Standby gone

G

Great Scot

Standby option is shaded/missing from Start/Turnoff menu in Xp Pro on two
separate laptops, both within the same week. Full virus/spy scan done,
nothing. IT guys are stumped. All other programs fully functional, same for
OS, will not hypernate when closing lid, either.
 
N

Nepatsfan

Great Scot said:
Standby option is shaded/missing from Start/Turnoff menu in Xp Pro on two
separate laptops, both within the same week. Full virus/spy scan done,
nothing. IT guys are stumped. All other programs fully functional, same
for
OS, will not hypernate when closing lid, either.


Did the IT guys check to make sure both laptops were running the latest
drivers for the laptop's display/video adapter? Check the laptop
manufacturer's web site for a support section. You should be able to
download them there. Look for drivers listed under video or display adapter.

Another thing to check is if an updated display adapter driver was recently
installed. Rolling back to the previous driver may fix the problem. Right
click My Computer and select Manage from the menu. In Computer Management,
click on Device Manager in the left hand column. In the right hand pane,
click on the + sign next to Display adapters. Right click on the adapter
listed and select Properties from the menu. Click on the Driver tab.

Good luck

Nepatsfan
 
W

What Now

On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:16:01 -0800, Great Scot <Great
Standby option is shaded/missing from Start/Turnoff menu in Xp Pro on two
separate laptops, both within the same week. Full virus/spy scan done,
nothing. IT guys are stumped. All other programs fully functional, same for
OS, will not hypernate when closing lid, either.

Could a new program/hardware device that has been installed have
de-activated Standby by running a background "always on" process? Did
you glance through running services and bootup proggies using msconfig
and the startup/services tabs, or check Task Manager or a Startup mgr?
 
G

Great Scot

Thanks, I'll try the former. We tried the latter, driver was dated 11/05, so
don't think it was updated, but there is a tab to "update driver" so I'll try
that first (once I close all programs).

Bring back Brady! Go Pats.
 
G

Great Scot

No such luck. Any other ideas?

Nepatsfan said:
Did the IT guys check to make sure both laptops were running the latest
drivers for the laptop's display/video adapter? Check the laptop
manufacturer's web site for a support section. You should be able to
download them there. Look for drivers listed under video or display adapter.

Another thing to check is if an updated display adapter driver was recently
installed. Rolling back to the previous driver may fix the problem. Right
click My Computer and select Manage from the menu. In Computer Management,
click on Device Manager in the left hand column. In the right hand pane,
click on the + sign next to Display adapters. Right click on the adapter
listed and select Properties from the menu. Click on the Driver tab.

Good luck

Nepatsfan
 
P

Paul

Great said:
Thanks, I'll try the former. We tried the latter, driver was dated 11/05, so
don't think it was updated, but there is a tab to "update driver" so I'll try
that first (once I close all programs).

Bring back Brady! Go Pats.

Device Manager - "Computer" entry - Properties - Does the HAL
name mention "ACPI". For example, mine reads "ACPI Multiprocessor PC".
You want the word ACPI in the property.

On desktops, the BIOS has options like S1, S3, S1&S3. These are
ACPI states, and S3 is "suspend to RAM". S4 is Hibernate as far
as I know.

Download dumppo.exe (only 13KB or so) from Microsoft.

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Products/Oemtest/v1.1/WOSTest/Tools/Acpi/dumppo.exe

In a command window, change directory to where you've got
the dumppo.exe file, then type "dumppo cap". That displays
capabilities.

For example, my computer has working Standby and Hibernate. This
is part of my dumppo output.

power capabilties
...
System states supported.: S1 S3 S4 S5

Dumppo can also be used to do an administrative override, and
change what is supported. Users typically do this, if a BIOS
setting (the S1/S3 thing) was botched, and has now been corrected
in the BIOS. At that point, dumppo can be used to repair the OS,
so the OS recognizes standby/hibernate. Perhaps your IT guys already
know this, or have tried, and it still isn't working. Apparently
some of this stuff involves extensive registry changes, and isn't
something intended to be repaired by hand with a registry editor.

I mention the "ACPI" thing at the beginning of this post, because
occasionally someone installs an OS, and the BIOS has a small
problem with ACPI compatibility. The OS installer then does
a non-ACPI install and may have presented a dialog box, warning
of such. When it happened to me, I needed to update the BIOS,
so everything would work right.

Dumppo apparently has the ability to report a driver that
is preventing ACPI from working right, but I've never seen
that capability demonstrated.

Paul
 
G

Great Scot

Good idea, we'll check. I did download one program on both laptops, seems
"innocuous" but I'll actually try to uninstall and see what happens if we
can't find solution by first looking in proggies.
 
G

Great Scot

Sure enough, it was a "Bagpipe Player" program I installed last week that
obviously caused this glitch since when I uninstalled it, the Standby came
back to life, go figure. Curious why but don't really care. It was a
program written back in the 90's and not for XP, tried compatibility
adjustment to no avail.

Thanks again for your help.
 
G

Great Scot

Turns out it was a "non-XP compatible" program I installed last week that
caused this problem, the Standby returned to life upon uninstall.
 
G

Great Scot

So, is there anyway to "turn off" the "always on" process that running from
that one program? It was a program written for Window 98, fyi.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top