Solved ASUS PK5E shuts down when ordered to sleep.

[mpab]

Hello. I have an ASUS PK5E-WiFi with the latest BIOS (1305). The processor is a Q6600 and the video card is an ATI Radeon 3870. It has worked with W7-64 for about 2 years.

It always went to sleep (S3) and resumed correctly, until about two months ago. I cannot relate it to any single update (there's been many from Windows, ATI Catalyst, Java...).
Whenever I put it to sleep, it would access the drive for a minute or so and shut down, like in hybernation. It would indeed resume as from hybernation, alas taking a much longer time than when booting up normally.
Lately it just takes the usual 1-2 seconds it took to go to sleep, but instead it shuts down. And when I turn it back on it complaints of having shut down unexpectedly.

Also there was a huge lag when booting up, even in failsafe mode: The screen would remain blank for a minute or so.

I have reset the BIOS, gone into failsafe mode, erased the ACPI Fixed Feature Button, and ATK0110 utility drivers and uninstalled the ATI Catalyst drivers, letting W7 install its own.

The boot time lag has gone away, but it still shuts down when ordered to sleep and complaints once back up as having been shut down unexpectedly.

It would be very nice to get some advice about what to look for.

Thanks in advance.

--addendum-- I think the "hybernate" thing I mentioned up there was the Hybrid Sleep feature. But the problem persists in that it shuts down when ordered to sleep.

 

[Maguscreed]

Power Options and Sleep Mode Problems - Vista Forums

That's most of what I would offer on this.

 

[mpab]

Because something erratic could mean a hardware issue, I decided to open the case, take the video and memories out, brush the mainboard and put them back on. There was very little dust to be found, but not sleep works again!

Thanks for the tip.