VISTA: to sleep or not to sleep??

All of a sudden this past Sunday, my DESKTOP PC stopped going to sleep automatically.
After owning it about 3 weeks.
Nothing changed at that time.

Did some googling, installed SP1, did a system restore, checked the power options--including the media one, the BIOS says it can sleep, nothing will get it to sleep for more than a few seconds to a few minutes.

So, I give up.
I am going to turn the sleep function to NEVER, and hibernate to NEVER.

How important is it to have a desktop sleep? After all, my last PC was on 24/7 for the better part of the last 4 years. (And, yeah, I know to be kind to it now and then and give it a brief rest )
Should I keep the hard drive scheduled to turn off after 20 minutes, even though the computer will not be going to sleep?

I keep thinking I should contact Dell or M$, but frankly, I wonder if it's even worth it *SIGH*.

Thoughts, fellow VISTA owners??????

Thanks for your time and input


[edit on 2-4-2008 by DontTreadOnMe]

I turn all of my sleep and hibernate functions off the minute I get a new computer....

I have had problems in the past with that function and quite honestly, I like having my PC ready when I sit down.

I don't want to wait until it wakes up; I'm not married to it....

Semper

Ya I agree, you don't need that function on a desktop because you don't really need to save any power... At least not yet...

Ya don't worry about the sleep function unless you don't want someone else in your home getting into the computer when you don't use it... But then you'd have to set a password as well.. And a screen saver will do the same thing... but anyway...

Mainly for laptops... But if you really want to fix the problem you might run a spyware check then use a good registry editor like Vista Manager to clean the registry... It sounds like something a spyware might do in order to continue collecting information... Might even run a virus check just to be safe... Good LUCK!! :bnghd:

actually, putting it to sleep does use significantly less power, and for the most part waking it up can be pretty much instantaneous. i tend to have the opposite problem though. if i put them to sleep there's no guarantee they'll wake up properly. =)

i also have just left my boxes on 24/7, but since i'm paying my own bills and i'm trying to do the little things to be a little greener, i started putting them in standby overnight. worked fine until i built my new systems. my machine is fine - wakes up instantly when i press a key on the keyboard, but my wife's pc with the same hardware config hangs and i have to actually unplug it and plug it back in to get it to boot (no, pressing reset or holding the power button for soft off doesn't work.) only difference is i run vista and she's on xp. it was fine at first though so i suspect a driver or patch broke something. i just haven't had a chance to investigate too deeply.

The only times I had problems with the sleep function on Vista was when I had forgotten the USB scanner connected to the computer and the USB signal from the scanner was keeping the computer from sleeping.

I only shut down my computer more or less two times each month, maybe less, I always put it to sleep.

my computer has problems sleeping

i have vista

i have about a thoursand other problems too

no recycle bin being one of them...

i seriously hate it and my computer won't let me intall Xp on it cause it says you can't install an older version of windows over a newer one

freaking crazy vista

i hate it

Originally posted by Roland Deschain
i seriously hate it and my computer won't let me intall Xp on it cause it says you can't install an older version of windows over a newer one

freaking crazy vista

i hate it

Roland, I think you can't install it over Vista, you would have to partition your hard drive.
However, I don't know how that is done, but from what I understand it's not too hard. Maybe start another thread asking, or do a google search.

Due to asking here, there and a lot of other places, I am pretty sure I found my problem:

My Network Connection was keeping it awake.
I had to disconnect my router(either it went bad or the cable went bad) and I'm guessing the router blocked certain packets , and immediately, sleep disappeared.
www.tutorials-win.com...

Here's more help for vista slepp, although it didn't seem to solve my problem, but maybe I missed something
www.vistax64.com...

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


Dtom:

You are correct and here is why.
When a computer is connected to a network-ie for you connected to the interent, "keep alive" packets are sent out.

Basicly it is the servers seeing if you are still out there.

This can happen in XP but it is a known issue with Vista, yeah I know, what isn't???:shk:

Originally posted by mrmonsoon
Basicly it is the servers seeing if you are still out there.

This can happen in XP but it is a known issue with Vista, yeah I know, what isn't???:shk:

mrmonsoon to the rescue again

Well, my router is back in business, I just needed a new Ethernet cable.
(Now I wish I know how to make the damn thing as anonymous as possible.)

