Windows Vista Trouble turning on laptop after it goes to sleep

My Compaq Presario V7600 laptop runs Windows Vista. About a month ago, the laptop automatically updated Vista. Then it crashed. After rebooting and looking for problems, it started working fine again.

But it still has a problem. When the computer goes to sleep, I have trouble waking it up. I am supposed to press the power switch, but when I do, nothing happens. The power switch just keeps blinking.

I have to turn the laptop off by pulling out the battery and power cord. Then restart it. Sometimes it has to try to repair the operating system. Sometimes not.

But once I do that, the power switch works fine in turning on the laptop. That's why I think it is not a hardware problem.

Sometimes everything works fine, and I'll think the problem has gone away. But it hasn't.

Any ideas?

 

Do a system restore back before the update. Click Start and Programs, under System Tools select System Restore and go from there.

Let us know if this resolves the problem.

 

Thanks. That's a good suggestion -- one that I had not thought of. I used a restore point as far back as I could go.

Unfortunately, going back to the restore point did not solve the problem.

 

Try updating the drivers, in particular the chipset drivers.

...and just a maybe, try going into the BIOS at startup and setting it to "Defaults" (usually by pressing F9).

 

That seems to have solved this pesky problem. Don't know why, but it did. Great call, mattman.

 

Oh good. Windows and it's drivers need to interact very closely with the BIOS to control the sleep function. Windows passes control over to the BIOS, then tucks itself into bed

Thanks for letting us know.

 

Unfortunately, the problem is back. Or I should say, it reappears every three or four days. I then have to reboot by hand from sleep.

Sometimes resetting the BIOS to defaults helps immediately. Sometimes it does not help for a while.

Could the chipset drivers be changing the BIOS settings? This is a strange phantom lurking in the machine.

 

I suggest you get the User Guide/manual for the laptop. Check though it carefully. That is for a few reasons, check about waking it up. My laptop can be woken up using the power button, but the manufacturer specifies using the Fn key. Some can use the Ctrl key.

Look for the information about the BIOS and if there are power control settings. When you have problems, check that the settings haven't changed.

Did you actually upgrade the chipset drivers? You should probably look at upgrading all the major drivers. Look for a BIOS upgrade, read and follow the instructions for installing it carefully.

You can't have too many programs open when it is put to sleep. The system is stored in the RAM and it can only handle so much to store. My system has trouble with sleep when I leave too many programs open. Do you have plenty of RAM?

You can try running System File Checker. Read in Help and Support.

Is the battery in good condition? You should be able to find a Compaq utility that tells you the expected lifespan left (that is, maybe a power supply problem). I might also wonder about the RAM getting overheated when in Sleep mode.

Matt

 

Ah, found this:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...c=en&product=3559154&tmp_track_link=ot_search

 

Thanks for the link. That's exactly what I needed.

Unfortunately, though, nothing I've tried has worked. I updated drivers, updated the BIOS, and made changes to the power system. Nothing helped.

For the moment, I just changed the settings for the computer to hibernate when the lid shuts instead of sleep. That means it takes longer to resume when I open the lid. But at least it works.

If I think of anything else to try, and it works, I'll post it.

 

You mentioned it appeared to happen after updates. I thought about doing a System Restore, but it started more than a month ago didn't it, so you will need to find a Restore Point before it started. After that you would need to upgrade the drivers again before getting the Windows Updates.

Did you see my suggestion about System File Checker? It should remove the Windows Updates, then you would need get updates manually and test them a batch at a time. Since you have upgraded the drivers, there might not be problem reinstalling the updates this time.

Matt

 

An update on this issue.

I switched my computer so that it would hibernate instead of sleep when the lid was shut. For two weeks that worked. Then it stopped working sometimes too. That is, when I opened the lid and turned on the power switch, nothing happened.

So I went through and updated all drivers. (Most were up to date already.) No help there.

I have found my CD/DVD drive to be missing sometimes. I thought that might be related to this problem, since initially restoring the BIOS to defaults resolved that problem too. But that BIOS restore solution stopped working for that problem, just like it did for this problem. Luckily, the CD/DVD drive has not disappeared for a while.

I saw another thread where someone was having trouble with their hard disk drive being missing. They solved that problem by resetting their memory. So I tried resetting my memory. That did not help.

I can't think of anything else to try right now. This is a tough problem.

 

Just a couple more ideas for you to try.

Running the laptop with just one memory module installed and then swapping if no better. Obviously this will only be possible if you have more than one memory module.

Replace the motherboard battery.

Tried to get some more information on this laptop but could not find anything using the model number you gave, is Presario V7600 the full and correct details and where was the country of purchase.

 

Sorry, my mistake, the laptop is a Presario V6700.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try them tomorrow.

 

There might be a problem (intermittent) with the CD/DVD drive. If the system is having problems "setting" it after Standby, that could be why it is crashing.

You should be able to take the CD drive out. Take it out and put it back in, that will at least remake the connections. If you are not using the CD drive, try taking it out until you need it again, see if it is stable without the drive.

 

I'm still having problems with my laptop waking up from sleep. It's a strange problem, because it comes and goes.

One additional data point -- the computer always works correctly in Linux, which I recently installed as a dual boot. That seems to rule out any problem with the BIOS battery, which someone had suggested as a possible culprit and which drew my suspicions.

 

It probably works on Linux because Linux has a direct contact with the sleep functions in the BIOS. Windows also has a direct contact (or did have a direct contact), but now there seems to be something interfering. It could be a third party program, you might have even uninstalled the program, but it still "stuffs-up" your system on wake-up because of left-over registry entries. Some programs are set to not to completely uninstall so that they can keep monitoring your computer. Some programs aren't written very well and don't uninstall completely.

Do a complete malware check, get a second scan from an online malware checker. If you have installed software that wants to report back it's server after the system wakes from sleep, that might be causing it, BUT because you "agreed " to the program's installation, it may not be scanned as malware. You need to check any programs that you install. Put the program's title into a websearch and check for negative feedback about it.

Spybot and Malwarebytes Antimalware are programs that I know of that might tell you that you have agreed to a bad installation. [EDIT: only have one antimalware running in the background, you can manually run as many as you want. If more than one runs in the background your system will slow to a standstill.]

Read the announcement at the head of the http://www.windowsbbs.com/malware-virus-removal/ forum and ask if they will check your logs for programs that might try to contact their server after waking from sleep. It might be "murky" because you agreed to an installation.

Matt

 

Have a good read through this and check out the command lines used in post 106 below the article. This should help to identify what is causing the trouble.

http://techwhimsy.com/fixing-hibernate-problems-in-windows-vista/comment-page-3

These two lines should sort the problem out and tell you what the cause is.

Click Start and type cmd in the search box, hit enter, right click on cmd in the pop up list and select "Run As Administrator ", the elevated command prompt box will open.

Type “powercfg /devicequery wake_from_any” To display everything that can wake the PC.

Type “powercfg /devicedisablewake ” This will disable everything that can wake the PC.

Make sure you leave a gap before the forward slash and you do not include the quotation marks.

 

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I have made sure that the BIOS and drivers are updated, checked the memory cards, and checked for malware. I also used the powercfg tool as suggested by markmadras, and found some interesting information that way.

Unfortunately, though, the laptop still fails to wake from sleep from time to time. So I now do as Arie does and use hibernate only, not sleep. As I mentioned above, that hibernation too sometimes did not work in the past. But it now works reliably.

So thanks again for the help, and I have marked the thread resolved.