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The computer doesn't wake up after it goes black, when it's been inactive for awhile. I'd like to be sure it's the monitor or something before I change anything out. It's not a huge problem but I've been restarting the computer every few times because it doesn't wake up like it should. Restarting the computer works, but that's an improper shutdown.
Any suggestions on what the problem is?
Thanks
Doesn't sound like a monitor to me. I'd check the settings that have to do with it's power management. It could of decided it was a laptop or something. I don't know how to do it on Windows 7.
Yes, like Doug said check your power management. I don't have a desktop but I'd suspect it uses the same tools. Perhaps you have it set up to hibernate after inactivity of a certain time span. If it hibernates then you'd have to press the power button to turn it back on. If it is set for standby then you should be able to move the mouse or hit a key to wake it up.
I changed the power management from monitor off in 10 min. and computer sleeps in 20 minutes to monitor off in 15 min. and computer sleeps in 1 hr., it hasn't acted like before but it didn't do it regularly before either. I hope the change did it, we'll see, if it does act up again, I'll change it to something else in power management, that could be it that isn't working right.
Thanks
My laptop doesn't come out of hibernation right so I just turned that aspect right off. Since I leave it plugged in all the time, it doesn't matter that it doesn't hibernate. It wouldn't matter on a tower either.
I'm gonna try something like that I think. I spoke too soon, it just did it again, I had to hit the power button. I've already put in a new internal hard-drive (incredibly easy these days) less than a month ago because the other one suddenly stopped working, I don't want to ruin this one. This computer isn't even that old, it's an HP, 8gb ram, 1 terabyte HD (now), 64 bit OS (Win. 7). 2.6 ghz. quad core AMD CPU. I'll try turning off the power management and see if that does anything different, it has to because then it could never not wake back up.
Question when you hit the power button does it come up with some message that says it was improperly shut down. I would expect a computer to wake from sleep by moving the mouse and from hibernate with the power button. Maybe your computer doesn't do it that way.
When you installed the new hard drive You must have reinstalled the OS from the recovery disk. That means that all your settings have been returned to some default which isn't necessarily what you had before.
Quoting:
Hybrid sleep is designed primarily for desktop computers. Hybrid sleep is a combination of sleep and hibernate—it puts any open documents and programs in memory and on your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state so that you can quickly resume your work. That way, if a power failure occurs, Windows can restore your work from your hard disk. When hybrid sleep is turned on, putting your computer into sleep automatically puts your computer into hybrid sleep. Hybrid sleep is typically turned on by default on desktop computers.
and
Quoting:
On most computers, you can resume working by pressing your computer's power button. However, not all computers are the same. You might be able to wake your computer by pressing any key on the keyboard, clicking a mouse button, or opening the lid on a laptop. Check the documentation that came with your computer or go to the manufacturer's website.
There are also settings in your BIOS that interact with your OS although they shouldn't of changed when you changed your HD unless you purposely reset them.
I never changed anything in the BIOS, I learned that if you change the BIOS and it isn't just right, you've just created a big paper-weight! lol I wouldn't dare change any BIOS settings. I don't know enuff of what I'm doing and I like to compute and get on DG too much and it isn't my computer to tinker with. All kidding aside, you could be onto something about the new hard drive and recovery that I did. I'll give that some thought. Yeah, it says computer was improperly shut-down and it gives those options on restart, I think it's -
1. safe mode
2. safe mode w/network
3. regular startup, which I always do
It's a wireless mouse and keyboard, I press buttons on the keyboard, that doesn't work either, I've tried putting the wireless mouse right up by the USB "unifier" for the mouse and moving it all around and pushing mouse buttons and still nothing. I hate the thought of burning this hard drive out and losing files and photos again. Altho, now I am much more aware of the need to back stuff up regularly onto our 1 terabyte external harddrive. My friend bought a 1 terabyte external HD at the same time that she bought the internal hard drive, so I'm gonna try to get down the ways of a backer upper now! When this old HD went out, that was a major bummer! I mean we had no warning and it went out suddenly, it wasn't even that old, (she bought the computer in April of 2010 and the HD went out Nov. of 2012, 2 and a half years. One thing I learned is if you can do those diagnostic checks or whatever they are, do them if you can. That's how I found out for certain that the hard-drive was failed, it said so. When it went out, it just wouldn't get to the Windows desktop screen. The screen was just dark when it should normally be at the desktop screen with all the icons, and a single non functioning cursor was up in the left corner. Anyway, when it would come on you have like one second to hit F5 or whatever to see the BIOS and those settings and stuff, so I did this random-like backup of a few things it let me select, (out of desparation, I was willing to try anything in an attempt to recover whatever I could). I thought that backup was "random" and I wouldn't get much of anything back, if anything. I couldn't believe it though, I got everything back that I didn't have backed up (and more) which was probably at least a hundred photos and tons of more files and stuff, by the way it was a Seagate (Sata) that went out, when I got a new one I made sure to try Western Digital this time. I have a 160gb WD ext. HD from 2007 still going that saved my grease that time! It may have just been bad timing for the Seagate HD, harddrives may all be the same.
Well, enuff rambling!
Merry Christmas!
Will
My guess is that the Hybrid sleep doesn't deal with the wireless entities because it turns the usb power off when it hibernates. I know that if I plug my phone into the computer to charge the computer has to stay out of hibernate mode for it to charge.
Hard drives. It sounds like the hard drive lost a sector where an important piece of the operating system was and could run. It didn't suffer from a failure of the motor or the electronics that went with it. A lot of systems lay the HD out with two different part's each with it's own table of content - That's not what it's called, but that is basically what it is. That's why you were easily able to recover your information.
Besides a good back up system and none of use are as good as we should be. I encourage everyone to not restore their system from their restore disks if the HD has important non backed up information. Just because the OS won't boot from it doesn't mean you can't get the info off it. I've gotten the info off a HD by putting it in a ziplock bag and putting it in the freezer over night. I'd take it out of the freezer leaving it set in it's bag on a bucket of ice, plug it in and boot the system. Because the system wasn't being booted off of it didn't run much. I knew what directories I had to access so as soon as it was booted I went directly to the directory and started to copy stuff to the other HD. It took several days because in a couple of minutes it would get warm and quit
Good point, maybe it's doing hibernate by default or something, I wouldn't choose hibernate myself.
I waited a few days before I ran those recovery disks, I knew that once I did that there'd be no getting old data back. If I remember right, I tried to restore or repair hard disk or run some kind of recovery that was available at F2 or whatever F it was and eventually I had formatted the old drive at one point and it was still failed. In retrospect, I'd have kept that old hard-drive around and tried stuff like your freezer method to try to get stuff back. Yeah, that's also a good point about hard-drives "crashing", it might not be as bad as it sounds perhaps, there might be a good chance that someday the "lost" data could be retrieved. Somebody once said you could even shoot a hard-drive and still get data off the undamaged sectors.
Another thing that pretty well saved us financially and from a big wait was having made the copies on 3 dvd's for recovery cd's. They charge I believe between $30 and $50 to get them sent to you from the manufacturer. When you first get a new computer and it asks, "do you want to make a backup in case of recovery" or whatever it says, do it! Actually that can be done anytime but
then you have to search for it, and of course, after it's crashed it's too late.
