Strange problem I recently have...

Since a couple of days ago, my laptop will not go to sleep half of the time when I close the lid. Reopening it will show a black screen with the fan still running and the hard drive working overtime. A hard reset by using the power button is then the only option. This does not always happen but every once in two attempts it does this.

The things I have done shortly before this started:

-uninstalling the mcafee virusscanner that came pre-installed on this laptop. This thing has been on this since I purchased the machine a year ago and I've never bothered to get rid until recently.
This also seems to have activated Windows defender, because I suddenly see in my system restore list that a windows update's been installed while I have set windows update to allow me to decide when or whether I want to install an update.
Further examination shows this update was a definition file for Windows defender, a program I never knew I had until today. Googling showed that McAfee actually shuts out this program and its updates.

-After closing the lid I remembered I still had something to do so I did not wait for it to go to sleep and quickly reopened the lid... interrupting the interval between closing the lid and the 5 seconds it takes for it to prepare going into sleep mode.
A black screen awaited me with the same problems as I mentioned at the beginning of the post.

So which action do you think caused the problem and what can I do about it?

As Orbital Shark said, it's unlikely that an update to Windows Defender would cause the problems you're experiencing. Windows Defender is the default antispyware that comes with Windows 7. As soon as you begin using a different antispyware (or a full suite like you probably had with McAfee) WD is disabled to avoid conflict.

It's possible that something may have changed in your power plan settings that's causing the strange lid behavior. You might find this tutorial helpful in troubleshooting your settings.

Power Plan Settings - Change

Nope, I have not messed around there since I optimized that to my preferences a long time ago... I checked to be sure, but found nothing that has changed and thus allow a problem like this to suddenly surface. I also checked the guide and didn't find irregularities...

My problem is also somewhat different to that of most "help, my computer won't sleep" posts that are surfacing around the net... my computer will sleep most of the time when I close the lid... unfortunately, it sometimes does not and when reopening the lid leaves me with a black screen and a noise hdd.

Jacee said:

Did you install another anti-virus program? You need one to help keep your computer protected! MSE is free https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...2-33d813687a7f
Make sure McAfee is totally uninstalled scroll down to The Manual Removal of McAfee Uninstall McAfee

Turn on Windows Firewall in Services, and disable Windows Defender in Services.
(type services.msc in the start search box) Right click on both of those items, choose properties, then set them from the drop down box.

Thank you for your concern Jacee. I'm doing some online research to see which antivir is the best (read: has the least issues), and checking avast and avira.

The removal tool seems only for win xp according to the link? I'm on win7. thanks though, I used revo uninstaller to uninstall it... the program found 10000 directories and left over files which I all deleted... shocking this mcafee software.

I already turned off windows defender and seeing how it goes when it comes to my problem... might even do a windows restore to get to before the update and then turn it off to do it totally right...