Thread: Windows 7 sleep function problem

I've been experiencing a problem when I put my computer into sleep mode.

What happens as soon as I put it into sleep mode is the carrier light on my cable modem goes out (expected), then the blue lit power button on my computer and monitor turns orange and my monitor goes dark (also expected).

I wake up many times at night, and on some of those times I'll see my modem carrier light back on, and the power button on my computer is orange. Both of these things indicate my computer is no longer in sleep mode. But my monitor is still dark even as the power button on it is now orange. Then when I hit the space bar the monitor lit up and I had to login to Windows as though it had been up and timed out. (unexpected)

My computer is set up to not time out for at least 4 hours and it should never wake up from sleep mode unless I manually wake it up. None of this is making any sense to me and I've only been experiencing this problem for a couple of months now.

If I had to guess, I'd bet some MS update caused this problem. But I'd like to hear from anybody that has input on this topic.

There is a setting to turn on/off timed events waking your computer:
Control Panel > Power Options > Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings > Sleep > Allow wake timers
Can you confirm it is set to 'disable'?

There are several timed events that could be waking your PC: virus scan / defragmentation / etc.
But they shouldn't happen if that setting is disabled.

Originally Posted by RedPanda

There is a setting to turn on/off timed events waking your computer:
Control Panel > Power Options > Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings > Sleep > Allow wake timers
Can you confirm it is set to 'disable'?

There are several timed events that could be waking your PC: virus scan / defragmentation / etc.
But they shouldn't happen if that setting is disabled.

There was an option to Allow wake timers that was set on enable and I changed it to disable. So I'll now see if that changes what I perceived was my problem. I don't remember making that setting before and I've had this computer for about 4 years now without noticing that particular problem. So I'm pretty sure something changed the setting under the table (without me knowing about it) like a MS update. Since I've had this system MS has had between 10 to 20 updates every month and I have had update problems in the past, although they are sometimes hard to put your finger when they happen.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

...and I have had update problems in the past, although they are sometimes hard to put your finger when they happen.

I've had whole systems go down because Windows update made a "small" change.

Originally Posted by RedPanda

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

...and I have had update problems in the past, although they are sometimes hard to put your finger when they happen.

I've had whole systems go down because Windows update made a "small" change.

My first system was an IBM XT running on MSDOS 3.0 and my first modem was a 300 BAUD dial-up, and I've had fun hating MS ever since.

The Win 7 power system is just flakey. You also have to go into the advanced settings to make sure it's not doing things like shutting of your hard drive after 20 min seperately. System up, hard drive still off. Soon as i become real rich I was thinking of upgrading to a solid state drive. The hard drive when in use really heats up, and all those small parts inside could melt down pretty easily. A new one for me only lasts about a year. When they put an update on your drive, its usually put in the wrong place, making the drive work that much harder. Defrag helps, but then you have to defrag after every single update. Defrag and system checks are found on properties of c:/ drive in tools.

Originally Posted by Hill Billy Holmes

The Win 7 power system is just flakey. You also have to go into the advanced settings to make sure it's not doing things like shutting of your hard drive after 20 min seperately. System up, hard drive still off. Soon as i become real rich I was thinking of upgrading to a solid state drive. The hard drive when in use really heats up, and all those small parts inside could melt down pretty easily. A new one for me only lasts about a year. When they put an update on your drive, its usually put in the wrong place, making the drive work that much harder. Defrag helps, but then you have to defrag after every single update. Defrag and system checks are found on properties of c:/ drive in tools.

I to really like the idea of a solid state drive, however they don't yet come with enough storage space and at a price I am willing to pay for. So I will just have to suffer with the old style terabyte + hard drives that I am willing to pay for.

Tera, thats a lot. What's the most % you have used so far. My next upgrade will be 1,000 gig.

Originally Posted by Hill Billy Holmes

Tera, that's a lot. What's the most % you have used so far. My next upgrade will be 1,000 gig.

