Windows treats your desktop like a laptop by default, and it's been putting your USB devices to sleep
Windows quietly sleeps USB peripherals on desktops, leading to missing drives and unresponsive keyboards and mice.
Windows default behavior of putting USB devices to sleep can be a source of frustration for desktop users. This feature, designed to conserve power in laptops with limited battery life, is not necessary on desktops that are always plugged in. The issue arises when idle USB devices are put into low-power mode, causing problems for devices like SSDs or HDDs that may not be accessed frequently but still need to be accessible when needed.
USB hubs, keyboards, mice, and gamepads are also negatively affected, leading to unresponsive peripherals and the need for system restarts. To resolve this issue, users can disable the USB selective suspend feature through the Control Panel’s Power Options page. This setting can be further adjusted in Device Manager for specific USB devices.
Additionally, disabling Fast Startup, which can cause driver loading issues, may also help improve USB device performance on desktops.
Written by urgent.news from XDA Developers's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
