Inexplicable (to me, at least) sleep problem

[Not Myself]

Inexplicable (to me, at least) sleep problem (SOLVED)

I've been having computer sleep problems, so yesterday, I rebooted, and set monitor and computer to go to sleep after one minute. When that worked, I then increased the sleep time for both one step at a time in the Power Options time choices.

I ended the day yesterday with both set for one hour. That worked so well that at 0445, SuperAntiSpyware woke the computer, ran the daily scheduled scan, and the computer went back to sleep. I woke the machine a while later, and set the time for both to two hours.

Without opening any other programs than the ones that were running yesterday, the computer failed to go to sleep after two hours. I then reset the time to one minute to run a quick test; after one minute, the monitor went to sleep, but the computer did not.

That last behavior is what I have been encountering for several days, forcing a reboot to get the computer to go to sleep as scheduled. Each time this has happened, I first test by setting the sleep interval to one minute; when that works, I reset the monitor to thirty minutes, the computer to two house. I then find, usually the same day, that the computer will again not go to sleep as scheduled.

I have neither any idea as to why this is taking place, nor any idea how I might find out what the cause is and fix it. Suggestions, ideas, incantations, chants, and/or other methodologies to ameliorate the problem accepted.

 

[Not Myself]

Ninety-seven views, no replies, so, in the all-too-likely event that this bump will prove fruitless alas, I'm going to do this only once.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Pretty weird stuff going on are you using a created power plan or a built in power plan and adjusting the sleep timer ?
Review this tutorial it might show all that's able to wake or prevent sleep,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/122019-devices-see-devices-able-wake-up-computer.html
Click Start and type in the search box,
msconfig
Click on the suggestion on top or hit the Enter key,
Go to the Startup section and take some screen shots for a complete list,
Go to the Services section and on the bottom left Check the box to Hide All Microsoft services,
Repeat the screen shots,
See the links above my signature on how to take and upload screen shots here,
Cheers.

 

[Not Myself]

"Pretty weird stuff going on are you using a created power plan or a built in power plan and adjusting the sleep timer ?"

Not weird at all. As I only do weird, well, then, `weird' is the new normal....

As I wrote in my original post, I am using (and always have used) a built-in power plan, adjusting the sleep timer. Again, as in the first post, I had gone through the timer step by step, with the same settings for both the monitor and computer; this worked through one hour, but after I selected two hours, sleep stopped sleeping.

Herewith the requested screen shots.





Herewith the second, my thanks for offering assistance.

 

[gregrocker]

Win7 performs best with the cleanest boot possible. I only allow AV, Sync, Flash updater.

Is that Comodo the firewall or a duplicate AV to Avast? You don't really need more than MSE with Win7 firewall for best performance, unless you get infected regularly for which MBAM Real Time will stop it cold.

What I'd do is turn off all of those except AV and SAS if you own the Real Time protection - which may be overkill since I only ever need it if I'm chasing down an invader.

Then reboot and test again with Sleep set to 1 minute. I would also set Hibernate to 2 minutes because I think it is a better Shutdown and is perfected in Win7. No need to keep power to the RAM when you can achieve the same thing and have the fast startup with Hibernate. But that's my opinion.

If you find Sleep works without all the freeloaders starting on Win7's back, then I would only re-enable those you absolutely need running with Windows as they become apparent, testing as you go if things change.

 

[Not Myself]

gregrocker: My setup has been basically the same for at least two years, likely longer, and the sleep problem has existed for perhaps a week. Changing everything seems to me to be unwarranted, as it would not necessarily fix the problem.

Avast! is antivirus, Comodo firewall, no duplication there. I don't have MSE, which continues to receive poor ratings.


And, again, I have set sleep to one minute, then to two, and on, until I reached 120 minutes during a day-long testing session that ended shortly before I started this request for assistance, as it was after reaching two hour sleep in Power Options that sleep failed. There were no changes in the setup nor in programs running at the time, namely WordPerfect, Thunderbird, and Firefox, the three programs that always are running.

