The
Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power setting controls how the network card is handled when the computer enters sleep. This setting can be used if a driver misrepresents how it handles sleep states.
Windows never turns off the network card due to inactivity. When this setting is checked(enabled), Windows puts the network card to sleep and when it resumes it puts it back to D0. When this setting isn't checked(disabled), Windows completely halts the device and on resume reinitializes it. This setting is useful if a network card driver says it supports going to different sleep states and back to D0 but it ultimately doesn't support this functionality.
You can use Device Manager to change the power management settings for a network adapter. To disable this setting in
Device Manager, expand
Network Adapters, right-click the adapter, select
Properties, select the
Power Management tab, and then clear the
Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power check box.
In Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you have two additional check boxes on the
Power Management tab for the Network Adapter that defines whether this device can wake the computer:
- Allow this device to wake the computer
- Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer