P4P800-E Deluxe suspend/sleep

[Rom]

Two P4P800-E Deluxe (original BIOS v1002), P4 3.0 Ghz (Northwood), XPP systems
with mostly, but not all, the same hardware and peripherals.
The Power settings in BIOS menu (p4-28&9) are defaults.
Power settings in Windows would be the same or still defaults, and not used
other than for monitor.

These systems have been running fine for the past year, but one has behaved
differently to the other from the start, say, after a power outage, in that need
to wait ~10 minutes before it'll wake up and be usable. Haven't found a way to
wake it other than wait.

Why would one be okay to boot and be usable, and the other not?
Which BIOS setting needs changing (I presume Suspend Mode) and to what, to see
if it makes a difference next time?

 

[ñíñjà¤têç]

I would say that there is a difference in connected hardware or
possibly the hard drive itself has some problem. The suspend / standby
feature writes to the hard drive prior to invoking. Sometime a fresh
format and installation will cure the problem. You can confirm there
is a problem by scheduling a checkdisk then execute a disk defrag. You
may encounter some anomalies. At this point, I seriously doubt it's
the bios setting.
FYI

ñíñjà¤têç

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[Rom]

I would say that there is a difference in connected hardware or
possibly the hard drive itself has some problem. The suspend / standby
feature writes to the hard drive prior to invoking. Sometime a fresh
format and installation will cure the problem. You can confirm there
is a problem by scheduling a checkdisk then execute a disk defrag. You
may encounter some anomalies. At this point, I seriously doubt it's
the bios setting.

The HDs are different brands in both systems. Formatting and new
installs have been tried a couple of times. The only time chkdsk may
find a problem is after, say, a brief power outage and chkdsk is
auto-run, but so do other systems here and may correct errors too, so
not unusual in that. I don't believe there's a problem with the disk;
it seems healthy and problem free in use.

Suspend/standby aren't used by the users of these systems. Both
systems could be being used, then, say, briefly lose power. One system
can be booted up, does a chkdsk and on into Windows. The other system
enters this sleep state by itself and needs to be powered down for
about 10 minutes before being able to be booted as the other one to
continue with chkdsk and/or on into Windows.

 

[ñíñjà¤têç]

I had a power supply once that would have to be unplugged from the
system and literally shorted out before I could power my system back
on. I don't know why, as the psu seemed to work well and there were no
other system problems. Perhaps you problem is related to the psu or
some part on the motherboard that stores power. If you can, try
switching power supplies to see if the problem goes away...

ñíñjà¤têç

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[Paul]

The HDs are different brands in both systems. Formatting and new
installs have been tried a couple of times. The only time chkdsk may
find a problem is after, say, a brief power outage and chkdsk is
auto-run, but so do other systems here and may correct errors too, so
not unusual in that. I don't believe there's a problem with the disk;
it seems healthy and problem free in use.

Suspend/standby aren't used by the users of these systems. Both
systems could be being used, then, say, briefly lose power. One system
can be booted up, does a chkdsk and on into Windows. The other system
enters this sleep state by itself and needs to be powered down for
about 10 minutes before being able to be booted as the other one to
continue with chkdsk and/or on into Windows.

There is a green LED on the motherboard, and it is connected to
+5VSB. Open the side of the computer case. Examine the LED after
a power failure. The green LED should start to glow immediately,
after the AC power is restored. The green LED glows as long as
the switch on the back of the computer is in the "ON" position.

If, after the power is restored, the +5VSB is not working (and
the green LED is OFF), that means for some reason the +5VSB
supply is not working on the PSU. It could be an overload, or
it could be a power supply problem. The control circuitry on
the PSU relies on +5VSB being in a working state - you will not
be able to start the PSU if +5VSB is not working.

There can be other reasons for a board not being able to start -
these are generically referred to as "cold boot" issues, and for
the most part, are unexplained. Checking that the green LED is
lit is an easy test to do.

Paul