 

[HammerHead]

Race

I notice Gregrocker reccomended one sec and two secs for next action. This is good. I would even spread them out slightly further. When they are set to the same you run the risk of a race before they are executed. A race means one might not get executed.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Did you get a list of devices from the tutorial ?
Cheers.

 

[Not Myself]

Hi,
Did you get a list of devices from the tutorial ?
Cheers.

Forgot to list the two, which I already knew, namely the keyboard and the mouse.

 

[andrew129260]

While I do find and agree that that is a long startup list, if it suddenly started happening last week that is a key point there. (although you really should disable some of them, a lot of them are unnecessary but it is your machine.)

Basic troubleshooting 101:

1.) Has any applications updated in the last week since when the issue began?

2.) Another thing that would be smart to do is find each program that is in your startup list and check the change log on there website and see what was changed. Another idea is too look into their forums and see if anyone is reporting a similar issue.

3.) If you did a system restore back to the time it was working and this solves the issue at hand, we then can look into what program is causing it.

4.) Did you get a new mouse/keyboard/hardware lately?

5.) Try and deselect an application from starting at boot in msconfig one at a time, and then see if a certain program is causing it.

6.) Please see this guide: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/179257-wake-source-read-event-viewer-log.html to see what it reports is waking it.

 

[Layback Bear]

Any one of those programs in that very long list of startup programs could of updated and changed how the computer works. So because it didn't use to do this with all those startup programs to me means nothing.
We are all just one update away from a problem if the update doesn't work well with your system.

 

[Not Myself]

Quoth Andrew:

Now to the issue at hand:

@Not Myself

While I do find and agree that that is a long startup list, if it suddenly started happening last week that is a key point there. (although you really should disable some of them, a lot of them are unnecessary but it is your machine.)

Basic troubleshooting 101:

1.) Has any applications updated in the last week since when the issue began?

2.) Another thing that would be smart to do is find each program that is in your startup list and check the change log on there website and see what was changed. Another idea is too look into their forums and see if anyone is reporting a similar issue.

3.) If you did a system restore back to the time it was working and this solves the issue at hand, we then can look into what program is causing it.

4.) Did you get a new mouse/keyboard/hardware lately?

5.) Try and deselect an application from starting at boot in msconfig one at a time, and then see if a certain program is causing it.

6.) Please see this guide: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/179257-wake-source-read-event-viewer-log.html to see what it reports is waking it.[/QUOTE]

===
I'm still not myself, but here's my reply:

All of the startup programs that I have added are for programs that I use and/or are ones that monitor things I use or do, so, no, I won't disable them, as they are needed for my purposes.

Last night, when I saw that the computer was still asleep, I had to wake the monitor to put the machine to sleep, as the manual sleep keys does that anyway. I saw your email about your latest contribution, which later led me to recall that WinPatrol had had two updates recently.

This morning, the first thing I did, with but little hope, was to exit WinPatrol, then set sleep to one minute. To my great surprise, both the monitor and computer went to sleep. I should have tested sleep before exiting WinPatrol, so my test of exiting the program was not, unfortunately conclusive. I did not run the sleep test first, assuming that, as the computer had not gone to sleep last night, sleep was not working.

I subsequently found that there was another WinPatrol update yesterday, to fix a few errors in the previous version, none of which seemed to be connected to the sleep problem I've been encountering, but I have no way of knowing if there might be a connection.

I now have at least one possible culprit to test. If no luck, then I shall progress to your other suggestions.

 

[gregrocker]

If you'd simply disable all Startups for a single reboot to see if the problem recurs, then you'd know that is what it's about without having to read logs for hours.

May I ask what WinPatrol is needed to start up with Windows for? To monitor startups? I think you're beyond that. You have enough startups to choke a horse.

 

[Layback Bear]

All ready chocked one horse to death and working on the second one.

Example from my computer and it works just fine.

 

[Not Myself]

If you'd simply disable all Startups for a single reboot to see if the problem recurs, then you'd know that is what it's about without having to read logs for hours.