1 terabyte = 1000 gigabytes and even 2 & 3 terabyte drives are a very good buy these days. If you like to download lots of multimedia, music, videos, it never hurts to have more storage than you think you'll ever need.

With most hard drives when you use over half your hard drive, your maintenance programs start taking longer to do their work and when you've used 70% or more everything you do will be slower to the point where you will start hating your system.

My first computer came with a whopping 5 megabyte drive. I managed to load it up to 97%. Yes I hated my system for a couple of weeks or months (very long time ago). It was a real pain in the ass.

Had a 5 once . When a system gets up to 85% it does not work. I usually run at 20%. I do all maintenace manually. The defrag usually has to be done a couple of times to get it right for fast smooth access. Windows program appear to be getting sloppier, but I can't complain because I can't write them any better, or at all even. My media player just deleted all media files for me and only played a handfull and stopped. The realplayer was checking on line for bargains, and slowing down the startup. Same junk with quicktime. Contron panel, system tools, administrative(?), system configuration, startup, services. Got it, startup now configured.

Well so far so good, no waking up on it's own anymore (at least for the last two nights).

Now let's see if anyone knows a quick fix for the next problem.

Whenever I run a YouTube video, it will pause & stop then start again after a few seconds wait time (very irritating). However if I keep moving my cursor it doesn't pause or stop.

It's probably a setting somewhere, but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

Well so far so good, no waking up on it's own anymore (at least for the last two nights).

Cool.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

It's probably a setting somewhere, but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

Go to Control Panel > Internet Options > 'Content' tab > Content Advisor > Ensure that the "Stop f**king about with YouTube" box is ticked.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

It's probably a setting somewhere, but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

Which browser are you using?

I thought it was just me. Mine did the same thing ,only I was messing with the browser at the time. It was right after an update from adobe. I was using firefox. If you have firefox, yahoo firefox hacks, find ones that include "about;config" as a hack. After following the instructions there it stopped. If you are using safari or intenet explorer I don't know. Also ,if you are still using internet explorer and like it, a browser called "acoo browser" is the same in that it leeches off of explorer but only takes a second to startup and doesn't collect as many cookies. If you get acoo be sure to turn all the popup blockers on or it goes crazy. Also if nothing else works lower the video quality on youtube.

Originally Posted by RedPanda

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

It's probably a setting somewhere, but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

Which browser are you using?

Firefox is my primary browser.

Originally Posted by Hill Billy Holmes

I thought it was just me. Mine did the same thing ,only I was messing with the browser at the time. It was right after an update from adobe. I was using firefox. If you have firefox, yahoo firefox hacks, find ones that include "about;config" as a hack. After following the instructions there it stopped. If you are using safari or intenet explorer I don't know. Also ,if you asr still using internet explorer and like it, a browser called "acoo browser" is the same in that it leeches off of explorer but only takes a second to startup and doesn't collect as many cookies. If you get acoo be sure to turn all the popup blockers on or it goes crazy. Also if nothing else works lower the video quality on youtube.

Do you have a link you could post?

Hacks for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser | eHow Its a long link I don't know if it is going to work. Its on ehow

Originally Posted by RedPanda

Go to Control Panel > Internet Options > 'Content' tab > Content Adviser > Ensure that the "Stop f**king about with YouTube" box is ticked.

If you are not joking those choices are not available on my computer.

Originally Posted by Hill Billy Holmes

Hacks for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser | eHow Its a long link I don't know if it is going to work. Its on ehow

Thanks, I'll check it out when I get some time.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

Originally Posted by RedPanda

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

It's probably a setting somewhere, but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

Which browser are you using?

Firefox is my primary browser.

It's a bit of a PITA, but

1. Disable all your Firefox add-ons (Tools > Add-ons).
2. Check to see if the problem still occurs.
3. Enable your add-ons one (or two) at a time, checking to see if the problem has returned.