Black screen after hibernation

[Guest]

I never turn my PC off; I rely on hibernation to reduce power consumption but
recently(around Sep 20) it has started to once in a while when I try to
resume operation all I get is a black screen.
The motherboard splash screen where I could hit <del> to enter BIOS doesn't
appear.
Holding the power on button has no effect no matter how long I hold it.
Pulling the plug lets me then power up and reboot normally.
This doesn't happen every day but almost.
Where do I look to fix this problem?

 

[Ace]

This sounds like a faulty PSU (Power Supply Unit).
If you have one available, swap it out, and try that out for a while.

 

[Guest]

I'll see if I can get a hold of one of those.
By the way I forgot to mention that the power suppy is the only thing that
comes on.
The keyboard(USB) doesn't come on-(no lights and <alt><F4>) has no effect.
I do have an old keyboard around so I will plug that in and see what happens.
Even though that wouldn't fix the problem.

 

[Ace]

I've had a few machines exhibit this behaviour, they were mini-ATX
systems with particularly odd PSU's (A-Open I believe).
Not neccesarily your case, but those would 'try' to switch on, fans
running, etc. but nothing more than that.
One started burning inside when I held the power switch on the front
panel while plugging in the power, lovely yellowish cloud of electronics
smoke.
I can't order those PSU's anymore. wonder why?

 

[Guest]

This problem happens about 10% of the time or less:
The system goes into hibernate or standby or I hit the <sleep> switch and
sometimes pressing the power on button causes:
1. The optic drives to be accessed as is normal
2. The power supply comes on and I have checked that the voltages 3V, 5V and
12V are present.
3. the keyboard does not come up whether USB or old style.
4. Holding the power on button for a few second appears to return the system
to hibernation
5. Now pressing the power on button has no effect no matter how long.
6. The only way out is to pull the plug and press power on
7. The PC now powers up with no indication that there was a problem.

I would suspect that a programme, driver or something needs to be
refreshes, but what.

 

[Ace]

Reading your summary of actions, I am under the impression this is a
hardware faillure rather than a software faillure because;
You say the system will not turn on properly.
For most systems, holding the power button initiates a power cutoff, the
PSU will be forced off without waiting for the proper sequence of events.
If you are sure your PSU is providing adequate power to your system,
maybe you need to find out if there are different problems hiding in your
system.

Have you tried a BIOS update? There may be bugs in the current one that
is interfering with proper wake states, that are only now showing because
of software updates (relating to the OS and mainboard drivers) to your
system.

There is a burn-in test suite called 'SiSoft Sandra' which has several
tests designed to torture your hardware/settings/etc. and find possible
faults.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/

Note that the system attempting to power on, and measuring the presence
of proper 5 and 12 voltages on the power lines of an unconnected PSU does
not tell you enough; if the PSU is weakened it may still provide proper
voltages without load, but once the rest of the system comes up, a
possible inability to provide enough amperage may show up and cause odd
results.

 

[Guest]

Replacing the power supply fixed the "black screen" problem and also another
problem with my remote stopping to work and asking to be reinitialized.
Thanks for the advice.
Lou