TL,DR: Please add support for disabling S0 sleep in the UEFI in order to conserve battery. Windows 11 has a bug that is liable to drain your battery when it’s enabled! EDIT: I fixed it with a registry edit
A recent Linus Tech Tips video regarding Windows modern standby raised some issues with Windows 11 sleep. Many new laptops are mysteriously waking up hot to the touch with a dead battery, despite having been fully charged and put in sleep mode. This is something I want to avoid at all costs if I can.
New laptops have a feature called “S0 sleep” which allows them to remain slightly on and connected to the internet when in sleep mode. This allows Windows to update while it’s sleeping so you don’t have to remember to do it yourself. However, there’s a bug. When the laptop is plugged in, the laptop will be connected to the internet while in sleep. Meanwhile in battery mode, the laptop is supposed to be disconnected from the internet. Linus speculates that if the laptop is put into sleep mode while plugged in, and then the AC adapter is removed, it will remain connected to the internet as it drains battery.
The old sleep mode, S3 sleep did not have this problem. From what I understand, the mode does not support connecting to the internet while asleep. So long as S3 sleep is supported by a motherboard, this would make a great workaround to the S0 sleep issue. Unfortunately, due to many vendors not supporting S3 sleep mode, Microsoft has removed the ability to change the sleep mode, even through registry edits! The only way to change to S3 mode is to disable S0 sleep on the motherboard.
EDIT: A registry edit worked for me after all
Fortunately, framework laptops do support S3 sleep mode! However, there is no toggle to disable S0 mode. Because of that, Windows 11 refuses to use S3 even though it’s supported. I attempted to disable S0 sleep via changing the “enable 8254 clock gate” to all three options (enabled, disabled, and enabled in runtime and s3). Regardless of the choice, S0 sleep remained available.
I hereby request a new version of the UEFI firmware that supports disabling S0 sleep mode. The video says that some laptop firmware supports doing so. Upon adding this feature, it will be possible to bypass the issue and use old school S3 sleep mode for the sake of legacy compatibility and battery life!
Update: These are my powercfg results. Note that Standby S3 is listed under “not available” with the message “this steady state is disabled when S0 low power idle is supported”:
Update 2: I managed to switch to S3 sleep via a registry edit suggested by another poster. Please see their post for more information!