Thinkpads Forum

When I come to work I dock my laptop, lid closed, press the power button on the dock and after a few seconds I'm ready to work. When I leave for home I undock and put in my bag. It takes me an hour to reach home during which time the laptop is in my bag, not being used. When I get home it is hot since it didn't go into sleep. At home when I leave it for a while, it goes to sleep (plugged is 15 minutes or unplugged 30 minutes)

1. Why won't it go to sleep after I undock?
2. Why won't it go to sleep after an idle timeout

wake timers are disabled when unplugged and powercfg -requets shows an empty list.

How do I fix this situation? I know I can undock, open the lid (wait for it to come on), then close again, but this is tedious and a lot of times I'm in a hurry and forget.

Welcome to the forum.

1. Because it's not programmed to. There is no 'sleep on undock' event, at least not a standard one.
2. Because docked profile is treated differently, and may have different settings from undocked profile. The dock/undock event itself may be confusing.

Power management flows are among the most complex ones in modern hardware. You can try to fiddle with it and maybe get the idle timers to work, but it's not worth it, it won't be reliable, and you will still have 15-30 minutes of the laptop running hot in your bag before it goes to sleep. Why?!

There is a simple solution to your issue. Configure the power button to put the computer to sleep, not turn it off. Then before you undock, just press the button on the dock (you don't need to open the lid), and wait for the computer to go to sleep. Should only take a couple of seconds.

Thank you for your reply. I was hoping there is an 'undock' event i can use. I'll try to use your routine and hopefully not forget to do it.