XPS 8960, sleep mode opposite of XPS 8950

Seems normal to me. From XPS 8960 setup guide:

Power button

Press to turn on the computer if it is turned off, in sleep state, or in hibernate state.

Press to put the computer in sleep state if it is turned on.

Press and hold to force shut-down the computer.

If you press the power button briefly when PC is sleeping, does that wake the PC?

As for fans, that may depend on which CPU you have, which PSU, etc, trying to keep the heat down inside the case. Do you know which fan(s) is running?

If not already installed (or outdated), you could try installing the latest Intel Dynamic Tuning Driver which is a "...power and thermal management solution that is used to resolve fan noise, overheating, and performance-related issues of the system."

There have been posts wanting to turn off the internal LEDs on an NVidia RTX card in a Dell PC, but I don't know if/how that can be done, and may depend on exactly which RTX card you have...

I think these issues are related. I think there is something wonky with power and sleep mode. Do you use bluetooth mouse and/or keyboard? Do you have multiple monitors plugged into your graphics card?

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps-desktops/xps-8960-mechanical-click-1-2-times-an-hour-while-in-sleep-mode-only/64d49507b5233436677d61de

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps-desktops/xps-8960-click-noise-hard-drive-spin-up-during-sleep/6599c1244cc1fe3336e75b18

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps-desktops/xps-8960-beeps-during-sleep-loses-ability-to-click-on-submenus/64d49501b5233436677cf288

@RoHe​ thanks for your reply. The thing that concerns me the most is that the Power button LED should be blinking slowly in Sleep mode, not be totally off. That is stated in Dell Article 000145872 (regarding the Power LED status) and it is also what my other XPS 8950 does. 

It makes me believe there is something wrong.

I cannot easily tell which fan remains on, but it seems it is the same type/amount of noise as when the PC is running normally. By the way, this PC has the liquid cooling option and the 1000W PSU. The GPU is the Nvidia 4070. The CPU is a i9-13900K.

When in this supposedly Sleep mode (not sure it is really sleeping), a brief press on the Power button does bring the PC back to awake mode.

@scamando​ I think you are right. There is some bug somewhere in the XPS 8960 sleep mode and/or related items. I also don't think Dell is placing much emphasis in researching the issue to resolve it.

Go to the Windows Advanced Power settings screen for your active Power plan and disable Hibernation.  Then reboot. See if power button blinks now because it can only go to sleep, but not hibernate.

On my XPS 8930, the power button blinks slowly when PC is sleeping (hibernation disabled), but on my prior Dell PC the power button didn't blink when it was sleeping (hibernation disabled). So this might depend on PC model and configuration.  You could contact Dell Tech Support and ask them if it should blink on your PC when it's sleeping. Have Service Tag handy when you contact them. (Don't post Service Tag here.)

As for the noise, could you be hearing the liquid cooling pump running, rather than a fan?  Those pumps are known to make noise...

@RoHe​ Hibernation has been disabled all along.

As for Dell Tech Support, I had a 2.5 hour call with them yesterday on this topic. Their first conclusion was for me to buy a new PC and return this one. Then they changed their mind and concluded that this is the "by-design" behavior of the XPS 8960 :-)

I later found the Dell article 000145872 about the Power LED status, which clearly states the LED should be slowly blinking in Sleep mode.

So, I have lost some of my confidence in Dell Tech Support.....

I pinged one of my Dell tech contacts...

Do you have multiple monitors plugged into the gpu? Do you have bluetooth devices such as mouse/keyboard.

@scamando​ No. Just a single 4K monitor. Keyboard and mouse are Logitech wireless, with Unify dongle plugged into a front panel USB port. Bluetooth and WiFi are disabled.

Have you checked the active Windows Power plan to make sure the Sleep setting is not set to "Never"?

You may want to contact Tech Support again...

@RoHe​ I talked to them again today. The conversation was not so friendly, as if they were annoyed by my questions! Their conclusion is that every XPS is really different, because of the optional components installed, so the Power LED not blinking slowly in Sleep mode is not an issue, in their opinion (in spite of their documents stating it should do so).

As for the inconsistency in going into Sleep via the Start Menu>Power option (sometimes it takes up to 6 tries, before it finally takes it), they blame the Windows OS and they "cannot do anything about it". The only offered solutions: 1. I contact Microsoft and work with them or 2. I reinstall the OS (and all my apps, updates, etc.).

In other words, they have no idea about what to do :-)

Again, not impressed by Dell Tech Support .....

I too am having issues, but in my digging it seems to be related to windows modern standby, it appears they opted for this system to support windows modern standby (s0 sleep state) rather than the sleep you and I are used to (S3 sleep state). I've been messing around with bios settings but haven't yet found a way to enable sleep state S3. Disabling s0 doesn't work if you run powercfg /a from the command line it shows that S3:

The system firmware does not support this standby state.

If anyone figures out the bios config needed to enable this please post as it would help a lot of people out.

Also worth noting that I as well as some other people have been noticing a "click" while in this s0 sleep which appears to be a relay in the power supply. I'm worried that this could be causing excess wear on the power supply over time, so I hope I can just get S3 sleep on and get on with my life. 

(Note: yes I have tried disabling s0 sleep but the problem is still that S3 sleep is showing as not enabled by the system firmware 

I wonder if the issue is because your GPU has those onboard LEDs which stay on even when PC is supposedly sleeping.  Not every recent NVidia card has those LEDs.

You could test the theory by physically removing the NVidia GPU (see Service Manual) and connecting your monitor to the onboard Intel DisplayPort port, assuming your monitor accepts a DP input.  Then see what the power button does before/after PC goes to sleep.

You might want to run these commands to make sure there isn't an OS problem, before pulling the NVidiia GPU:

1. At desktop, open a CMD prompt window, Run as administrator
2. At the prompt, type in: chkdsk c: /r and press Enter. Accept offer to run chkdsk at next boot and reboot PC. chkdsk will run before Windows loads, so be patient. When it's back at the desktop, check the chkdsk log file for any "unfixed" errors.
3. Back at the desktop, open CMD as in #1.
4. Type in: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth and press Enter. Be sure to include a space in front of each / and note any error messages when that's done.
5. Assuming there are no "unfixed" errors in #2  or #4, at the CMD prompt, type in: sfc /scannow and press Enter. Be sure to include a space in front of the / and note any errors when that's done.
6. Assuming no "unfixed" errors in #2, #4 or #5, reboot PC and check power button LED behavior before/after going to sleep.

My Dell tech contact didn't have any info on power button behavior beyond what you already found, and was hoping some XPS 8960 owners would respond to your query...

EDIT: @Pagzamaphone posted while I was typing and didn't see it until after I posted...

@Pagzamaphone​ not sure what the issue is that you are experiencing/describing. Does your PC go in some kind of sleep mode or not?

Assuming you also have an XPS 8960, please let me know what the front panel Power LED does when this sleep mode is entered.

Thanks

My new 8960 does a strange sleep thing as well, with the GFORCE graphic card light on and case fans running, and LAN NIC cycling on and off every few seconds after pushing sleep on the keyboard. I can hear my mechanical HDDs spinning up and down as well.

however, after a few minutes it goes completely silent and the graphics card shuts off as well. Total blackout.