Power Button / Shutdown Behavior

[OhioYJ]

Every PC in the house can be remotely turned on / off. However I've used different methods to achieve this. 

 

- HTPC's use PCS-2, and are turned off by a remote / IR. This works perfectly every time, doesn't matter if the screen is off or not.

 

- Regular PCs use a Zen16 (ZWave relay) to hit the power button. However on these I've notice if the PCs have turned off the display (none of the PCs are set to sleep, just the monitors turn off after 15 minutes), hitting the power button with this relay just "wakes" the PC. I can hit the power button again with the relay, and then it will shutdown as expected. This happens in both Windows and Linux. It's happening on multiple PCs. 

 

They are set to shutdown when the power button is hit. Why aren't they just going down when the power button is hit? 

[Sawa Takahashi]

38 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

They are set to shutdown when the power button is hit. Why aren't they just going down when the power button is hit? 

The behavior of power and sleep buttons can be configured in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Quote

You can modify the power button behavior in Windows 10 by going to Control Panel, clicking on Power Options, and then selecting Choose what the power buttons do.

Windows 11 has similar settings.

 

[OhioYJ]

10 hours ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

The behavior of power and sleep buttons can be configured in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

All machines, Windows 11 and Linux are set to shutdown when the power button is pressed. The sleep button is set to do nothing. Although I've never been sure what the sleep button is? I only have a power and reset button. Do some machines have a dedicated sleep button. 

 

The machines are set never to go to sleep or hibernate, all desktops, no laptops in the mix. 

 

 

[Sawa Takahashi]

4 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

All machines, Windows 11 and Linux are set to shutdown when the power button is pressed.

If manually pressing the button does not initiate the configured action, there may be a parameter in BIOS conflicting with the configuration or there is a bug in the OS that makes the buttons behave the wrong way.

4 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

The sleep button is set to do nothing. Although I've never been sure what the sleep button is? I only have a power and reset button. Do some machines have a dedicated sleep button. 

I don't remember seeing a sleep button on desktop cases but you can find dedicated sleep buttons on some keyboards and many laptops.

[Pusbucket]

5 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

 The sleep button is set to do nothing. Although I've never been sure what the sleep button is? I only have a power and reset button. Do some machines have a dedicated sleep button. 

 

 

47 minutes ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

I don't remember seeing a sleep button on desktop cases but you can find dedicated sleep buttons on some keyboards and many laptops.

Sleep mode basically suspends everything and reduces the power use and holds any active apps in memory for a quick restart.

Hibernate mode copies any active data to the drive and essentially shuts the system down like 98%.

sleep is for a quick thing, like lunch. Hibernate is for going to bed for the night but you don't want to lose where you're at working.

Both are features primarily on laptops for battery life.

 

I figure that as desktop systems became more power efficient, the need for a "Sleep" mode isn't as beneficial as it once was.

Laptops on battery power, well that's obvious.

 

Remember when pc's had a "Turbo" button that actually slowed the cpu down?

[OhioYJ]

3 hours ago, Pusbucket said:

Remember when pc's had a "Turbo" button that actually slowed the cpu down?

I remember having to turn this off because it would make some games run too fast. 

 

Could it have to do with the amount of time the power button is pressed? The ZWave relay I'm using is set to be momentary, but the minimum amount of time is 1 second. So perhaps it holds the button longer than a normal person would press one? 

[Sawa Takahashi]

4 hours ago, Pusbucket said:

Sleep mode basically suspends everything and reduces the power use and holds any active apps in memory for a quick restart.

We were talking about a sleep button, not the sleep mode.

51 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

Could it have to do with the amount of time the power button is pressed? The ZWave relay I'm using is set to be momentary, but the minimum amount of time is 1 second. So perhaps it holds the button longer than a normal person would press one? 

Unless you got an unusual motherboard, you need to press the power button for 4 or 5 seconds before the button press becomes a forced shutdown. 1 second should be correct for simulating a button press.

 

[OhioYJ]

2 hours ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

Unless you got an unusual motherboard, you need to press the power button for 4 or 5 seconds before the button press becomes a forced shutdown. 1 second should be correct for simulating a button press.

That's what I had assumed too. It's across multiple machines / motherboards as well. As multiple computers here at my house do this. It's just been starting to aggravate me, as it's annoying to tell Alexa to shut one off, then walk past the room and find out all we did is wake it up. 

[Sawa Takahashi]

15 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

It's just been starting to aggravate me,

If forgot to ask. Did the computers misbehaving ever ran without the issue ? Since when did this behavior happened ? Did you change anything in your setup around that time ?

Also, is your Windows fully updated ? I remember seeing in a recent update that they "fixed" the update and shutdown behavior that was supposedly broken since a long time ago.

Did you check how your relays activate when you ask Alexa to shutdown your computers ? For example, if there is a 1-second press on the power button, the computer shuts down. But if there's another 1-second pulse later, that one will act as a power-on event. I'm sure you already checked but it doesn't hurt to make sure again.

On 11/13/2025 at 6:58 PM, OhioYJ said:

However on these I've notice if the PCs have turned off the display (none of the PCs are set to sleep, just the monitors turn off after 15 minutes), hitting the power button with this relay just "wakes" the PC.

I got a couple suggestions.

• If you set the monitors to never sleep, do the computers shut down as expected ?
• It's not an elegant solution but would setting the monitors to never sleep but using a screen-saver an acceptable solution ?
• In the past there was an option to choose how to put a monitor to sleep (blank, no v-sync signal, etc.) but I could not find it. Maybe it was removed since.
• I could not find a reliable way to simulate your issue. When my monitor goes off, pressing the power button does the expected action.

And that's it. I think I'm out of options with your current setup.

Good luck !