Standby mode - A7V266-E

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gary Fritz
  • Start date Start date
G

Gary Fritz

I never used to be able to get standby or hibernate on my A7V266-E -- it
just wasn't available in the various places you're supposed to enable it.

Recently I had a catastrophic disk failure and ended up replacing the disk
and reinstalling W2k. Shazam -- now hibernate and standby work!!

Except hibernate takes forever -- haven't timed it but I'd guess at least a
minute to shut down, and almost 2 minutes to wake up again, and this is
only with 512MB RAM -- so it's no faster than a normal shutdown. (Other
than the obvious benefit of having all the apps open when you wake up.)

I tried standby, and discovered I can't wake up from it. The CPU wakes up,
the fans spin, but the monitor doesn't turn on. I'm flying blind so I have
to kill power and reboot it.

How can I get the monitor to wake up when standby wakes up?

Also: I have to hit the power switch to wake it up. What does it take to
get the keyboard/mouse to wake it up from standby/hibernate? The mouse
might be a challenge, since it's a USB wireless optical, but the keyboard
uses a plain old PS2 plug.

Thanks,
Gary
 
I tried standby, and discovered I can't wake up from it. The CPU
wakes up, the fans spin, but the monitor doesn't turn on. I'm flying
blind so I have to kill power and reboot it.

How can I get the monitor to wake up when standby wakes up?
Click to expand...

Hello? Anybody? No guesses why the monitor doesn't turn on?

Also, I tried setting the screen saver to go into Hibernate after an hour.
Doesn't work. I can manually initiate Hibernate but the screen saver does
nothing. What am I doing wrong?

Gary
 
Gary Fritz said:
Hello? Anybody? No guesses why the monitor doesn't turn on?

Also, I tried setting the screen saver to go into Hibernate after an hour.
Doesn't work. I can manually initiate Hibernate but the screen saver does
nothing. What am I doing wrong?

Gary
Click to expand...

Get a copy of "dumppo" from Microsoft. It can tell you whether
your system is set up properly for S3 or S4. (Note: This FTP
server can be cranky at times. Don't be surprised if it
gives you trouble.)

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Products/Oemtest/v1.1/WOSTest/Tools/Acpi/dumppo.exe

To get S3 or S4 (suspend to RAM or Hibernate) to work properly,
sometimes there is a BIOS setting that contributes, the OS has
to be installed with ACPI support, and if the OS install was
done while the BIOS wasn't set up properly, then dumppo's
admin override option can be used to try to fix it.

As for what is happening to your system, I would take a
look at the Event Viewer, to see if there were any errors
happening just as the system was entering S3 or S4. I hope
that dumppo can tell you whether some hardware or driver
is currently not ready to support the mode you are trying to
use.

HTH,
Paul
 
Get a copy of "dumppo" from Microsoft. It can tell you whether
your system is set up properly for S3 or S4.
Click to expand...

OK, got it, though there seems to be almost no documentation of how to
use it. "dumppo admin" says the min/max sleep states are S1/S4, so it
seems to be OK for standby (s3) and hibernate (s4). "dumppo cap" says S1
S3 S4 S5 are supported.

Which makes sense, because it DOES standby and hibernate OK. It's just
the waking up from standby -- and seeing anything on the screen -- that's
a problem. The system wakes up but the monitor stays turned off.

BTW Hibernate from the screen saver suddenly started working. But it
seemed like my network connection was hosed when it woke up (!?) so I
disabled it. Standby is probably a better answer for me, if I can just
get it working right.
As for what is happening to your system, I would take a
look at the Event Viewer, to see if there were any errors
happening just as the system was entering S3 or S4.
Click to expand...

Not that I can see.

Thanks Paul,
Gary
 
Gary Fritz said:
OK, got it, though there seems to be almost no documentation of how to
use it. "dumppo admin" says the min/max sleep states are S1/S4, so it
seems to be OK for standby (s3) and hibernate (s4). "dumppo cap" says S1
S3 S4 S5 are supported.

Which makes sense, because it DOES standby and hibernate OK. It's just
the waking up from standby -- and seeing anything on the screen -- that's
a problem. The system wakes up but the monitor stays turned off.

BTW Hibernate from the screen saver suddenly started working. But it
seemed like my network connection was hosed when it woke up (!?) so I
disabled it. Standby is probably a better answer for me, if I can just
get it working right.


Not that I can see.

Thanks Paul,
Gary
Click to expand...

I don't really know what else to do for a problem like this.
Dumppo is the only "trick" I know of.

