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Run a Power Efficiency Diagnosis with powercfg /energy

60-second trace that reports devices, timeouts and settings preventing sleep or wasting power.

WindowspowercfgPower & SleepDiagnosticsLow risk
Run `powercfg /energy` in an elevated prompt, wait 60 seconds, then open energy-report.html for the findings.

01Command

Command
$ powercfg /energy

02What it does

powercfg /energy captures a one-minute trace of the system's power behavior and lists errors and warnings: devices blocking sleep, USB selective suspend issues, inefficient timers and misconfigured timeouts. It is the fastest way to answer "why won't my PC sleep?" without installing anything. Read the Errors section first, then Warnings.

03Risk

RiskLow risk
RequirementsAdministrator privileges; 60-second trace

04Undo

✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.

05Sources

  • powercfg command-line options
    Microsoft Learn · vendor-doc · 2026-09-17
    Evidence: Documents powercfg /energy, which runs a 60-second trace and generates an HTML report of power efficiency problems.

Last verified: 2026-09-17 · Category: System & Settings

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