Random crash / shutdown when sleeping

An update ...

Graphic driver: Windows update offered me a new Intel G41 Express driver. I couldn't see which level it was but decided not to take it.

PSU: I swapped out the PSU and replaced it with the spare PSU, which seems to power the PC OK. However, the problem persists with the swapped PSU. I removed the CD/DVD drive, the Soundblaster card and the Wireless card to minimise the PSU current load.

PassMark Sleeper: This seems to be very good. Help says:

Power State ... Description

Working ... The system is fully on. Some devices may independently conserve power if there usage falls below a certain threshold.

Sleeping ... The system seems as though it’s shut down. Power consumption is reduced to one of the three sleep levels (see below). The lower the level, the more power that is conserved, but the longer it takes for the system to wake. Mouse movement or key presses will usually wake the system.

Soft Off or Hibernate ... The system appears to be off. Power consumption is very low. The operating system context is saved out to disk and no longer exists in RAM. Wake up usually results in hardware boot, but not software boot.

Mechanical Off ... No power consumption. A full reboot will be required to start up the system.

ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is an industry wide standard that defines a power management and configuration mechanism for hardware and operating systems. ACPI defines six discrete power states. Lower states consume more power, but have a smaller latency on wake up.

S0 – Working
S1 – Sleeping
S2 – Sleeping
S3 – Sleeping
S4 – Hibernate
S5 – Off

Sleeper allows the user to put the system into sleep state S1, S2, S3 or S4. To turn off or reboot the computer, see the Rebooter application also available from PassMark.

Note that not all computer systems will support all power states. It is not unusual for just S1 and S4 to be supported or S1, S3 and S4. Attempting to put a system into an unsupported state results in the next lowest supported state being chosen.

It tells me that my PC supports S1, S3 and S4, so I set up a cycle of: sleep S1 for 30 sec > wake for 60 sec > sleep S3 for 30 sec > wake for 60 sec > sleep for S1 for 30 sec > ... etc. Sometimes it runs several times, but it always seems to fail while sleeping in the S3 (deepest) sleep state - see output below where it failed on the first S3 state.

I read elsewhere that the deepest sleep state leaves only the memory powered (lighter sleeps leave other stuff powered). I have 2 x 2GB memory cards = 4GB total.

EDIT. I now think that statement is wrong. My desktop supports Hybrid sleep as the default sleep mode, so I think these states are: (see http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/comparin...ep-on-windows/)

S1 Sleep as in the old days. The memory is powered up (possibly at low voltage because it is not being changed, it just needs to retain the data), but everything else is powered down. The problem is that a power cut will lose what is in memory

S3 Hybrid sleep. User data in memory is first written to disk, and the PC is then put to sleep as in S1. If there is no power cut while sleeping, then it comes out of sleep exactly like S1.

But if there was a power cut, then user data and system in memory are lost, but user data is still available on disk and can be recovered.

This is the output I got from Sleeper for the last failure with the swapped PSU:

2014-Jun-25 12:11:11 **********************************************************************
2014-Jun-25 12:11:11 Sleeper V2.3 (Build: 1009), built on Oct 15 2012 10:38:25
2014-Jun-25 12:11:11 Attempting to load powrprof.dll
2014-Jun-25 12:11:11 **********************************************************************
2014-Jun-25 12:11:11 GlobalPowerPolicy.user.GlobalFlags = 0x12
2014-Jun-25 12:11:12 WAKE UP FROM S1, CYCLE 1, Sleeper restart, possible power cycle
2014-Jun-25 12:11:12 SLEEP TIME TOO LONG WARNING, Sleep time 1403694672sec

2014-Jun-25 12:11:26 Going to sleep, S1, Unforced, Duration 30sec
2014-Jun-25 12:11:26 Setting wake time at Wed Jun 25 12:11:56 2014
2014-Jun-25 12:12:14 Waitable timer triggered.
2014-Jun-25 12:12:14 Wake up from S1, Cycle 1
2014-Jun-25 12:12:14 Sleep time too long warning, Sleep time 48sec
2014-Jun-25 12:12:14 Successfully left sleep state S1...

2014-Jun-25 12:12:14 About to enter sleep state S3...
2014-Jun-25 12:13:16 Going to sleep, S3, Unforced, Duration 30sec
2014-Jun-25 12:13:16 Setting wake time at Wed Jun 25 12:13:46 2014

... and it powered itself off. I will continue checking to see if it powers off immediately, or when it gets the wake up signal - I expect the latter.