Why the heck would the servers care if I was "still out there"????
Is it realted to the ISP being able to see if your connection is live?


~~~~~~~~~~

Now I want to know what is harder on the hard drive/computer in general, being on 24/7, being on 24/7 and allowing sleep or turning it off every night.


[edit on 4-4-2008 by DontTreadOnMe]

Ok Dtom, networking 101:

In VERY simple terms, in most networks there is a server (DHCP) that gives computers all the info they need to communication with other computers (iP address-like your street address........)

Often there are more computers in a network than there are address's.

The reason this is ok is because not all computers are on all the time.
Part of the way to do that is every so often-adjustable- keep alive packs are sent out-are you still connected???
If yes, your info is confirmed and maintained.
If no, the ip address is put back in the available pool of address's.

Now, in VERY simple terms, the Internet is 1 large network.

Ok, your ISP is given a given set of Ip address's that they subnet (basicly allowing a few real address's to have many, many computers using them)

Please understand this is -at best- a cursory explaination.

That all said, windows XP is much less sensitive to this, believe it or not, this is actually supposed to be an improvment in windows networking. (one of those idea's much better on paper than in implamented.

Short answer, your are once again frustrated by Vista's "improvements".:shk:

I thank you.
Even though I never thought I would know even this much about computers, I'm glad there's folks who do help me along.

That did make total sense, and I could even explain the first part of that to my husband
Is there a way to configure a router to make surfing anonymous, and only if it is easy to do, please.

Not exactly.

Routers or firewalls as they are also know as, are for filtering content into and out of a network/computer.

What that means is you can use it to block certain sites/ip address's or groups of.

You can also, if using a wirless router, use it to only accept requests from your computer/(s) bye filtering bye mac address

(mac address is a hex number assigned to ALL network adapters-built-in or seaprate card, it is how you can identify any given computer)

Basiclly, it is not designed to do what you are asking.

That said, you can surf annomiously by using a "proxie"
(www.google.com...) HERE IS A GOOGLE SEARCH FOR PROXIES YOU CAN USE!!

That said, 3 letter government agencies have "black box's" installed @ the ISP.

What that means is they see what you ask for and get, even if you use a "proxie".

Here is how it works, you pull up a browser, and want to go to a website.

You send the request and it goes from your computer to your modem to the ISP to the government black box and out to the internet.

I know this is not the answer you wanted, but it is the answer you need.






Bye the way, thank you for your kind words on what little I know.


:pbjti me:

I always just turn off my desktop when I am not using it.
This thing is power hungry and creates a lot of heat, serious heat.
I have a 850 watt power supply and run two huge video cards, I call them blocks, they do not look like cards.
The other thing, to keep by box cool I have a Chakra case with a 250 mm side fan.
It picks up dust like crazy and I do not want to use my computer for a room air filter.
I have Vista and love it.
If I leave any external hard drives disconnected and no discs in the drives it starts up in about the time it takes to walk across the room and turn on a light.
I realize I am no help, but I just want to vent.
I saw this Mac comercial with the yoga instructor going nuts because the service pack did not fix her problems.
I am biased because I want to play video games with DX-10 and that's where Vista got me.
Maybe because I have the 64 bit version, but it does a lot better (than XP)job of splitting the load between the two cores of my proccessor, while running games.

dhcp only does its "are you there" bit when the address lease expires. even if that check had an impact on whether or not the computer went to sleep, it wouldn't be continually causing it to stay awake like that.

as someone else suggested, the easiest thing you can try is disconnect any external devices - printers, scanners, cameras, etc. another easy thing you can try is turn off any processes that are starting up with windows. it may not fix it but i think it's worth trying and it's easy to undo if it has no effect:

open your start menu and type msconfig in the search box and hit enter. in the window that pops up, go to the startup tab. it will show you what applications are starting up with windows. some of it may be needed to manage your camera, printer, scanner, etc. but as a test you can turn everything off (uncheck) and hit ok - let it restart the computer. when it comes back up it will complain that there are some services that didn't start - we know, we told them not to, it's ok. =) put it to sleep and see what happens. if it does the same thing then go back in there and turn it all back on. if it helped, then start turning things on a few at a time (restarting in between) and see if you can narrow down which one is misbehaving.

i would also check for any updated drivers from the computer manufacturer and then from the manufacturers of each component. if you're not familiar with installing drivers and such then you'll want to find someone to guide you through it or do it for you. drivers basically tell windows how to handle your hardware, so if there's a bug or missing feature, etc then it can cause problems.

a bios update may also help if it's available. that's something that you really want done by someone who knows what they're doing though. if a bios update gets botched your pc is basically a brick (at least the motherboard) since it basically tells all the hardware in your pc how to interact with with each other.

overall, my experience with sleep mode is that it can be problematic unless everything is just right. you can easily have a piece of hardware or software that will induce flakiness.