Thanks for the nudge! Yes, I am definitely lazy! With my game controllers unplugged, the computer monitor goes to sleep within 1 minute of none use > 5 of 5 times, as it’s supposed to. With either my Thrustmaster TFRP rudder pedals or my joystick plugged in through a USB port, the monitor never goes to sleep with 5 min observed for each (and will never sleep, based on past experience).
It’s a long-standing issue with Windows 10, used to work fine with Windows 7 but Microsoft has ignored the problem for at least 5 years.
A number of users have gone to Device Manager, Human Interface Devices, and just disabled all HID-compliant game controllers after the controller features have been remapped for their games (I haven’t tried it myself and there is a warning that you could lose controller features if you do this). Getting a (safe) switchable USB hub sounds like a better option. Dell has a Windows Store app for power management and I’m going to check it out to see if it restores control over Windows power management vs. game controllers being plugged in. I notice under Properties for HID-compliant game controllers that there is no power management tab for any game controller that I have.