I have attached a new set of debug files - they are debug-Lounge-PC-0002.zip and I would greatly appreciate any hints they suggest. I left all the original dmp files in so it includes those I posted before. Hopefully the drivers bits might reveal something new.

John may I ask what may be a daft question and that is why do you use sleep mode instead of powering off when not using the machine?.

One thing you did mention to was that one should not power up any PSU without and external load even if it is only a fan.

You could if you like test the POWER_GOOD signal at pin 8 on the 24 pin socket as this is the line that keeps the PSU going see Power Supply 101: A Reference Of Specifications - Power Supplies You will see the volts that it has to be and please use a digital multimeter a NOT and analogue one - they inject volts to work

This might be handy if I have not posted it before
PSU - Test DC Output Voltage

John no probs mate if you are having long boot up times take a read of this
Optimize Windows 7 one of the best tips in there is point 8. But they all really slash the boot up times:)

PS Meant to add I see in the specs you have free AVG of which I ma not a fan is there another suite you can use?? http://www.techsupportalert.com/best...s-software.htm
and what RAM have you got/ DDR2? or DDR3?

Yep John I only have the security ticked on the Startup tab and nothing in the Boot options.

A bit OT but here are three I keep as on call scanners and often refer to them in posts where malware is a might be (you might have them already)


http://www.superantispyware.com/

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

download from bleeping computer – delete any rubbishthese find.

If you are tempted to switch then there are plenty to choose from in that link I sent and I have tested most of them on the tester machine at home and I found Bitdefender, Avast, and Avira to be quite good.
But I have this thing about free stuff like that insomuch for about $0.10 a day I run the full Kaspersky 2014 and cannot really see that breaking the bank.
But I digress - sorry.

My apologies for the delay in this update, especially as I have to say that while it is now fixed (I rebuilt Windows 7) I have been unable to track down what was causing it. I had thought it was probably the Intel G41 Express Graphics driver but after rebuilding W7, I re-installed the graphics driver I had been using previously - 8.15.10.1851- when the "power off while sleeping" happened and despite sleeping 50 times, it never powered down. So something else fixed it and I have no idea what it was.

I am however very pleased that I rebuilt Windows 7, especially as it was much easier than I had expected it to be; and I am very pleased about the new SSD disk. Apparently the speed improvement you get with SSD has little to do with the fast read / write speed - rather it is because

a) the latency for accessing many smaller than 4kB files used during W7 startup is much lower, so the whole startup is much faster. I can go form clicking on RESTART to rebooting and using it in less than 50 seconds (2 x 2.6GHz, 4GB).

b) a typical HDD does about 10,000 I/O operations/second but my SSD does 70,000 I/O ops/second. This means that the PC is MUCH more responsive when running multiple applications. It doesn't behave sluggishly while installing Windows updates (and I applied 150+ updates in about 35-40 minutes!) and, as soon as the desktop appears, I can use applications.

Windows 7 recognised I had a SSD and automatically switched off defrag for it (defrag just wastes writes while doing nothing to improve performance), and also enabled TRIM (before you can write to a a deleted file's blocks marked "not in use", you must erase the data on thos blocks - TRIM goes round in the background and erases all the data on "not in use" blocks so you don't have to wait when writing).

Thank you everyone for all your help.

Added information. I have just discovered that the driver shipped with the PC was 8.15.10.1851. I have Factory Image partition on my disk which holds the system information for rebuilding the image if you use the HP Recovery. I was never able to look inside this partition but now it is not a partition on my boot disk I can see inside. F:\hp\Drv\APP00300\IntelGfxELCG_15.15.2.1851.WHQL_ALL_DRV_W6_WW.txt is a TXT file describing the driver and it says:

Block: IntelGfxELCG_15.15.2.1851.WHQL_ALL_DRV_W6_WW
Modified by: Minh Phu
Created by: Soyoung Ahn
Creation Date: Sat. July 25, 2009

Description:
------------

Intel Graphics Driver - WHQL'd

DriverVer=07/21/2009,8.15.10.1851

I don't know why Windows Update updated this driver to 8.15.10.2202 but it did. I therefore expected that once I re-installed the ...1851 driver, Update would promptly update it to ... 2202. But Update hasn't and when I check if I have the latest driver, it says I have.

It used to be thought a sign of madness to do the same thing while expecting a different outcome but Microsoft seems to have has established that as a norm! I shall take consolation in the Windows Haikku:
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.