How to disable power to USB ports when laptop is in sleep mode

I have a Windows7 laptop with two external 2.5" HDDs and a cooling pad connected through USB ports.
When I put the laptop to sleep, these devices are still powered on - the fan in the cooling pad is still spinning, the drives are still spinning.
I want to set it all up so that they power down when in sleep.

I tried setting the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power option in the USB Root Hubs' Properties in Device Manager and enabling USB selective suspend in power options - it didn't work.

As it's a laptop, BIOS options are extremely locked down, so I can't even see anything relevant to sleep in there.

Is it even possible to do this?

Solution 1:

Refer to this answer by goosmurf2 on the Lenovo Support Forum, which worked for me:

Within Windows, I found I had to do two things to make my USB ports power down in sleep/standby mode:

• For each USB hub, I ticked "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"
  AND
  
• I had to go through every keyboard & mouse device, unticking "Allow this device to wake the computer".

It seems Windows 7 is smart enough to maintain power to the USB hubs as long as there is a device connected that is allowed to wake from sleep, despite disabling "USB selective suspend setting".

Solution 2:

It depends on your laptop motherboard. Some motherboard manufacturers provide an option to control the power to ports in BIOS settings.

But, some hard code it with the motherboard and you can't change it; like with Dell Studio laptops with a Phoenix BIOS. Power to all ports goes off when you put your laptop to sleep.

I hope this helps...