Hibernation broken

luckycharms · 02 Aug 2010

Hi Folks,

Hibernation on my machine has been broken for a couple months now. Due to the crappy circumstances in which the problem occurred, no restore point is available prior to the problem cropping up.

The Problem: When I select hibernate, the screen goes black and the hard drive cranks away for 10 or 15 seconds or so. Then the computer beeps, and the login screen appears. I log back in, and all my apps are there - nothing has closed.

Standby works just fine.

I've tried disabling/enabling hibernation, and I've tried deleting the hiberfil.sys file, all to no avail. Nothing in the system logs seems to hint at any problem with hibernation (that I can decipher, anyway. there are other errors in the log, but don't seem related.).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Alex

Win 7 Pro x64
Thinkpad T400 2764-CTO
6 GB RAM

ttran · 02 Aug 2010

Run system file check please:

Open an elevated command prompt and enter sfc /scannow.

If it give you error and unable to fix (after several scan repretely), then please do a Repair Install

luckycharms · 03 Aug 2010

No errors reported (unfortunately). Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Alex

C:\Users\xxx>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

luckycharms · 03 Aug 2010

I said before that there weren't any relevant errors in the logs, but perhaps that's not totally true. I get regular ACPI Event ID 13 errors:

"The embedded controller (EC) did not respond within the specified timeout period. This may indicate that there is an error in the EC hardware or firmware or that the BIOS is accessing the EC incorrectly. You should check with your computer manufacturer for an upgraded BIOS. In some situations, this error may cause the computer to function incorrectly."

Not sure that has anything to do with anything, but thought I'd mention it...

ttran · 03 Aug 2010

A hardware device might be keeping your computer awake. USB flash drives and USB mice are common devices that can keep your computer awake. Make sure that you have the most current drivers all of your devices. For more information, see Update drivers: recommended links.
To prevent a device from waking your computer
1. Open Device Manager by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, and then, under System, clicking Device Manager.* If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
2. In the list of hardware categories, find the device that you want to prevent from waking your computer, and then double-click the device name.
3. Click the Power Management tab and then clear the Allow this device to wake the computer check box.
4. Click OK.
A program or scheduled task might be waking your computer. By default, Power Option settings do not allow scheduled tasks to wake the computer from sleep or hibernate. However, some programs might awaken the computer if these settings have been changed.
To prevent programs from waking your computer
1. Open Power Options by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, and then clicking Power Options.
2. On the Select a power plan page, click Change plan settings for the plan that you want to change.
3. On the Change settings for the plan page, click Change advanced power settings.
4. On the Advanced settings tab, expand Sleep, expand Allow wake timers, choose Disable for both when your computer is running on battery and when it's plugged in, and then click OK.

luckycharms · 04 Aug 2010

Even in clean boot mode, with no devices attached, I can't hibernate. So, there's no device that's causing the problem. Setting Allow Wake Timers to disabled doesn't help either.

Any other ideas as to how to diagnose the problem?

thanks,
alex

Borg 386 · 04 Aug 2010

One of my friends had this problem with a customers computer (running XP), and he tracked it down to the BIOS setting.

He also mentioned the disk had to have enough free space (25% I think).

Look at the BIOS and see if the power setting is set properly. (ACPI I believe)

luckycharms · 04 Aug 2010

@Borg - there doesn't seem to be any sort of setting relating to ACPI in my bios (my bios is updated to the latest version).

Borg 386 · 05 Aug 2010

Well, it's probably different on your sys since every one is a little bit different

It would still be worth the time to look up the specs on your system & find out what the BIOS should be set on to allow hibernation, if that's not the problem, that's one probability you eliminated

luckycharms · 05 Aug 2010

Ok - I noticed something strange. My hiberfil.sys file is 4.6 GB. However, I have 6GB of RAM installed. I've disabled and re-enabled hibernation (powercfg -h on/off), but still have a 4.6 GB hiberfil.sys. Is this right, or is there something wrong happening here?

edit: nevermind - seems you can set your hiberfil.sys to be smaller than ram (i assume it just expands if it needs more). running powercfg -h -size 100 doesn't help.