[TooNew2]

For the last month or two, my system will go from Standby into Hibernate after about an hour, even though it is set to remain in Standby for longer (4 hours, right now). I have changed various settings in Power Options to see their effect, and only stop this from happening by disabling Hibernate completely. I think this probably began after I had to shut the system down when it got into a "not responding" mode which used to be very rare, but has happened more frequently in the last few months.
One more complication; about a week ago, I was looking at the Applications file under Event Viewer and accidentally managed to delete it, so that early Applications error data is no longer available. The other files there are still intact.

My system is Windows XP Home, SP 3, and I use both IE and Mozilla Firefox; FWIW, the 'Not Responding' usually happens with IE but has even involved the Task Master a few times, perhaps just by tying up the 'brain'?

I think it unlikely that this problem is due to a virus; for the record, I use AVG Free, SUPERAntiSpy Free, and SpywareBlaster, and used WindowsDefender (now disabled) until recently too.

Some expert assistance would be greatly appreciated; thanks!

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Hi TooNew2,

Sorry you have had to wait a few days for a reply.

If you do the following:
Click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click Power Options.

Can you make a screenshot of it, and upload it (photobucket.com or imageshack.com are places you can use). Then post the image or link to the image in your next post.
Perhaps something is still not set correctly.

Is your system a laptop or a normal computer?

Hope to help,

Mythio

[Mythio]

Hi TooNew2,

Sorry you have had to wait a few days for a reply.

If you do the following:
Click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click Power Options.

Can you make a screenshot of it, and upload it (photobucket.com or imageshack.com are places you can use). Then post the image or link to the image in your next post.
Perhaps something is still not set correctly.

Is your system a laptop or a normal computer?

Hope to help,

Mythio

[TooNew2]

Hello, Mythio;

This is an Aspire 5002 laptop. I have repeatedly tried resetting those values , but it makes no difference. BTW, on this system, Power Options are directly under Control Panel.
I have pasted three screen shots into a Pegasus message and sent it to myself, then saved the file(s). The message packaged the three .PNG files as one .ZIP file, which I assume you can open easily. The shots are self explanatory.

I am assuming some small part of a file has gotten corrupted. I have used the disc checking function to no avail.

Thanks, and awaiting further instructions.

Attached Files

•  attachments_2010_12_09.zip   37.82KB   119 downloads

[Mythio]

Hi TooNew2,

I think I understand the problem now. Looking at your settings I think you mainly have the laptop on battery power?
One of the differences between stand by and hibernate is that stand by takes up more power from the battery, I've had that problem myself too.
I think that after your system has been in stand by for an hour or so, the laptop detects the battery is running low and changes the state to hibernate to save power.
I've had it that if you put a laptop in stand by and leave it for a few days it won't even be in hibernate anymore, but will requite a complete new start up.
This has to do with the battery time left when putting the machine into stand by and how your motherboard reacts to low battery levels when it is in stand by.

To clarify something:

my system will go from Standby into Hibernate after about an hour, even though it is set to remain in Standby for longer (4 hours, right now). I have changed various settings in Power Options to see their effect, and only stop this from happening by disabling Hibernate completely.

The settings does not mean your system will stay in stand by for 4 hours, it means your system will go into stand by if you don't touch it for 4 hours.
If you disable the hibernate option the problem is solved, because when the computer senses a to low battery in stand by mode it will not go into hibernate, but just shutdown.

Hope this explains a bit what is going on, and it is normal.
What you can try is to see what happens if its plugged into the power grid, but it's possible it will go into hibernation anyway because of motherboard settings from the manufacturer.

Hope to help,

Mythio

[TooNew2]

This unit is rarely used on battery power but when it is, the battery performs fine for extended periods. Also, the battery charge is 100% most of the time, according to the chart in Power Options.

The 'going into hibernate' occurs when it is operating on AC power (which is stable here) so that should not be the problem; something in the code must be causing this to happen, I just don't know enough to be able to look for/fix it. As stated earlier, this began about the same time I started getting "not responding" problems (as confirmed by Task Master), mostly with I.E., which used to be rare, so I'm assuming the two are related.

I inherited this computer a year or two ago after having used it about three years, and have been able to successfully modify these settings easily in the past, both distant and recent.
I have read (on this site) about other problems involving 'Standby" such as THIS one, but just don't have enough knowledge to use any of it.

Edited by TooNew2, 10 December 2010 - 11:13 AM.

[TooNew2]

Let me clarify things a bit more.
As the Power Option is set in the screenshot above, my computer should, when plugged in, do the following after a period of inactivity:

1). Turn off the monitor after 4 hours (of inactivity).

2). Turn off the hard drive after 4 hours.

3). Go into Standby after 4 hours....if it had not already been manually put into Standby, as it usually is.

4). Go into Hibernate 5 hours after the last activity (including any time in Standby, if it was put into standby earlier).

Thus, if I manually put it into Standby when stopping my activity, it should remain there for 5 hours before entering Hibernate. It should not be going into Hibernate one hour after being manually put into Standby. It did use to behave as described here.

This was probably not the best power management scheme to have used as an example, but was what I was trying at the time to see if any scheme would work. I had specifically been trying to see if hard drive condition affected Standby at all. Attached below is a screenshot of a typical (and current) Power Option setting.

Attached Thumbnails

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[Mythio]

Hi TooNew2,

The problem is that when you put your computer into Stand By mode, you can see that as being half shut down.
It will not be affected by any problems with task manager etc, as far as I know the only things that can affect it are the power supply and motherboard.

Can you go to start -> run -> type: "eventvwr" (no quotes).
Go to the logs of the "System" and "Application", tell me if you see some recurring errors about the time your computer does that.
If so give me the info related to those errors in the logs.

Hope to help,

Mythio