Power plan keeps getting changed to 'turn off after 20 minutes'

Question

In Windows 7, I go into the Control Panel and select the Always On power plan - it should never turn off the display or put the computer to sleep, but it keeps reverting to turning off the display after 20 minutes. I even tried creating my own power plan, then editing it at Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings - I set both values to "Never" and saved changes. When editing the plan settings a few minutes later, they were still set to "Never", but the next day, "Turn off the display" had changed to "20 minutes"! I've tried setting it back to "Never" and saving several times now, but it keeps changing back to "20 minutes" after a day or two.

I've read that one thing that commonly does this is some software called "HD Tune", but I don't have that installed. So what's causing this? Is it just some known Windows 7 bug that MS haven't fixed?

Solution

I ended up enabling the policy Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Power Management > Video and Display Settings > Turn Off the Display in gpedit.msc and setting it to 0, both for "plugged in" and "on battery". This seems to translate to an unchangeable "never turn off the display" in the power plan.

Comments

[Psycogeek]

Smart move there making your own plan to test. Is this a laptop system? I have not seen this reported often enough to think that it was a bug or common. I might look in the task scheduler to see if there was any schedules. Check for any "utilities" that are designed for power tuning, or overclocking and all. Like the motherboards own software for this board sets/adjust power profiles as one of its optimization items (manually only for this one). Check your non-microsoft startup and service items, for possible names providing clues to energy or power savings or optomisation.

[Jez]

I haven't installed any power tuning or overclocking software.

[Psycogeek]

one more here superuser.com/questions/631683/… & possible to lock one in via group policy In Group Policy editor go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Power Management and set what you want the way you want it.

[Jez]

OK I've enabled the policy Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Power Management > Video and Display Settings > Turn Off the Display in gpedit.msc and set it to 0, both for "plugged in" and "on battery". This seems to translate to an unchangeable "never turn off the display" in the power plan now, so hopefully it will stick.

[Liesmith]

Verified working in Windows 10 as well, thanks for sharing this solution.