How To Keep A Windows Laptop Awake Even With The Lid Closed
Keeping your Display On
While your Windows PC mostly works very good on-the-go, you can also make use of it at home too. By connecting an external keyboard, monitor, and mouse, a laptop can also function as a desktop. But there is also one problem with this, which is: how do you keep the laptop on when it’s closed?
By default, the Windows OS puts your laptop to sleep when your lids get closed. This means that even if you do not want to use your laptop screen as a secondary monitor, you still will have to keep it open to keep your computer awake.
Or do you? Thankfully, you can keep your monitor still on when you close the laptop is closed. Here’s how to do that.
How to Keep the Display On When Your Laptop Is Closed
Windows gives you a simple toggle that lets you keep your laptop screen on when it is closed. follow the following steps to activate it
- 1. In the System Tray, locate the Battery icon. You might also have to click the small arrow to display all the icons. Right-click on the Battery and select the Power Options.
- 2. On the left side of the Power Options menu that comes up, select 'Choose what closing the lid does'.
- 3. You will see several options for both the power and sleep buttons. When you close the lid, you would change the dropdown box for Plugged in to Do nothing.
- 4. If you like, you can also edit the setting for On battery. However, this can cause some issues, as we would explain in a moment.
- 5. Click on the Save Changes button and you are good to go.
Now when you close your laptop screen, it would continue to run as normal. This simply means that you can control it with external devices while the laptop on it own is neatly tucked away.
However, you should remember that when you want to put your laptop to sleep or shut it down, you would need to make use of the commands that are on the Start Menu once you have made this change. You can also make use of the physical power button on your computer to switch it off.
Beware of Heat When Closing a Laptop Without Sleeping
That is just all that you have to do in order to close your laptop without it sleeping. Moreover, modifying this option has a consequence that I would like you to know about.
The default shortcut for closing the lid to put your PC to sleep is very good when you throw your laptop in a bag. But if you forget about that after editing this option, you could accidentally put your laptop in an enclosed space while it is still on.
In addition to wasting your pc battery power, doing this will also generate a lot of heat and it can destroy your laptop over time. Therefore, you should consider only changing the setting of the lid for Plugged in and always plugging in your laptop when you make use of it at your desk. This is a good combination of safety and convenience.
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