Windows 7 - Sleep taking too long to start

Hello,
I'm fresh with Win 7(64-bit). I've used WindowsXp till week ago. Never tried Vista. On WindowsXP when I press "Sleep" button system turns off both graphic and hard drive instantly. Now days when I press "Sleep", on win 7, it takes him 30 sec at best to turn off hard disk and power. It seams too long to be considered normal since same hardware was used with WindowsXp. I was wondering if this is normal for win 7 and can I do anything to boost that time. I searched web for similar questions and found no luck.

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate.

Any thoughts on this subject will be appreciated

Close all active tasks before you press sleep and see whether that is the same. Maybe you have a task that needs "special attention".

Thanks for quick replay . I've done as you suggested. With all active tasks closed and some background as well (skype, gtalk) it took 22-23 sec to go quiet completely. Only ZoneAlarm and system tasks were running. Still doesn't seam right compared to WindowsXp .

Right, that is kind of slow. I could not find your system specs. I suggest you update your profile. The only other reason I can think of right now is marginal hardware. And a comparison with XP makes no sense. Those are 2 different worlds.

Info should be there now.

Thank you for taking time and helping me out.

Hmm, your hardware is certainly not at fault. There is enough muscle. Other than that I do not really have a clue of what could be going on. There is also very little on this subject on the web. You might want to read this thread which describes a similar problem as yours.

Lack off info on web was the reason I wrote here in the first place. I couldn't decide if this is normal Windows 7 behavior or it was just my PC that has this problem. That thread you linked gives me small hope that in time this "problem" will become smaller. They mentioned that Windows 7 takes time to learn user's habits and improves PC performance.

I prefer using sleep during the day so it bothers me a bit that I have to wait for 23-30 sec to see if it will turn off components properly because once it just turned off graphics and buged everything else.

Thank you for trying to help out, I really appreciate it .
I'll check this thread now and then and see if someone pops out with similar problem or solution for it.

ps. I was curios to see how long it will take my pc to turn off normal way and it took about 19-20 sec.