The S3 standby thing, relies on your power supply delivering
a steady +5VSB while the computer sleeps. If that source
of power drops, even for an instant, the contents of DRAM
would be corrupted, and waking would then be a problem.
When you "cannot see anything", do you have any way to
tell if the OS is running ? If you have another computer,
can you ping the newly awakened machine ?

If hibernate sort of works, but S3 standby does not, then
a weak power supply could make the difference. There is
usually a green LED on the motherboard, and it is powered
by +5VSB. If that LED blinks as you are sleeping or waking
the machine, that could indicate a bad PSU. One blink of
the LED, and all the contents of DRAM are gone.

Other than that, you would need a lab full of equipment,
to debug what is happening.

Looking here, there was a fix for resume from standby in
BIOS 1006. I assume you are using a BIOS later than that,
and this site doesn't have all the release notes:

http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/info/bios/index.htm#266e

*******
Hmmm. I just checked Google, and you've worked on this
problem last year. I also see in Google, that other people
have had trouble with this stuff. The BIOS has a couple of
settings, one being "Suspend To RAM Capability", and while
no one names the setting as such, they imply if you flash
upgrade the BIOS, the default of [No] that results, can
cause Windows to only use S1 Suspend.

The setting in the manual right next to that, is "Suspend
Mode". Now, it looks like a violation of the ACPI concept,
in that the BIOS in that case can cause entry to standby.
I would think a setting of [disabled] would make the
most sense here, as generally you cannot have both the
BIOS and the OS controlling a resource at the same time.

I also see mention of "PNP OS" [No] as helping. That is
the default I think.

Someone also mentioned changing the power scheme in
Windows to "Laptop". That seems a bit far-fetched.

This seems to suggest some amount of interaction between
settings that is going to be pretty hard to track down.
On most boards, usually one BIOS setting that mentions
STR, is enough to get this to work. At this rate, you
could be flipping levers for weeks on end, trying to
find the right combination.

Paul
 
Thus spake Paul:
This seems to suggest some amount of interaction between
settings that is going to be pretty hard to track down.
On most boards, usually one BIOS setting that mentions
STR, is enough to get this to work. At this rate, you
could be flipping levers for weeks on end, trying to
find the right combination.

Paul
Click to expand...

I had issues with this motherboard with ACPI until I reformatted then
reinstalled WinXP with STR set to On in the bios. Remaining problems were
solved by bios upgrades. MS suggest that PnP OS is set to Off for XP/W2k.
Fortunately, my monitor woke OK 90% of the time until a Bios upgrade sorted
it but until it did, I set the main power switch to Hibernate which on
resume, always brought the monitor out of standby.
 
The S3 standby thing, relies on your power supply delivering
a steady +5VSB while the computer sleeps. If that source
of power drops, even for an instant, the contents of DRAM
would be corrupted, and waking would then be a problem.
Click to expand...

I've got the system on a USB with a fresh battery, so I'm not too worried
about that.
If hibernate sort of works, but S3 standby does not, then
a weak power supply could make the difference.
Click to expand...

Seems unlikely since I'm running a 300W Antec PS, and nothing excessive
in the box, but anything is possible. I'll watch the LED when I standby.
When you "cannot see anything", do you have any way to
tell if the OS is running ? If you have another computer,
can you ping the newly awakened machine ?
Click to expand...

Good thought. I ran a VNC session on it when I initiated standby. The
last thing on the VNC client screen was "preparing to standby..." But
after I tried to wake up the PC, after the mobo was apparently alive,
fans spinning, etc but the monitor off, the other PC COULD NOT ping it.
Looking here, there was a fix for resume from standby in
BIOS 1006. I assume you are using a BIOS later than that,
Click to expand...

Aha!!! No, it appears I am still on 1004B!

I flashed 1011 (the latest "final" release), adjusted a few BIOS
settings, and now Standby wakes up properly!! Huzzah! As a side bonus,
I've also got it waking on keyboard (spacebar only, apparently that's all
the BIOS supports), AND this rev of the BIOS allows me to disable the
ATA/PROMISE BIOS, which speeds my boot-up time considerably!
Hmmm. I just checked Google, and you've worked on this
problem last year.
Click to expand...

Different problem then -- that was before I reinstalled W2k, and for some
reason standby/hibernate weren't available at ALL.
At this rate, you could be flipping levers for weeks on end,
trying to find the right combination.
Click to expand...

I know. That's why I sent up a distress flare. :-)

Great detective work! Thanks Paul!
Gary
 
Back
Top