In some situations, even resuming from the S3 state in five seconds or less is not fast enough. Computers that are used for services such as media streaming or as a personal video recorder need almost instant functionality. Away Mode is designed for these types of devices. Away Mode is not designed to be implemented on most computers. The default power management configuration is a better option in most situations.

• Computers in Away Mode are in the S0 state. However, the computer looks and sounds like it is off.
• Away Mode maximizes all of the device level power savings while continuing to work in the background if required. After Away Mode is enabled, it replaces Standby requests. For example, if shutdown normally puts the computer in the S3 state, it now puts the computer in Away Mode instead.
• The characteristics of Away Mode are:
• Video is blanked
• Audio is muted
• Keyboard and mouse input is filtered out
• S0 power state
• May still idle to sleep based on the power plan