Windows fails to wake from sleep, then corrupts boot

Hi,

I am running Windows 7 Pro x64 and I am having an issue where my computer goes into sleep mode, fails to wake from sleep, strangely resumes its state once I do a cold restart, and then after restarting again, refuses to boot.

Here is what's happening step-by-step:
Computer goes to sleep based on the time set in the Balance Power options scheme. Fine. Often, computer wakes up perfectly fine from moving the mouse or pressing a key. Fine. Very occasionally however, upon waking up the computer, the lights, keyboard lights, fans and everything else except for the display comes on. I am forced to do a cold shutdown by pressing the reset button. Upon booting up, Windows displays "Restarting Windows" rather than "Starting Windows" and resumes its state when it went to sleep. Strange but OK. Everything seems to work normally. The problems come in when I then do a shutdown or restart after it has resumed from the cold shutdown. The computer shuts down perfectly fine but during the next boot, freezes right during the animation of the windows logo and immediately restarts the computer and launches into the DOS-looking prompt asking whether I want to do a Startup Repair because the computer failed to boot.

I have tried Startup Repair from HD and from the Windows disc and neither have done anything. I am usually forced to just reformat everything and start anew. This problem recently started occurring after I installed an Intel X-25m 120GB ssd and put the Windows partition on it. I'm not sure if that's related to the problem. Also, all of my power options are set to the Windows default.

My hardware is:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 factory 2.4Ghz
RAM: Corsair Dominator DDR2 4x1GB
HDD: Intel X25m SSD 120GB (Windows) + Seagate 400GB HDD (everything else)
Mobo: Intel DG965OT
Video: ATI HIS Radeon HD 5770

This has become a major issue for me and I would like to avoid going through the hassle of reformatting every 2 weeks. I really really really appreciate any input you have in helping me solve this problem. thanks!

Hi,

I just recently got hit with a similiar problem, it unfortunately resulted in a corrupted BIOS that is unrepairable, it ends up locked in a low power state. There is no one single reason why Windows fails to wake up, and it's kind of a common problem. From the research I've put into it, hardware and the version of Windows does not matter. You'll either suffer from it, or you won't. My recommendation would be to disable both your display and PC sleep settings, and stick to manually shutting down and a screensaver to completely avoid it before any possible hardware damage is inflicted, and until there is more information available on it. The CPU, mobo and PSU are the most likely to become damaged.

If you still wish to use Sleep, make sure all your drivers are up to date, along with Windows, might make a small difference.

If you have another system available to you, or are able to borrow a mates, go ahead and use it to test your hardware for faults incase your situation is hardware based, and not failed coding on Microsoft's part. Also on that note, try removing your SSD for a week or two (or however long it usually takes before your system decides to sleep in) and see if it solves it, and post back with results.

I would still keep an eye on here, no less, incase a solution comes to light. Go ahead and do some Google searches on the issue, the plethora of possible fixes people have tried may work for you.

If possible, can you recall anything else you have done before, or just as the problem started occurring? Also, have you noticed your PC self-waking on occasion?

- Ryuku

I have reinstalled Windows but this time disabled hybrid sleep. I feel there may be an issue with the OS not being optimized to save the current state to an SSD. As it stands, I don't really have the time to gut out the SSD from my desktop. I will keep this thread posted if I encounter this issue again. Thanks for all of y'alls help!