Windows 7 Windows 7 not fully hibernating or sleeping

[BrentR678]

Hi all,

I have been having a problem with my laptop hibernating and sleeping. About once every five attempts, when I tell the computer to either sleep or hibernate, the screen will shut off but the computer will never completely go down. By that I mean the fans keep running, usb ports are still active, (although nothing is plugged into them) and the back-lit keyboard is still on. The only way to recover is to force shut down the computer. I have let the computer sit all night with the black screen to see if anything would happen. Ive been having this problem for a few months now.

All of Microsoft's updates are installed and my Dell drivers are up to date. I am currently running Windows 7 Professional but the problem was also happening earlier when I was running Home Premium. Hardware diagnostics came up empty and Dell wont help because I upgraded my OS. My exact laptop specs are listed bellow.

Dell Studio 1747 laptop. It has an i7 720 processor with 4gb of ram. It has an ATI graphics card.

Thanks for all of your help!!!

 

[Saltgrass]

There is a utility that can tell you things about your system. I would advise shutting down all the programs you can, then open and administrative command prompt and type:

powercfg -energy

Let it work, and make sure to check the name of the resulting report and where it is stored. It might give you some guidance as to why your system is having problems and you could attach parts of it if you want. There are other options for the utility, just type powercfg /?

There may be things such network cards, or other devices that are not set up correctly for sleep.

 

[BrentR678]

I tried the "powercfg -energy" in command prompt and it showed 17 errors, 1 warning, and 21 informational. When I try to go to the location of the report for more details, it wont open. It says the file type .html so when I open it, Internet Explorer opens but of course cant display any page. I also tried at word document but nothing. What program should open the report?

 

[Saltgrass]

Other folks have had problems opening the file but I do not know why. It is just an .html file and you might be able to copy it to the desktop to open from there.

 

[BrentR678]

Your right moving it to the desktop allowed me to open the file. There are two major errors that make the think they are the problem but they are confusing. There is a usb problem but i don't have any usb device plugged in. Also it says there needs to be an updated bios but Dell doesn't offer a newer bios.

I copied the report below. Any thoughts...?

Errors

Power Policy:Sleep timeout is disabled (On Battery)
The computer is not configured to automatically sleep after a period of inactivity.
Power Policy:USB Selective Suspend is disabled (On Battery)
The current power policy has globally disabled USB selective suspend.
Power Policy:Sleep timeout is disabled (Plugged In)
The computer is not configured to automatically sleep after a period of inactivity.
Power Policy:USB Selective Suspend is disabled (Plugged In)
The current power policy has globally disabled USB selective suspend.
USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Suspend
The USB device did not enter the Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented if a USB device does not enter the Suspend state when not in use.
Device Name USB Root Hub
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B3C
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 26, function 0
Device ID USB\VID_8086&PID_3B3C
Port Path

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Suspend
The USB device did not enter the Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented if a USB device does not enter the Suspend state when not in use.
Device Name USB Root Hub
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B34
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0
Device ID USB\VID_8086&PID_3B34
Port Path

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Suspend
The USB device did not enter the Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented if a USB device does not enter the Suspend state when not in use.
Device Name Generic USB Hub
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B3C
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 26, function 0
Device ID USB\VID_8087&PID_0020
Port Path 1

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Suspend
The USB device did not enter the Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented if a USB device does not enter the Suspend state when not in use.
Device Name Generic USB Hub
Host Controller ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B34
Host Controller Location PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0
Device ID USB\VID_8087&PID_0020
Port Path 1

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 0

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 1

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 2

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 3

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 4

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 5

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 6

Platform Power Management Capabilities:ACPI _PSD Object Failed Validation
There is a problem with the definition of the ACPI _PSD object on this computer. Installing the latest system firmware (BIOS) may resolve this issue.
Group 0
Index 7


Thanks!!!

 

[Saltgrass]

I get some USB messages about sleep, but you seem to have many more. Some of them are saying you do not have your system set up to sleep. What power profile are you using? You are aware there are separate profiles depending on whether the laptop is plugged in or not?

The latest bios seems to be A04, so I take from your comments you already have that.

Let us just start with your currently selected power profile and go from there.

 

[BrentR678]

Well my current power plan is set to balanced. With the parameters that the computer should never sleep or hibernate unless I tell it to. The hard disks should also never shut off. What other info should I provide?

Thanks!

 

[Saltgrass]

I found this post at a Microsoft site. You might check the post about going to Device Manager and not allowing the computer to put the USB Root Hubs to sleep.

I would probably set the power settings back to default and try those for a while. You might even go to a High Performance setting and leave it plugged in. Then do another Powercfg run and compare the two.

Other things mentioned are video drivers, and the bios firmware. Someone even said they reverted to an earlier one, but I would not recommend that.

I will look through the Dell site to see if anything is mentioned there.

 

[ZiRiS]

There is a very simple answer to all of this. STOP HIBERNATING! Hibernation was broken in Windows 98 and it never fully got fixed. I will agree that it works better now, by leagues and bounds.But it still isn't fixed. The easiest fix to all of your troubles is to just not hibernate. When you are done with Windows, either shut it down completely, (a reboot works WONDERS with Windows) or make sure it's plugged in, a screensaver is set, and then just walk away. You can set the screensaver to come on in as little as 1 minute of inactivity and then prompt you for a password afterwards if you are worried about security. I have found that about 5 to 7 minutes of inactivity works well. If you require assistance setting the screensaver, post it here and one of us will happily assist you with step by step instructions.

 

[Saltgrass]

I just checked the Dell site and it says the latest bios for your system is A13...do you have that one?

 

[BrentR678]

I set my power settings to default still using the balanced power plan so I will wait awhile and see if the problem still exists. If it does happen I will try the high performance mode and try it again. I'm worried about changing the video drivers because the latest update fixed a different problem when booting up. I must have the A13 bios because when I tired to update it the installer quit saying I already have a current or newer version then the one being installed.

While I could stop hibernating or sleeping, there are times in which putting the computer to sleep and being able to bring it up quickly on trips is valued. If it comes down to it after trying to fix the problem I may stop sleeping it. I'm not worried as much about security but yes I could use the screen saver but that still leaves the computer running during times that I dont want it to be.

 

[BrentR678]

Well its been awhile and so far no problems. After messing with different power settings, its the hard discs that are the problem. When they were set at their default to shut off after 30min, thats when the computer didn't shut down fully. When I set them to never shut off, the problem went away. So far its been 5 days with no problem. Hopefully this will be my last post about this issue. Thanks to all of you for your help!