So I've had this issue since I built a new computer one and a half year ago. There were only two things I carried over from my old system to the new one. My keyboard (Logitech G510) and my headset (which was Plantronics Gamecom 780). I also installed Windows 10 for the first time with that system.
Anyways, I've always had this issue where my system would wake up randomly from sleep. I would put it to sleep before going to bed and when I wake up, I'd find it running the whole night. It was really annoying. I tried what was causing the issue by trying many many things. I unplugged everything, disabled ethernet card's ability to wake the computer up, etc etc. None of them solved the issue. It was weird, I have Smart TV's in my house (I know I know..) and everytime I turned one of them on, my system would wake up eventhough the wake on lan setting was disabled both on BIOS and OS side.
There was also the issue of the system not going to sleep by it self. Like something was preventing it. I had several programs I thought that may be preventing the sleep (like Splashtop, PLEX etc) so I removed those programs. No avail. I tried several different things but none of them solved the issue.
Because of these reasons I can't use the sleep function of my computer eversince I bought it. I changed my headset to Plantronics RIG 500HD after a couple of months but all of the problems kept happening. And I've been enduring it this entire time but 2 weeks ago, I've had enough. I said to my self "I'm not going to sleep unless I solve this issue tonight". I backed up everything and formatted my computer. I only installed the drivers and set the system sleep timer to 1 minute. 1 minute later, nothing happened. But I noticed that it won't wake up from sleep after I disabled wake on LAN from ethernet device settings (I installed a different version and that did it).
To solve the other issue, I decided to do a bit more digging and come across a command that I didn't even know existed, powercfg /requests. This command lists the stuff that's preventing a system sleep.
For instance let's say you're watching a movie with MPC, then you're gonna see 3 things on that list. One executable (MPC), one audio stream and one HDD activity. Once you pause the movie or shut down MPC, the list should be empty. But for some reason, I saw that my headset was still in that list.
I disconnected the headset, set the system sleep timer to one minute and what do you know? My system went to sleep by itself for the first time ever. I was like okay that's interesting. I woke the system up, plugged the headset back in, ran the powercfg command and saw the headset listed there again. I then went to sound devices and disabled the headset (mic still enabled). Nothing changed. Then I enabled the headset and disabled the mic. Ran the command again and saw that the list was empty.
I decided to see if it would go to sleep while headset plugged in and mic disabled. And after a minute, it did. Okay I found a partial solution but what's the point of having a headset with a microphone, if you're not gonna use it's microphone? I enabled the microphone again and ran the powercfg command. It showed up. Then I accidentally closed the Recording devices window and ran the command again.
And what do you know? The list was empty eventhough the headset was connected and microphone was enabled. I waited a minute to see if it would go to sleep and a minute later, it did. So now, I have to disable and enable my headset microphone everytime I turn on my system from cold boot, if I want to use the sleep function. It beats disconnecting the headset everytime I'm done using it but as you may imagine, it's still a nausance.
So I sent Plantronics a mail about it. They told me that they're gonna elevate my ticket to Tier III (oooooh) and the software department would get back to me.
That was roughly 2 weeks ago. During that time I recieved a survey mail as if they closed down my ticket. I asked if the ticket was still active and they said yeah so.. I'm still waiting.
Anyways, I'm posting this here because this may be a software bug or maybe it's a intentional "bug". After seeing every episode of L1T News, hearing about the privacy stuff (I'm still laughing at the "if you have 5 children, stay at home, take care of your own mistakes" comment btw), I thought you guys might like the story.
TL;DR: disable your headset mic and re-enable it. It will go to sleep.