Windows 7 Monitor and Hard Drive Sleep Mode

It seems like you have a couple of issues related to your computers and their sleep settings. Let's address each of your concerns:

Issue 1: Thymes Background and Hard Drive Sleep​

The thymes background auto-changes every 30 minutes, while you have set the monitor and hard drives to sleep after 45 minutes. You're wondering if the thymes changing will prevent the hard drives from going to sleep. The background changing every 30 minutes should not prevent the hard drives from going to sleep. The sleep settings typically refer to inactivity across the entire system, not just a specific component like the monitor. As long as there is no other activity keeping the system awake, the hard drives should still be able to go to sleep after the designated period, even with the changing background.

Issue 2: Monitor Not Sleeping After Watching YouTube Videos​

On your other computer, you are experiencing an issue where the monitor doesn't sleep after playing videos on Youtube, even when closing the browser and having no active software running in the background. You find that restarting the computer is the only way to resolve this. This issue could be caused by certain programs or processes preventing the monitor from entering sleep mode. Instead of restarting the computer, you could try the following steps:

1. Check Power Settings: Ensure that the power settings are configured correctly:
   • Open Control Panel and go to Power Options.
   • Check the settings for when the display and computer should sleep.
   • Make sure that there are no programs set to prevent sleep.
   []Update Graphics Drivers: Outdated or faulty graphics drivers can sometimes cause issues with sleep mode. Update your graphics drivers to the latest version. []Check Task Manager: Use Task Manager to check for any processes running in the background that might be preventing sleep mode. End any unnecessary tasks. []Disable Hardware Acceleration: In your browser settings, try disabling hardware acceleration and see if that helps. []Reset Power Plan: You can try resetting the power plan to default settings and reconfiguring your sleep settings. If these steps don't resolve the issue, let me know, and we can explore further troubleshooting options.