May I ask what WinPatrol is needed to start up with Windows for? To monitor startups? I think you're beyond that. You have enough startups to choke a horse.

1. WinPatrol does quite a bit more than monitoring startups, so, as with my other personal startup items, it is of little use if it does not run at all times. WinPatrol has some twelve separate functions.

2. I could disable all startups, of course, and if my WinPatrol theory does not pan out, that would be a reasonable next step. Unfortunately, if that does work, then I'd have to re-enable a few startups, then spend several hours to see if the problem recurs, and so on. I need to find and fix the culprit, I'm just tired of testing, knowing that testing is nonetheless the likely answer.

3. Could we please drop the discussion about my startup list? It has been that way for several years, and, as I have stated, it does what I want and/or need, so it shall remain as it is. It not only does not cause problems, it allows me to run my computer as I see fit. I don't care what others say, they are not me, they don't use my computer. Right now, I'm using 5% CPU, 53% Ram, not even close to choking a horse; WinPatrol, for example, is using a grand total of 0% CPU, 6572K Ram, about the equivalent of perhaps a teaspoon of oats.

 

[gregrocker]

I am referring to issues, not resources, and you have issues.

Startup programs put you at their mercy instead of what we know is a perfect OS. As Jack pointed out, at any time an Update can conflict with a poorly-written startup. They are also almost all spying on you to gain valuable consumer information they can use or sell. Best to minimize them.

Good luck.

 

[Layback Bear]

Not Myself please don't confuse me with someone that wants to argue because I don't.
You can use your computer anyway you desire. You asked for help and that was the help I offered.
You most certainly don't have to follow anybody's recommendations or suggestions if you don't care to. It's your computer.

You have 71 programs in your msconfig Startup and if that is what you think you need it's fine with me.

 

[Not Myself]

Not Myself please don't confuse me with someone that wants to argue because I don't.
You can use your computer anyway you desire. You asked for help and that was the help I offered.
You most certainly don't have to follow anybody's recommendations or suggestions if you don't care to. It's your computer.

You have 71 programs in your msconfig Startup and if that is what you think you need it's fine with me.

So, you want to spoil my date by not arguing? Shucks....

Examples of what is in my startup conglomeration: Mouse, password manager, SuperAntiSpyware, Free Download Manager (and at least one that I thought I had removed,) or, in other words, as previously stated, nearly all are things that are supposed to be there. I don't really know what the Intel entries are, perhaps the built-in Intel graphics in my Core-i5 chip--but do know that the one time I disabled at least one or two of those in testing for whatever I was testing at the time, I had a difficult time getting the computer to reboot. I was able to get it to boot into safe mode, which by itself restored the disabled Intel entries to the enabled state.

(Oh, yes, thanks for your message, which does completely clarify your position. I don't know why the startup list was even raised as an issue, other than yesterday's message asking if anything in the list had been updated recently, a quite reasonable question.)

 

[Not Myself]

I stated, quite clearly that all the startup items that I put there are for programs that I use constantly. I could remove those startup entries and then start each program manually after booting; I prefer to simplify matters by letting the computer start for me those things that I would otherwise start one at a time.

I have no idea whatsoever as to why there are other startup entries, nor do I care, nor have I cared, nor shall I care, given that the entire set of startup entries has worked correctly for now over two years, and likely much longer than that (this computer was more or less cloned from an older one, which would have had much the same startup set.) The startup set not being broken, I shall not fix it.

I don't care one whit what some contrived document says I should do, given that what I do do is what I should do. Those who want to use the document are free to do so, but to accuse me of making blatantly false statements is beyond the pale, and is not something you have any right to do.

 

[ThrashZone]

If I hadn't asked for your startup and services screen shots I would of asked for your uninstall a program list,
Which I suppose they are the same size in your case
The only difference would be the uninstall a program list might show Installed dates "if" the page view is setup correctly,
The startup and services is usually the easiest for an op to gather "in a normal world" your being not so normal

That is exactly why I asked for the list to see what we here at SevenForums are facing by attempting to help others and yourself,
Resistance is futile
Cheers.