Sleep mode broke my computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

My computer was in sleep mode and it was unable to wake back up. I moved the
mouse, hit every key on my keyboard, pushed the power and the reset buttons
on my case and nothing happened. I tried holding down the power button,
which should shut it off after like 5 secs, which has worked when it was
stalled in the past, but this time it did not do anything. I held the button
for almost 20 secs. I ended up pulling the power cord out to force it to
shut down. When I plugged it back in, it was basically dead. I cannot get
the computer to respond to anything. If it was just a problem with vista, I
would just reinstall, but I think the sleep mode changed something that I
cannot fix. There is absolutly no activity when i press the power button, it
doesn't even try to turn on. There is power running through the motherboard,
I can see my network card lights. I also cleared the bios, as well as
checked the connections for the power button. Everything appears to be
hooked up correctly, but it will not do anything. Has anyone encountered
this? Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get my computer back?
 
Do you have any spare kit lying around like memory sticks and cpus?
You might swap the memory out as a first test.

Just a warning from someone who bought two mobos and two cpus in the
last few weeks unnecessarily... check your power supply. Swap it out
with a known perfectly running one that is powerful enough for your kit.
 
well im working on borrowing a power supply from a friend right now, but i
dont think its the mem or cpu. there is no response on any kind, like
pressing the power button was disconnected, but i already checked that. The
power supply and motherboard seem to be the only possibilities from my point
of view, but if the power supply does work, is there any way to snap my
motherboard back into working order. I'm just hoping there is a way to get
rid of whatever the sleep mode did.
 
I believe that system RAM is utilized in sleep mode. Apart from that it
is much easier to test than fiddling about changing a board.

What are the specs of the machine?
 
Well the booting is the main problem i'm having. It's completely dead, no
response from anything. The comp won't even make it to the point where it
reads the bios. I would think thats its not plugged in, but it is.
 
Steven_M06 said:
well im working on borrowing a power supply from a friend right now, but i
dont think its the mem or cpu. there is no response on any kind, like
pressing the power button was disconnected, but i already checked that. The
power supply and motherboard seem to be the only possibilities from my point
of view, but if the power supply does work, is there any way to snap my
motherboard back into working order. I'm just hoping there is a way to get
rid of whatever the sleep mode did.
Click to expand...

It is highly improbable that sleep mode "did" anything to your computer.
The time electronics are most likely to fail in normal use is during a
power cycle. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by sleep mode - standby
or hibernate - but at the very least the computer will have cooled and
power been removed or reduced to a number of components.

What you are experiencing sounds like "normal" computer failure. It may
be something as simple as a drive cable which needs reseating or it
could be a component gone bad.

You mentioned that the network card LEDs are on. Any others? Power LED
on the front panel? Power LED on the motherboard? Do any fans spin
(including the one in the power supply)?

Do you normally overclock this machine? If so, it could be that you've
pushed it a bit too far too often.

I trust you've made sure the cat hasn't turned your monitor off!

Graham.
 
So i dont have a cat. Everything is on except the computer. Nothing else
lights up, no fans spinning, the power light stays off, pretty much
everything is dead. I did check the connections to almost everything, and
basically unplugged and replugged everything back in(didnt check the black
lights though). but i am working on getting replacment parts to try out to
test the different items without the rest of the system. the main concern i
am having is that i couldnt even turn the comp off when i had the power
button pressed for more than 5 sec, like i said 20 secs eariler. If vistas
sleep mode
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/foreveryone/performance.mspx
top of the page if you were wondering what i am talking about) can keep my
computer from shutting down and i have to unplug it, what will be stopping it
from damaging some of the components. also what components would even be
damaged so i can narrow my search.

and to Bernie:
Well I tried removing the ram, and even rearranging the ram, putting them in
different slots. I didnt think the ram could hold info without power though.
I have a AMD Athlon64 3500+, ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe MB, 1 GB of PC 3200 ram
(not dual channel but 2 512 sticks), geforce 6600 gt...
 
