Who's bright idea was it to put the sleep function in Vista?!

[The Bloodlust Kid]

Alright so here's what happened:

-My sister accidentally hit the moon button on the keyboard and the computer goes into 'Sleep Mode'.
-I tried hitting it again, nothing
-Hold the power button down, it shuts down and when I tried turning it on again, the monitor doesn't show anything.

It's a Dell if it matters.

[Eviltape]

Happens with my sister's HP laptop for some reason. (Hello, alternate universe posting) Disconnect battery, plug into socket, start, reinsert battery. May work for you.

[Claies]

And if you have a PC, turn your computer off, unplug, wait a few seconds, then power it up again. Sleep never turns the computer's power off, and if you force it it will probably lose track of whether it's supposed to go to sleep or whether it was asleep.

[onehp]

Isn't sleep just turning off your computer while keeping memory?

[WanderingKnight]

This happened to me with a friend's desktop... I never use the sleep function, but I accidentally pressed the gigantic sleep button on the keyboard (great idea HP!). Only way to get it back was by unplugging the thing.

Isn't sleep just turning off your computer while keeping memory?

As far as I understand, it dumps all memory contents to disk... or am I confusing it with hibernation?

[Tiberium Wolf]

In my personal experience it all comes down to the hardware. Some MB simply sux and won't wake after u tell it to sleep.

Yeah. Sleep = hibernation. Everything dumped into disk.

[WanderingKnight]

Yeah, I suspected as much. Switching off the power would not do too much good if you intend to keep the data in volatile memory.

[jpwong]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

Yeah. Sleep = hibernation. Everything dumped into disk.

I believe you can set the options in the power management screen. At least on my PC it gives options for if you press the "sleep" button, it can Do Nothing, Prompt User, Standby Mode, Hibernate, Shut Down.

I believe by default it's set to hibernation (if that's enabled on the PC) otherwise it's automatically set to standby mode (computer's on, but the video and disc drives are powered down)

But yes, if something messes up I've been unable to bring the computer out of standby mode. Had to physically disconnect the power to force a hard reboot.

[Tiberium Wolf]

Oh that reminds me also those keyboards where the power/sleep/wake buttons are right next to the arrows keys. If you dont turn off their function u turning off ur PC.

[Claies]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

In my personal experience it all comes down to the hardware. Some MB simply sux and won't wake after u tell it to sleep.

Yeah. Sleep = hibernation. Everything dumped into disk.

IIRC, hibernation is entirely different. As you said, hibernation dumps all of RAM into disk and powers down. Sleep is analogous to Standby from pre-Vista days and basically powers down everything except for what's required to keep RAM alive, i.e. all disks, drives, and PCI cards. In theory, upon receiving input, the processor will get back to work with the full contents of RAM ready to go without loading it from anywhere.

The difference as I guess here is that in case of failed hibernation the OS would boot, look at the hibernation file, find the RAM contents invalid, throw it away, and start over fresh.

In case of failed Sleep/Standby, the CPU (which was not turned off) gets back to work, looks at the RAM, but doesn't know what the hell's going on and sits there. Alternatively, too many things were powered down, leaving the user no means to communicate to the PC that it's time to resume.

In short, many more things can go wrong in uglier ways with Sleep.

[Tiberium Wolf]

Originally Posted by Claies

IIRC, hibernation is entirely different. As you said, hibernation dumps all of RAM into disk and powers down. Sleep is analogous to Standby from pre-Vista days and basically powers down everything except for what's required to keep RAM alive, i.e. all disks, drives, and PCI cards. In theory, upon receiving input, the processor will get back to work with the full contents of RAM ready to go without loading it from anywhere.

The difference as I guess here is that in case of failed hibernation the OS would boot, look at the hibernation file, find the RAM contents invalid, throw it away, and start over fresh.

In case of failed Sleep/Standby, the CPU (which was not turned off) gets back to work, looks at the RAM, but doesn't know what the hell's going on and sits there. Alternatively, too many things were powered down, leaving the user no means to communicate to the PC that it's time to resume.

In short, many more things can go wrong in uglier ways with Sleep.

Ups... You are right. I haven't used these for ages. I got confused. Anyway don't bother to put to sleep or hibernation. Just leave the PC on and turn off the monitor if you are going away.

[AnimeTheme]

Originally Posted by Claies

In short, many more things can go wrong in uglier ways with Sleep.

Exactly. That's why I NEVER use Sleep mode. If I am not touching my PC for more than 30 mins and want to save some power, I will simply use Hibernation.

[felix]

It is good to know I am not the only one who hates that functionality.