Won't wake from sleep and fans on full - needs to be shutdown

Hi I am a fairly capable person, fairly confident on my computer but don't always know all the jargon and abbreviations you guys use, so please bear with me.

I just had to do a clean system install as my computer was running slow and nothing else helped. It is running lovely in general now except that an old symptom from way back that I had solved (and cannot remember how) has returned.
When the computer powers down to save energy (if I walk away) usually I click the mouse and it wakes, but now it won't wake and the fans come on fully and they just don't stop until I press the power button to shut it down. Then when I start it up again it acts normal, no error message etc. Today it also seemed to shut itself down when I went out for a while and had left it on a dell diagnostic thing on the dell support website (that bore no fruit, didn't seem to do anything).

I wish for the life of me that I could remember what 'fixed' this before but it was a few years ago and being a mother of a small child I only have half a brain for remembering these things.

ETA it regularly now shuts itself down when left to sleep for a while, never had that before?

I really hope someone can help?

Tigermama said:

Hi I am a fairly capable person, fairly confident on my computer but don't always know all the jargon and abbreviations you guys use, so please bear with me.

I just had to do a clean system install as my computer was running slow and nothing else helped. It is running lovely in general now except that an old symptom from way back that I had solved (and cannot remember how) has returned.
When the computer powers down to save energy (if I walk away) usually I click the mouse and it wakes, but now it won't wake and the fans come on fully and they just don't stop until I press the power button to shut it down. Then when I start it up again it acts normal, no error message etc. Today it also seemed to shut itself down when I went out for a while and had left it on a dell diagnostic thing on the dell support website (that bore no fruit, didn't seem to do anything).

I wish for the life of me that I could remember what 'fixed' this before but it was a few years ago and being a mother of a small child I only have half a brain for remembering these things.

ETA it regularly now shuts itself down when left to sleep for a while, never had that before?

I really hope someone can help?

Hi Tigermama,

Welcome to Seven forums.

Please make sure that mouse is allowed to wakeup the system from the sleep mode. Check this link below which would help you:

Devices - Allow or Prevent to Wake Up Computer

Also, let us know the model number of the system you have so we can provide further assistance.

If you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us.

Tigermama said:

Thanks for responding, I am on win 7 64 bit. Checked the mouse and it is set to allow to wake from sleep.

Sometimes I can walk away and come back shake the mouse and it wakes, sometimes I come back and the whole thing has shut down - then when I wake it it acts like nothing happened (no error messages), sometimes I come back and I shake the mouse or tap a keyboard key, and all the fans come on and won't stop, blank screen. I shut down then after a few moments start up and sometimes it 'resumes windows', and sometimes the mouse and keyboard light up but the display won't come on, I can turn the display off and back on again and still nothing, then at some point it comes back after a few more on-and-off's. So sometimes it feels like the computer has started up fine but the monitor hasn't, but I don't see how that causes the fans blaring on the times it won't wake at all?

The computer is set to the default 'Balanced' power settings.

It is so frustrating because I know this happened a few years ago and I did somehow find the solution, but now it has returned after a clean system install I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

I can say that whenever I have updated the ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 driver package from the official website and it included catalyst control center, it used to cause all sorts of problems until I unstallled CCC and just kept the basics.

Hi Tigermama,

Thanks for providing us this information. Kindly update the BIOS and video drivers from the link below:

BIOS

http://downloads.dell.com/bios/530_1018.EXE

ATI Video Card

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...w-vista64.aspx

Please update it and let us know the results.

Tigermama said:

Thanks for the advice, I thought I had got the latest AMD driver but this was more recent
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...w-vista64.aspx

I am VERY reluctant to update the BIOS as when I first got this machine my brother recommended the same and when I updated to that version I had TERRIBLE problems (can't remember specifically). It took ages trawling through forums for us to find a way to uninstall and revert back to original version and the horribleness stopped so please don't think me ungrateful if I decline that suggestion.

Having now been explained what hibernation is I realise that the 'shutting down' that was happening on it's own was hibernation because as I started it back up again it would 'resume' windows and be back where I left off. That fact that it was hibernating is still weird because I had the power settings on default 'balanced' and it never used to do it before the clean install on same default settings. I have now adjusted them slightly put computer to sleep & turn off display to one hour each just so it doesn't happen quite so often. Hubby thinks that the whirring fans and black screen seems to happen when we actively put the computer to sleep rather than let it power down itself, but i can't be sure of that.

Hi Tigermama,

Thanks for your reply. I understand you have the latest video drivers and you don't wish to update the BIOS of the system.

You are correct as Hibernation would save all the files on RAM to the harddrive and shut down the system. And once you press the power button it would switch on the system and resume to the working state.

Whereas in sleep system would go in power saving mode and will supply power to only essential components of the system.

Check the below link which would explain in detail:

Hibernation vs Sleep?

If you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us.

To try life without hybernating, get into an Admin elevated command prompt and just:

powercfg -h off

That's it, gone!

powercfg -h on

If you want it back.

I don't use it myself.

Fans on FULL sounds like straining the hardware when it's coming back alive, I'd just shutdown system completely if you are going to not be using for a while.

Adjust your power plans perhaps, otherwise.

Tigermama said:

Hi there, the fact that it is hibernating has cleared up my confusion about it appearing to shut down, but I do still have this issue of it regularly not wanting to wake from hibernation / sleep, that when I click the mouse the screen doesn't wake and the fans whir up loudly and will not stop until I push and hold the power button which puts it back into hibernation again and I have to click it again to wake up, this is the main problem that bothers me.

Thanks

Hi Tigermama,

System would not wake up with Mouse if it has been put to hibernation. As in hibernation system gets shut down and can only be powered on using the power button.

As suggested by Faladu: disable the hibernation and then check if system comes back normally from the sleep mode or not.

Kindly check this and let us know.