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I have a Windows7 laptop with two external 2.5" HDDs and a cooling pad connected through USB ports.
When I put the laptop to sleep, these devices are still powered on - the fan in the cooling pad is still spinning, the drives are still spinning.
I want to set it all up so that they power down when in sleep.

I tried setting the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power option in the USB Root Hubs' Properties in Device Manager and enabling USB selective suspend in power options - it didn't work.

As it's a laptop, BIOS options are extremely locked down, so I can't even see anything relevant to sleep in there.

Is it even possible to do this?

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2 Answers

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You can try hibernating instead. Yes, it'll take longer to come out of hibernation than sleep, but the computer is essentially shut down. Sleep keeps the USB ports powered because there may be an attached device that will bring the computer out of sleep; say for instance, a mouse.

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Yes, I almost always hibernate because of the problem in question, but there are times when I want to put the computer to sleep, and it annoys me to no end that the devices are kept powered. – Greg Aug 4 '11 at 12:39
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My PC has an extra driver, or something, installed that allows charging of USB devices while the PC is turned off, which required me to unplug my USB powered headset every time I turned off the PC or leave the headsets control unit glowing at night wasting power.

Maybe your laptop has something similar, the thing that allows my PC to do that has an option in the "Programs and Features" page that allows it to be uninstalled.

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