Laptop will not go to sleep.

[Terin]

I've had a Dell Inspiron 1501 for about a year now. It's been through a lot of tech troubles like BSODs, faulty chargers, broken keyboards, etc., and now there's another problem. The computer will not go to sleep at all, except if the battery dies. I'm on Vista, and if I close the lid and go to sleep for example, when I wake up, it will still be on, or off because it overheated. Pressing the power button on the computer, or telling it to sleep in Vista just makes the display turn off, and it will still be on. I can instantly wake it up like nothing happened (except sometimes the resolution will freak out, but that's due to bad ATI video drivers)

Do I have any options on fixing this? My battery runs at about 10 minutes unplugged now, and I need to be able to make it go to sleep if I want to move it. I will not be able to spend money on major computer stuff until about mid-June, so getting a new laptop is not an option right now...

[Xetsuei]

It's not any problem with your laptop specifically - it happens with all laptops with vista on them. I don't know but I think it might of been fixed in the recent service pack, but I doubt it.

[Terin]

I have the service pack. And I think this problem may have happened more often AFTER I got the Service Pack.

I'm trying out some things, and it seems like I can get it to sleep when it is not being charged up. But it seems like I can't when it's plugged in, which is when I often need to put it sleep.

I supposed I could just unplug it, put it to sleep, then plug it in again, but it would be great to be able to cut out the middle man.

Ugh, I gotta get myself a copy of XP.

[Zeph]

Xetsuei™;240918']It's not any problem with your laptop specifically - it happens with all laptops with vista on them. I don't know but I think it might of been fixed in the recent service pack, but I doubt it.

No it is not a problem with all Vista notebooks. My notebook goes to sleep each time I close the cover and has done so since I obtained it with Vista pre-installed.

The source of the problem has to do with your notebooks firmware not understanding how to do what the OS tells it.

[Xetsuei]

No it is not a problem with all Vista notebooks. My notebook goes to sleep each time I close the cover and has done so since I obtained it with Vista pre-installed.

The source of the problem has to do with your notebooks firmware not understanding how to do what the OS tells it.

Your notebook must be one of thousands, because I have never come across any vista notebook that CAN go to sleep. Just google vista notebook not going to sleep, and you will get tons of results. It's a problem for almost everyone with a vista laptop.

[Terin]

It USED to be able to go to sleep. The past months, there would be problems where it would not go to sleep for a while, or not at all and then I'd have to redo it. Now, it will not seem to work at all, except for doing it while it is unplugged.

[Kalub]

Why not just charge it up to full, and then put it into hibernate, or simply turn it off?

[Terin]

Because I have no hibernate option, and it's a very weak computer that takes about 4 minutes to boot up with. I'd prefer to put it to sleep.

[Kalub]

Oh, I see.

All I can say is, have you tried to set the power options to when you push the power button it should standby, and then try setting the other options to see if it will do it by itself?

My laptop seems to not like being put into standby manually, and would rather prefer to do it by itself.

[Reaper Man]

Because I have no hibernate option, and it's a very weak computer that takes about 4 minutes to boot up with. I'd prefer to put it to sleep.
Go to CMD and type powercfg /hibernate on
The option disappears sometimes if you run a disk cleanup, so just type that in again to restore the hibernate option.

[Kornman00]

yeah, my comp won't go to sleep either (see comp specs icon). Here I thought it was just because I was using Apple's XP drivers for Vista...

[Terin]

When looking at sleep options in the control panel, there's just no nothing, sleep, or turn off computer. My computer seems horribly crippled.


Go to CMD and type powercfg /hibernate on
The option disappears sometimes if you run a disk cleanup, so just type that in again to restore the hibernate option.If that works, +rep for u. Does this hibernate the computer right away, or re-enable the option in the Start Menu?

[Sel]

It just re enables the option, kinda stupid how windows gets rid of it in the first place though >:/

[Zeph]

Xetsuei™;240941']Your notebook must be one of thousands, because I have never come across any vista notebook that CAN go to sleep. Just google vista notebook not going to sleep, and you will get tons of results. It's a problem for almost everyone with a vista laptop.

What you're talking about is the vocal minority. People with problems will yell, kick, and scream until it's resolved. By your logic there's either something terribly wrong with where I live or hundreds of thousands of notebooks for a population of less than 60,000. On a daily basis I work with upwards of a hundred people using laptops with Vista installed. Not a single person has a problem with their notebook going to sleep.

[Atty]

Use Nyquill as thermal paste, it'll put it to sleep. :haw:

[Kornman00]

Use Nyquill as thermal paste, it'll put it to sleep. :haw:
n, gallagher knows best http://www.zug.com/daily/journal/graphics/041301_gallagher.gif

[Patrickssj6]

My sleep didn't work once because of the gfx drivers...updated them and it worked again. :S

[Xetsuei]

What you're talking about is the vocal minority. People with problems will yell, kick, and scream until it's resolved. By your logic there's either something terribly wrong with where I live or hundreds of thousands of notebooks for a population of less than 60,000. On a daily basis I work with upwards of a hundred people using laptops with Vista installed. Not a single person has a problem with their notebook going to sleep.

So you've asked every single person if their laptop will go to sleep with vista on it? Wow. Show me real proof.

[blind]

read it a bedtime story
LOL

[Llama Juice]

try changing the screensaver to sheep jumping past.
Then have the screen saver run a script that counts the sheep

My vista PC sucks too don't worry. Instead of going to sleep it kicks the fan into high gear and shuts off the display.... *shrug*