Battery, power and sleep diagnostics
Find out why a laptop drains, wakes, won't sleep or shuts down unexpectedly, with powercfg reports and the event log, and handle batteries safely.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 50 minutes
- Contents
- 3 lessons · 1 video · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 1 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Read a battery report and calculate how much capacity a battery has lost.
- Identify which sleep states a PC supports and explain Modern Standby, hibernate and fast startup.
- Find what wakes a PC or keeps it awake using powercfg /lastwake, /waketimers, /requests and /sleepstudy.
- Recognize an unsafe (swollen or damaged) battery and take it out of service correctly.
Course outline
- 1.Battery, power and sleep diagnosticsVideo · 5 min
- 2.Battery health and runtimeLesson · 8 min
- 3.Sleep states, Modern Standby and fast startupLesson · 8 min
- 4.Wakes, unexpected shutdowns and battery safetyLesson · 8 min
- 5.Battery, power and sleep diagnostics: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 21 questions
- 6.Battery, power and sleep diagnostics: practical exerciseKnowledge check · 1 question
- 7.Laptop wakes up in the bagScenario
- 8.Final exam7 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- Microsoft Learn: Powercfg command-line options
- Microsoft Learn: Modern Standby
- Microsoft Learn: System sleep states
- Microsoft Support: Battery saving tips for Windows
See it with your own jobs and topics
Tell us about your team and we'll walk you through setup, from choosing jobs to your first skills check.