Can my PC download in sleep mode?

[GameZone]

Can it download in the background while on sleep mode? Desktop PC.

[Axø]

some services (including steam client) pause during pc sleep/hibernate modes & resume when you unblock or start the pc again

so if you need download a heavy file during the night program the pc to do not sleep & leave it on until next morning

[..]

no man you cannot

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Just press the power button on monitor, and you're done, don't have sleep mode enable.

[crunchyfrog]

Yeah, PCs don't quite work the same way as consoles (though some like to claim they're so similar these days).
Sleep mode on consoles is generally designed for a couple of reasons - to "hold" a game so instead of leaving it on overnight, or whatever, it just stays in low power so as not to be wasteful.
Secondly, it's there to allow extra facilities to operate with it.

For example, PSN and XBL both can be set to leave USB connections powered while in sleep mode, and other things like the disk too. So you can download while in it's in low power state (I also use the USB function in sleep mode to charge my kindle, for example).

For PCs, they don't have this inbuilt gaming base so there's no design for it.

Of course, there are things you can do to reduce the power consumption, like just turning off your monitor, and turning off other functions like Bluetooth or USB connections. You can also try reducing your CPU power usage (if you really want to) to enable a similar sort of "trickle" download to go on while you're asleep.

That's about the best method I know of.