IBM T30 suddenly won't resume from Hibernate

[jon.p.weaver]

I never really truest hibernate after playing with it in the early
days and finding it hopelessly unstable.

But i recently bought a cheap IBM T30 laptop just for Internet
Browsing and figured that I would try Hibernate. To my surprise it
worked and continued to give me faultess performance and worked 100s
of times in a row with no problems.

One day, i suddenlty started getting intermittent problems when
resuming from a Hibernate.. It would either load the hibernate file
and give me a BSOD, or I would simply get an 'Resume cannot be loaded'
at the start...

Trying to track the problem back I ran ever kind for Malware/Virus
software I could find and removed pretty muhc everything on the PC..
But I still got the problem intermittently.

I then restored an old backup that I had taken hoping that this would
solve it, and again, I got intermittent probem resuming.

So last night I bit the bullet and reinstalled everything.. Its now
running without any 3rd party stuff installed.. Its just XP, SP2 and a
few drivers.. last night I Hibernated and today.. The very first time,
I couldn't resume.

I don't know what to do now.. How can it work for months and now not?
It can't be software, as I simply have nothing installed.

Does anyone know how I can debug this?

ANY suggestions would be appreciated

Jon

 

[John Wunderlich]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in
m:

I never really truest hibernate after playing with it in the early
days and finding it hopelessly unstable.

But i recently bought a cheap IBM T30 laptop just for Internet
Browsing and figured that I would try Hibernate. To my surprise it
worked and continued to give me faultess performance and worked
100s of times in a row with no problems.

One day, i suddenlty started getting intermittent problems when
resuming from a Hibernate.. It would either load the hibernate
file and give me a BSOD, or I would simply get an 'Resume cannot
be loaded' at the start...

Trying to track the problem back I ran ever kind for Malware/Virus
software I could find and removed pretty muhc everything on the
PC.. But I still got the problem intermittently.

I then restored an old backup that I had taken hoping that this
would solve it, and again, I got intermittent probem resuming.

So last night I bit the bullet and reinstalled everything.. Its
now running without any 3rd party stuff installed.. Its just XP,
SP2 and a few drivers.. last night I Hibernated and today.. The
very first time, I couldn't resume.

I don't know what to do now.. How can it work for months and now
not? It can't be software, as I simply have nothing installed.

Does anyone know how I can debug this?

ANY suggestions would be appreciated

Jon

When you hibernate, the state of your machine is saved to a file as big
as the amount of RAM on your machine. It's possible that there is a
bad disk sector where this file is written. Try doing a complete disk
check (R-click disk drive->Properties->Tools Tab->Check Now). Select
both checkboxes. Disk check will occur at next reboot. It will take a
while. Perhaps it will find/fix/map-out a bad disk sector that is
causing you problems.

Shot-in-the-Dark,
John

 

[jon.p.weaver]

(e-mail address removed) wrote inm:















When you hibernate, the state of your machine is saved to a file as big
as the amount of RAM on your machine.  It's possible that there is a
bad disk sector where this file is written.  Try doing a complete disk
check (R-click disk drive->Properties->Tools Tab->Check Now).  Select
both checkboxes.  Disk check will occur at next reboot.  It will take a
while.  Perhaps it will find/fix/map-out a bad disk sector that is
causing you problems.

Shot-in-the-Dark,
  John- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I did think of that, so when I re-installed, I did a full FORMAT.. I
assumed that a format will map out any bad sectors, although I could
be wrong..

Jon

 

[jon.p.weaver]

I never really truest hibernate after playing with it in the early
days and finding it hopelessly unstable.

But i recently bought a cheap IBM T30 laptop just for Internet
Browsing and figured that I would try Hibernate. To my surprise it
worked and continued to give me faultess performance and worked 100s
of times in a row with no problems.

One day, i suddenlty started getting intermittent problems when
resuming from a Hibernate.. It would either load the hibernate file
and give me a BSOD, or I would simply get an 'Resume cannot be loaded'
at the start...

Trying to track the problem back I ran ever kind for Malware/Virus
software I could find and removed pretty muhc everything on the PC..
But I still got the problem intermittently.

I then restored an old backup that I had taken hoping that this would
solve it, and again, I got intermittent probem resuming.

So last night I bit the bullet and reinstalled everything.. Its now
running without any 3rd party stuff installed.. Its just XP, SP2 and a
few drivers.. last night I Hibernated and today.. The very first time,
I couldn't resume.

I think I have cracked it, so am posting back, just incase anyone else
has this problem in the future.

There is a know problem with the T30 memory slots intermittently
failing.. The cause is 'dry joints'... I always knew this, but though
mine was OK...

One thing that I didn't mention is that I can ofen hibernate/resume
countless times in a row.. The problem generally occurs when I resume
the next day and I have been racking my brain to understand the
signifiance of resuming at a later date.

A few days I ago, I looked under 'My Computer' and saw that I had 512M
RAM, which sounded about right, as I had 2 DIMMs installed (i assumed
2x256M).. But today, I thought I would deleted my 'hibernate file' and
start again.. i was surprised to see that it was 768M. Today, when I
look at the memory, I indeed had 768M.. To confirm I physically
checked and indeed I had 768M.

The penny then dropped.. What I think is happening is this (Assuming
that is rebooted, not resumed)..

1. The PC is switched on from cold and boots and it has 768M RAM
2. The PC warms up, the memory slot expands and the 256M stops working
3. I hibernate and it creates a 512M Memory dump
4. I turn off and wait until cold (memory slot contracts and works
again).. When I resume it tries to fill 768M RAM with a 512M Hibernate
file and it doesn't work.

I also think it happens the other way around (where I have a 768M
Hibernate file and only 512M RAM).. And thinking about it, this would
explain the 2 errors.. I think that the BSOD happens when there is
more RAM than Hibernate date.. And the Resume error is when the
Hibernate data is bigger than RAM (or visa versa)

I am 99% sure I have cracked it now... As a test, I have removed the
256M DIMM and am going to monitor this for a few weeks.. if it works,
I might think about resoldering all of the joints on the memory slot.

I hope that this helps someone in the future

Cheers

Jon
2. Can't Resume - Hibernate file smaller