So I leave the comp on overnight to finish a task that would take 2
hours and expect it to auto shutdown when its done. I wake up to find
the comp still on with the task long done. How do I figure out whats
duping the system from hibernating?
What triggers a hibernate anyway? When nothing is being written to
disk anymore for a specified time?
First make sure your Hibernation/Stand By mechanism is functional by
clicking Start, Turn Off Computer, then press the Shift key and the
Stand By button should turn into a Hibernate button which you click
and your system should hibernate.
Does a manual Hibernation/Stand By work okay?
Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation: McAfee,
Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!, MSE, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools,
Comodo, etc.
Does your system have installed Windows Search, Skype, iTunes,
MagicJack, RSS feeds, any kind of Instant Messenger, any kind of
malware scanners doing scans or doing automatic updates like MSE, AVG,
Avast, Norton, McAfee, Bit Defender? Any of those things can reset
the Stand By/Hibernate time if the "wake up" and decide to chek the
Internet for something to do or any updates.
Any one of these can prevent your system from hibernating if they are
"doing their thing" when your hibernate time comes around.
Look in your Task Manager and see what you have running.
If any one of those items you see in Task Manger causes the CPU to use
10% of CPU time (even for a fraction of a second), the power down
options countdown
timers all get reset back to zero (they start over). Therefore, it is
possible that your system may never hibernate as the timer keeps
getting reset.
If you have the timer set to 15 minutes and something happens that
uses 10% of the CPU every 10 minutes, you will never automatically
hibernate or stand by. Both will still work just fine manually
though. Just because your system looks "idle" or you think it is
idle, XP may not think so.
If you just glance at TM, 99% idle could be the case, but you would
have to watch it for a while and maybe see something that uses 10% -
even for a split second if you are lucky enough to see it.
You can set your hibernation time down to something small 1-3 minutes
for a test to make sure your Hibernation mechanism is not afflicted.
If it works okay with a short time and not for a longer duration (say
15-30 minutes), you know something is running that is resetting your
timer, figure out what it is and then decide what to do.
