Sleep/hibernate problems in Windows 7

[m_s]

Hi guys, it's been a long time since I was here, but I know this is always a great place to get support when I need it!

And I do: We bought a new HP Pavilion dm1-1111ea laptop yesterday.  It comes with Windows 7 pre-installed, and I'm unfamiliar with the operating system (having now been a Mac man myself for the past 4 years).  I can't get the machine to sleep or hibernate.  When I try - by using the Shutdown menu item, pressing the power button, or closing the lid: all of which are set up to put it into Sleep Mode - the screen dims, but the fans keep running, and the harddrive continues to tick over.  I can't then get the screen to turn back on, and have to eventually kill the machine to get it working again.

I've done everything I can think of: fine-tuning power settings, doing a hard reset (battery out, power button down for 20 seconds, restart), updating all software and drivers, re-flashing the BIOS, and nothing at all has helped.

Can anybody offer any guidance?  Getting pretty desperate here...

Thanks!

[mouser]

i've had this problem on an older desktop, and it's very frustrating.

but there are lots of tricks i know for making it work, including some registry settings, etc.

i don't have any advice for you except: whatever you do, do not give up and settle for this not working.  having a laptop that won't go into sleep mode is absolutely unacceptable and would be grounds for returning it.

[Renegade]

If I recall correctly, there is a setting that stops the Hibernate option from becoming available. At the moment I have the same issue, but no time to solve it for now. I'll check back later if I have time to solve it and post something more useful.

[iphigenie]

it just happened to Robb on his laptop this week - just after we installed Suse linux on the partition, so my thinking was that perhaps the partition resizing had confused something as per where the hiberfil.sys (or whatever it is called on windows 7) should be stored. But if several people just have had it at the same time, it could be something linked to an update?

[Krishean]

The issue with windows 7's hibernate not working after installing Linux is not caused by the partition resizing, its caused by windows not liking that its not in control of the boot process anymore (grub being installed). Its a known issue and there are a few threads about it (see here, but ignore the "Answers" section, that's just microsoft PR BS and is not helpful at all).
It can be fixed by having windows chainload into grub using this program: EasyBCD. Its a little tricky to set up, and you have to change grub from being on the mbr to whatever partition the Linux is installed on (/dev/sda2 in my case) and get windows' bootloader reinstalled.
But after all of the work hibernate works perfectly again (although it may or may not work in Linux lol)
I did all this on my netbook so windows 7 would have hibernate.

I'm not sure if any of this will help with the HP laptop tho, in the past I've had computers that simply refuse to hibernate at all, but in recent years they have gotten better.
Some things that have prevented hibernate for me are chipset/wifi/network/sound/video drivers, the drivers will usually want to manage the power state in a stupid way, also HP loves to do stupid things to the bios that could affect hibernate (removing the menu item for changing the hdd controller mode from ahci to ide so you could get the XP installer to recognise the hard drive comes to mind)
You might want to check if HP has some "recovery" system inserted in the boot process (same problem described above)

[m_s]

Thanks for these responses. A short while after posting, we got in touch with the vendor's support people, whose opening response was 'Well, hibernate and sleep just don't work very well with laptops.' I couldn't believe this!

They recommended, and I did, a full system restore, and found that it worked perfectly for a day or so, sleeping and hibernating at will. But then it stopped working - dying every time, as before. I'm now thinking that it might have been one of the HP software updates that introduced the problem...  About to try rollback using system restore, and will report back in a while...

[mouser]

hibernate and sleep just don't work very well with laptops

that's just stupidity talking -- laptops are where this feature should work best and is most useful.  don't listen to them.

might have been one of the HP software updates that introduced the problem

could very well be.

[m_s]

And whaddaya know?! Restored to the day after I did the full system restore, and it works perfectly again! So now running the necessary windows updates, and then will try to test whether it's any of these, or some HP system update that's causing the problem.

[Stoic Joker]

hibernate and sleep just don't work very well with laptops

that's just stupidity talking -- laptops are where this feature should work best and is most useful.  don't listen to them.

might have been one of the HP software updates that introduced the problem

could very well be.

-mouser (August 05, 2010, 03:40 PM)

I think this falls under the category of a self fulfilling prophecy - You put HP's software on anything and it will run like crap. Printer drivers especially will reek havoc on sleep/hibernation/the computer.

[m_s]

Have now worked out that it seems to be a startup utility that messes things up - install it and the machine no longer sleeps, remove it and it sleeps like a baby.

[tomos]

I know, it's an old thread, but it's not worth starting a new thread for this:

Relatively fresh Win 7 Pro install (updated, including SP1):
there was no hibernate option at all from the shutdown etc menu.

Fix involved Command Prompt, opened with admin rights:
powercfg /hibernate on

and turning off the option "Hybrid sleep" in Power options

Details here:
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-enable-hibernate-option-in-windows-7/