It doesn't seem likely to me either that Vista can damage hardware in
sleep mode, or any other mode for that matter. At least not in the way
you describe your system to be now.

Sleep mode is not the same as power completely off. In order for it to
come back to where you were before you put it in sleep mode the state
has to be put somewhere. I don't know much about it but would guess that
much of it goes to your swapfile and some may still be held in RAM.

The symptoms you describe could easily be power supply related and, as
that is cheap to replace and easy to test I should try that first.
 
Where to start, where to start...

I'll start at the bottom (logical place to start, huh?)... no, RAM can't
hold information with the power off, but in sleep mode, the power isn't off.
However, when you removed the memory, that removed power.

Vista does prefer to go t sleep instead of a complete turn off... but you
can turn it off with the power button in the startmenu... it is on the >
button by lock and sleep buttons. However, this is a software thing doing
this. Sleep mode shouldn't be able to kill your computer like this.
Overheating could, that heating (expanding of parts) would appear while using
vista, and cooling after you turn the computer off could cause the parts to
contract... and if some parts shrink when cooled faster than others, cracks
could form. Just a theory, but it could happen.

Personally, I think it is the power supply that has gone bad, but with all
the little parts inside there, it could be any one of the thousands of
electrical components that make up the circut boards.

It is hard to say from (potentially) thousands of miles from the computer we
are talking about :)
========
Robert Firth
 
Steven_M06 said:
So i dont have a cat. Everything is on except the computer. Nothing else
lights up, no fans spinning, the power light stays off, pretty much
everything is dead.
Click to expand...

In that case, I'd suspect in this order: motherboard, power supply, CPU,
bad (shorted) card (PCI, AGP, PCI-E). It is unlikely to be the memory;
if only that is bad, the fans will run and the speaker will beep.

Graham.
 
Reseat the video and memory cards.

Steven_M06 said:
Well the booting is the main problem i'm having. It's completely dead, no
response from anything. The comp won't even make it to the point where it
reads the bios. I would think thats its not plugged in, but it is.
Click to expand...
 
In that case, I'd suspect in this order: motherboard, power supply, CPU,
bad (shorted) card (PCI, AGP, PCI-E). It is unlikely to be the memory;
if only that is bad, the fans will run and the speaker will beep.

Graham.
Click to expand...


Actually I can not believe that no one has suggested this. The
physical power switch itself may have simply gone bad. This is the
first thing I would have checked since the OP said that pressing and
holding the button for the usual 5 seconds would not shut down the
power.

Pretty easy to check this.

Short the two pins where the power button connects to the motherboard.
If the system boots then the physical switch itself is bad.
 
Using a voltmeter,

1. Measure +5VSB at the motherboard ATX power connector (pin 9, purple
wire; ground reference is one of the black wires). It should be +5
volts +/- 5%.

2. Measure PS_ON# at the ATX power connector (pin 14, green wire)
while depressing the front panel power switch.

a. PS_ON# should go low (0 volt) when the power switch is depressed,
causing the power supply to turn on. If the power supply does not turn
on, either it's broken or there's a dead short on one of its outputs.

b. If PS_ON# does not go low (0 volt) when the power switch is
depressed, look at the front panel header on the motherboard where the
power switch is connected. If PW_ON+ goes low when the power switch is
depressed while PS_ON# remains high, then something is wrong with the
motherboard power control circuitry.
 
Les said:
Actually I can not believe that no one has suggested this. The
physical power switch itself may have simply gone bad. This is the
first thing I would have checked since the OP said that pressing and
holding the button for the usual 5 seconds would not shut down the
power.
Click to expand...

While it could be the switch, the fact it didn't power off when pressed
for several seconds doesn't indicate switch failure at all. Current
designs use motherboard logic to control the power supply - which is how
you can change the function of the power button so that it hibernates
instead for example.

He also said he used reset with no effect, once again indicating that
the system was frozen rather than switch failure (although it could be
that the cat OP doesn't have had pulled the switch panel connectors off
the motherboard!)

Graham.
 
Back
Top