Laptop takes a long time to sleep

ultralame · 22 Mar 2011

When I place my laptop into sleep (either from the button or closing the lid), the screen goes dark and then it basically locks up.

If it's on battery the battery will last a short time (as if it was on) and then it dies. Typically, if it's on AC, I end up having to hold down the power button to kill it and then reboot.

HOWEVER. The other day it was on AC and I realized that it's just taking a VERY LONG time to get to sleep, several hours.

The OS reports that my webcam driver may be causing it to sleep slowly, but killing that driver seems to have no affect.

This is an older Dell 1720, which shipped with Vista, and technically doesn't support W7. But everything was working fine until a few weeks ago. Also, I am now using an SSD HD (so hibernate mode is disabled).

I tried killing non-essential services (and then more) and it still has the issue.

Any idea how to debug this? Is there a way to log what might be holding it up?

**cluberti** · 22 Mar 2011

Yes, of course :).

Trace Windows 7 boot/shutdown/hibernate/standby/resume issues - MSFN Forum

1. Download and install the Windows Performance Toolkit as instructed
2. Run the xbootmgr command that corresponds to "Standby+Resume" to generate an .etl trace
3. Once the test completes (you have to let it finish, so if it takes hours to actually sleep, you need to let that happen) and the system resumes and finishes the test, you can compress the resulting .etl file and upload it somewhere for us to download and review.

ultralame · 23 Mar 2011

Thank you. I found the service that was giving me the trouble. I could have sworn that I killed it during my testing, but I just tested again now and it works fine. Nice tools!

ultralame · 03 Apr 2011

OK- so I thought it was one specific service, but that turned out not to be it. I mentioned that every once in a while it works fine.

Whenever I run the commands as you posted, I get essentially empty suspend info (This is probably because the system never got to sleep, even after waiting overnight).

Any ideas what to look at to see what is keeping it from sleeping in this tool?

**cluberti** · 03 Apr 2011

Potentially - but we'll need to try and bluescreen it on purpose. If you're ok with that, and your laptop has CTRL keys on the keyboard, we can try it.

ultralame · 04 Apr 2011

Let's do it! Do I tap out Lady GaGa on the CTRL keys or something?

**cluberti** · 04 Apr 2011

Heh - no, not quite.

1. Create or set the following registry value:
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters
Value: CrashOnCtrlScroll
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1

2. Click Start, right-click on "Computer", and select Properties. double-click the System applet, and select "Advanced System Settings"; this will open the "System Properties" window. Click the "Advanced System Settings" link on the left-hand side, and then click the "Advanced" tab. Click the Settings button under the "Performance" section header. Click the Advanced tab and click "Change" under "Virtual Memory". Make sure that the box for "Automatically manage paging file size on all drives" is checked, then click "OK".

3. Also in the "System Properties" window, click on the "Advanced" tab, then click the Settings button under the "Startup and Recovery" section header. Make sure "Complete Memory Dump" (or "Kernel Memory Dump", whichever is available) is selected (see 3a if either of these is not in the list). Click "OK" (twice) and reboot if prompted.

3a. If the "Complete Memory Dump" option in step 4 is not available, you will need to manually set this registry value:
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl
Value: CrashDumpEnabled
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

4. You will need to reboot for these changes to take effect.

The next time that the system appears hung like you mentioned, please go to the keyboard and hold down the RIGHT CTRL key (NOT the left one) and press the SCROLL LOCK key twice to cause the computer to bugcheck and create a memory.dmp file. If it does create a .dmp file, Windows wasn't actually hung, and the .dmp will help us figure out what's causing it. However, if you press the keys right and it does NOT crash, you can be pretty certain the system itself has stopped servicing interrupts, and you have a hardware issue.

You might want to make the reg changes, reboot, and do a quick test when things are working to make sure you know how things work and how to do the crash via the keyboard before you get into a hang state.

ultralame · 04 Apr 2011

Gonna try that all now...

ultralame · 04 Apr 2011

I set it up and tested it, so I know the manual BSOD and dump worked. But when I tried to trigger it when it was locked-up from sleeping, it would not BSOD. So this means it's a hardware issue?

But 1) It was reliably sleeping with this hardware previously and 2) It still does work, maybe once in every 20 sleeps.

Is there a way to investigate the hardware?

**cluberti** · 04 Apr 2011

There may be, but those tools would likely come from the OEM. The only tools we have would be the usual CPU, memory, and video card stress testing tools. But to answer your question, the keyboard sequence generates an interrupt that Windows would have intercepted and dumped. In general, if the interrupts are still being serviced (and Windows is still running), you end up with a bugcheck. Given we're trying to sleep, either the interrupts are not being serviced by the hardware or Windows has already gone to sleep (or both). I'd start testing the hardware as the guides say, to make sure the easiest-to-test hardware is all functioning properly. After that, you need to make sure your BIOS is current, all of your Windows drivers are updated to their latest supported versions on Windows 7, etc. You can also try to restore to a restore point to before this occurred if possible, or reinstall the OS (which would be a last resort, of course).

Otherwise, you need to contact the OEM for further support if these tools don't bring out the culprit, unfortunately.