Cannot enter standby or hibernate

[Paul Warshawsky]

I'm going to try posting here to see if anyone has any suggestions before
taking the drastic step of wiping my laptop and starting again.

I have an IBM Thinkpad T30 running Windows XP. Recently, my computer has
stopped being able to hibernate. It hangs on the "Preparing to Standby"
screen and needs to be hard shut-down. This occurs when trying to go to
standby as well (by pressing the standby key or through the shutdown menu.)

I recently applied some driver updates from IBM and I suspect that this is
the cause of my problems. I cannot restore as my IT department had disabled
this ability on my computer. Instead I have updated every driver to the
most current versions (from IBM) and have updated Windows XP (from SP1 to
SP2 and all updates since), all to no avail. I have disabled all startup
applications in case it was a TSR (terminate and stay-resident) program that
was causing the problem. I did a diagnostic startup, tried starting in safe
mode, all to no avail.

I have tried IBM support - they were of no help.

Any suggestions?

Paul Warshawsky
(e-mail address removed)

 

[R. McCarty]

Check your System Event Logs. If an application or driver is
preventing Standby or Hibernation the system may log it there.
Start, Run (Type) Eventvwr.Msc [Press Enter]

 

[River_Rat]

Go to the device manager and expand System Devices>Right Click ACPI Fixed
Feature Button and remove it then restart the computer and let it reload the
drivers from the driver cache.

--
Good Day
River Rat




I'm going to try posting here to see if anyone has any suggestions before
taking the drastic step of wiping my laptop and starting again.

I have an IBM Thinkpad T30 running Windows XP. Recently, my computer has
stopped being able to hibernate. It hangs on the "Preparing to Standby"
screen and needs to be hard shut-down. This occurs when trying to go to
standby as well (by pressing the standby key or through the shutdown menu.)

I recently applied some driver updates from IBM and I suspect that this is
the cause of my problems. I cannot restore as my IT department had disabled
this ability on my computer. Instead I have updated every driver to the
most current versions (from IBM) and have updated Windows XP (from SP1 to
SP2 and all updates since), all to no avail. I have disabled all startup
applications in case it was a TSR (terminate and stay-resident) program that
was causing the problem. I did a diagnostic startup, tried starting in safe
mode, all to no avail.

I have tried IBM support - they were of no help.

Any suggestions?

Paul Warshawsky
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Guest]

Thank you so much! This worked! I had attempted to remove other system
devices related to APM but I did not try this one.

Paul

 

[River_Rat]

Your Welcome:
Glad to help.

There were a couple of good things come from this problem that will help in
the long run.
#1-You got SP2 installed.
#2-You got all the updates installed.

--
Good Day
River Rat




message Thank you so much! This worked! I had attempted to remove other system
devices related to APM but I did not try this one.

Paul

 

[Guest]

Alas, all is still not well...

I can Stand-by and Hibernate most of the time now. However, on a few
occasions (usually after I have used the computer for a long time) I try to
Hibernate and now get stuck on the "Preparing to Hibernate" screen.

Any more miraculous suggestions?

Paul

 

[River_Rat]

Hello Again Paul
Are you running Nero 5.0 Burning software?
If so go to Nero's website and download the upgrade to 5.5.
http://ww2.nero.com/enu/Update_Nero_Burning_ROM.html

Let me know if this is the case.

--
Good Day
River Rat




message Alas, all is still not well...

I can Stand-by and Hibernate most of the time now. However, on a few
occasions (usually after I have used the computer for a long time) I try to
Hibernate and now get stuck on the "Preparing to Hibernate" screen.

Any more miraculous suggestions?

Paul

 

[Guest]

No I don't. I have successfully hibernated several times (to test if all was
well), but both yesterday and today, when shutting down at the end of the
day, the computer hanged while attempting to hibernate - weird. Maybe just
coincidence.

Any other suggestions? It seems to me that with the frequency of
hibernation problems Windows should keep a log of what goes on in a
hibernation attempt.

Paul

 

[River_Rat]

This sounds like a conflict in a program that is running in the background,
take a good look at the programs that startup when the computer starts.
Look in the startup tab in "msconfig" and see what is running and try to
disable them one at a time till the problem quits.

--
Good Day
River Rat




message No I don't. I have successfully hibernated several times (to test if all
was
well), but both yesterday and today, when shutting down at the end of the
day, the computer hanged while attempting to hibernate - weird. Maybe just
coincidence.

Any other suggestions? It seems to me that with the frequency of
hibernation problems Windows should keep a log of what goes on in a
hibernation attempt.

Paul

 

[Guest]

Hi Paul,

I'm suffering from the exact same problem as you are. I have an IBM X31
laptop and other than hibernate, this is the most reliable PC I've ever seen.
Only one crash in two years of ownership! For the first year running XP Pro
SP1, I probably only restarted the laptop 20-30 times. Even then just for new
software, I just closed the lid and it hibernated and never failed to restart.

Then I installed SP2 - and oh boy did things go wrong from that day. Only
hibernation was affected though. It's an intermittent problem that means 1 in
10 times I get the "Preparing to Hibernate" screen and I have to pull the
plug and unclip the battery. I first had this in February of this year and I
uninstalled SP2 and everything returned to normal, faultless operation.

Three days ago I thought I'd give SP2 another go because Microsoft Update
keeps nagging me to do it and I like to be on the latest patch trail etc.
Same old problem. I've uninstalled Norton AV, removed Nero months ago (yes
completely, reg entries and all), stopped as many services as I dare.

Anyway, I've just raised a support call with Microsoft and I'll post here if
I get an answer. I just thought I'd pipe up just in case you've found an
answer to this most frustrating problem in the meantime...

Cheers
Dave Edge