do Nothing

If you would rather your Dell laptop does nothing when its lid is closed and remains switched on, you can change this in its settings. That way, once the lid is reopened, you can resume working on the system from exactly where you left off, without needing to boot it from scratch and re-input your password.

Sleep

When your laptop is in sleep mode, it is also technically on. However, the main difference between this, and your full-on power mode, is that all actions on your computer would be stopped, and any application or document opened by you would be put into memory. This is a nice option for when you plan to be away from your computer screen for a short period of time.

To put your computer to sleep, all you have to do is click on the start icon, select power, then select sleep.

Hibernate

Hibernate mode is just like sleep mode, the only difference is once you put your system in hibernate mode, it takes more time to start up than in sleep mode. But once your system switches on, it will resume from exactly where you left off. This option is preferred when you plan on leaving your computer screen for a longer period of time. You can hibernate your Dell laptop by choosing this option in the additional power settings.

Shut Down

If you’re done with using your laptop, you can completely shut your system down till the next time you plan on using it again. Shutting your laptop down involves the same process as putting it to sleep. Click on the start icon, select power, and choose shut down.

Conclusion

Laptops in general are automatically programmed to sleep whenever their lids are closed. If you aren’t comfortable with your Dell laptop always going to sleep just because you close its lid, this can be easily changed in your systems settings.