Hibernate stopped working (mostly)

[Dan]

Since some time I recognized that hibernation of my WinXP SP2 laptop has
stopped working reliably. It still works sometimes, though. Before about 2-3
weeks ago, it worked perfectly. I have installed only the Windows Update
stuff and the latest version of the MS AntiSpyware BETA since then. Could it
be related to that?

WinXP SP2, 640MB RAM (512+128), 40GB HD, HP OmniBook 6100,

I tried to make some tests to figure out why hibernation won't work
sometimes. Just after log in, hibernation works. Then, starting one
application after the other, I checked if it still works. Eventually it
would stop going into hibernation. If that happens, I do not get any error
message. Just the blank screen with that little window about "Preparing for
hibernation" will never go away. Very few disk activity. No progress bar
will appear. Finally I have to reset the CPU and restart...

Unfortunataly, I was not able to figure out which application might
influence hibernation on my system. Once I thought I figured out one of the
applications, it suddenly worked again with the very same
application.Strange...

I am stucked. Is there any way to debug my hibernation problem? Remember, it
sometimes works! Perhaps there is a debug option somewhere? In the system
policies for event logging? If I could at least figure out the source of
this problem....

What I have done so far:
- defragmented the HD (and special files with pagedfrg)
- freed HD space (before I had 10% free, now 30%free)
- checked the drivers, all ok there
- tried hibernation with different system states (applications running,
etc), no clear conclusion here
- checked event logs, no info or errors here
- Stand-By mode works perfectly
- checked hiberfil.sys, it's there and has the right size
- checked for latest drivers from HP (already had them on the system)
- searched the internet/usenet for possible causes, nothing refers to my
problem
- virus checked with latest definition file (Symantec Antivirus 9.x)
- checked for spyware with latest version of SpyBot and MS AntiSpyware.
- switched off MS AntiSpyware to check if that was the reason, nope...

Any hint is really appreciated.

Thanks

Dan

 

[Walter Clayton]

Uninstall MSAS. It is a beta product and you really can't disable it's
active background stuff short of a complete uninstall.

 

[Dan]

Hi Walter,

Thanks for your insight. But unfortunately, that was not the problem.
I should have mentioned that "switched off" meant complete deinstall.
With the previous beta, the hibernation worked ok.

My laptop is now more or less barebone, and still does not hibernate.
The only thing I can think of is that the last Windows Update batch (Feb 10)
messed up my system.


I'm still looking for a way to troubleshoot this. I remember from Win2000
that there was a way to increase logging level of the system. Can that be
done with XP too? Where would I want to increase logging if I wanted
to debug my hibernation problem?

Dan

 

[Walter Clayton]

Windows update could very well have caused the issue. :-/

I can't find or locate anything that resembles increased logging activity
for ACPI. There was a tool under Win2K for APM, but looking at the
description, it's not applicable. You might try checking eventvwr.msc as
well as the windows error reporting branch in msinfo32 under software
environment.

Assuming that patch is uninstallable, and I can't quite tell which one that
would be, you can uninstall it, or if you have an SR point that far back in
time, use it to roll the change back and see what happens.