Is it possible to keep lan connection alive when going to sleep? Although I would like a laptop independent(in general) answer, my laptop is Thinkpad T500 and the power manager shows in PCI options, the following three option regarding saving link state power: Off, moderate, maximum. Also instant resume apparently does something different, so that isn't much help either.

I'm on Windows-7.

Here's why:

I'm a student, and currently I keep my laptop on almost all the time, but sometimes I sleep it and then I require to check something, so I turn it on. But then internet starts in at least a minute. So I avoid even putting it to sleep. I want that the internet connection should persist, so that I can put it to sleep to avoid power consumption.