System standby

[andsome]

My computer is set for the screensaver to come on after five minutes of inactivity, the monitor to switch off after 10 minutes, and the hard drives to switch off after 15 minutes. This is fine, except that now and then the monitor comes back on for five minutes, and then the cycle starts again. Today, I have experimented with the computer set to go into standby after twenty minutes. This has solved the first minor problem. However, when I move the mouse to start back up again, it takes several attempts before the monitor switches back on again. I am worried that one time it may not switch back on at all. Is this likely to happen? Is it best to leave it as I had it before, not using Standby mode? I have tried looking online but there is conflicting advice. What is the opinion of the experts on here please?

[dadyassa]

I just switch monitor off if I dont surf for a while.

No screensaver, I thought they went out with win 3 ;)

[rong]

I think screen savers are coming back with LCD monitors, moving ones

[andsome]

I am not happy with constantly using the on off switch, I wonder if this helped in the premature demise of my last monitor. Whether I use a screensaver or not doesn't really concern me, what I am concerned with is the tardiness of restarting when I move the mouse or click a key on the keyboard, after using System standby mode. Any thoughts anyone please?

[cozofdeath]

Windows has had problems with standby for a while now. If it takes over 5 sec to wake up you may have a problem. I have a common problem where I can't wake my computer up because of my usb mouse, which I still have to fix. Here are just some ideas I would try. Delete hiberfil.sys and turn your screen saver off to see if that makes any difference. Next I would run Microsofts BootVis or a similar tool. Bootvis can analyze your computer when it goes into standby/resume to find problems such as delays and narrow it down to say a trouble driver. If you decide to use it here are some easy steps on what to do...

After installing....

Open BootVis, goto Trace, Next Standby & Resume, then a little box will come up with the title Trace Repititions. Click ok and let it put your computer into standby and in 30 sec it will come back out. Once out goto File, Open and open the only file in there. From there you can analyze it yourself or store it somewhere for someone else to look at.

[andsome]

Thanks. I'll have a closer look when there is time. It's time to watch the proms now. :)

[andsome]

I have saved the file, but it will not paste into here??????????

Just done the test a second time and it took exactly 47 seconds to wake up, is this acceptable or not?

[CurlyWhirly]

My computer is set for the screensaver to come on after five minutes of inactivity, the monitor to switch off after 10 minutes, and the hard drives to switch off after 15 minutes. This is fine, except that now and then the monitor comes back on for five minutes, and then the cycle starts again

On the contrary, I don't think it's fine at all as if you go away from the PC for only (say) 20 minutes then your hard drives will power down, when you return, they will power up again.

I don't think this does the hard drives any good you know?

By the way, I hardly ever turn my monitor on or off via the switch.

I just let it switch itself off after I close down my PC via the 'Turn Off Computer' button in XP.

My monitor also goes off after 15 minutes of inactivity but I don't have the problems that you are experiencing!

[cozofdeath]

Very unacceptable. I see why you think its a problem. It should take around 5 sec, MS claims a perfect hardware/software setup can reduce it to 2 sec! You could put the file on a site like megaupload or email it to me if you like. :D

mpmpl -[At]- hotmail.com

If your a techy person read the help file with it. Its easy to understand and has pics of most screens. :D

[andsome]

There are graphs and also an Excel report. Which would you need? I am off on hols tomorrow so this may have to be held over.

[andsome]

Very unacceptable. I see why you think its a problem. It should take around 5 sec, MS claims a perfect hardware/software setup can reduce it to 2 sec! You could put the file on a site like megaupload or email it to me if you like. :D

mpmpl -[At]- hotmail.com

If your a techy person read the help file with it. Its easy to understand and has pics of most screens. :D

I have e-mailed some screen shots, and hopefully they also appear below. Thanks for your help.

[jason.b.c]

Monoff.exe Works great..!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have e-mailed some screen shots,

You mean Uploaded.??

(andsome @ Jul 14 2006, 16:59) *

My computer is set for the screensaver to come on after five minutes of inactivity, the monitor to switch off after 10 minutes, and the hard drives to switch off after 15 minutes. This is fine, except that now and then the monitor comes back on for five minutes, and then the cycle starts again

Why do you have your hard drives set to turn off..??? What's the need for that..???

I am not happy with constantly using the on off switch, I wonder if this helped in the premature demise of my last monitor.

I wouldn't doubt it..!!! You see when you press the power button on your monitor your actually turning off all the power..!!!

It's no differant than unplugging it...

But when you let windows do it , It's not completely cutting the power to it , Just to the circuitry that's in control of displaying images on the screen.. So in other words, when windows does it , even though the power light changes colors and the screen blanks out the monitor isn't actually all the way off.!

Whether I use a screensaver or not doesn't really concern me,

It'll concern you when your monitor becomes phosphor burned Link ( click here ) ;)

Burn-In..! ;)

[-pops-]

It'll concern you when your monitor becomes phosphor burned Link ( click here ) ;)

Burn-In..! ;)

Phosphor burn doesn't happen with TFT monitors. It's rare with modern CRTs as well.

[jason.b.c]

It'll concern you when your monitor becomes phosphor burned Link ( click here ) ;)

Burn-In..! ;)

Phosphor burn doesn't happen with TFT monitors. It's rare with modern CRTs as well.

I've seen it , With my own two eye's.. On my buddies old flat screen , Ghostly images that you can barely see...

[-pops-]

Not wishing to get technical about this but, as TFTs work on a totally different principle to that of CRTs and as there is no phosphor in a TFT, there cannot be a phenomenon that could be termed "phosphor burn".

Having said that, there can be a deterioration in the light output of each individual transistor in a TFT matrix on prolonged usage and that is why it is advisable to power down the screen (even if the monitor power is retained) after a certain time of inactivity - which is what most setups are programmed to do.

[CurlyWhirly]

Why do you have your hard drives set to turn off..??? What's the need for that..???

I already questioned this earlier on in this thread :P (see below)

p.s. I have set my hard drives to never power down as it shortens the hard drive's life by continually switching it on and off.

My computer is set for the screensaver to come on after five minutes of inactivity, the monitor to switch off after 10 minutes, and the hard drives to switch off after 15 minutes. This is fine, except that now and then the monitor comes back on for five minutes, and then the cycle starts again

On the contrary, I don't think it's fine at all as if you go away from the PC for only (say) 20 minutes then your hard drives will power down, when you return, they will power up again.

I don't think this does the hard drives any good you know?

[andsome]

Monoff.exe Works great..!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have e-mailed some screen shots,

You mean Uploaded.??

I have actually e-mailed cozofdeath with them

(andsome @ Jul 14 2006, 16:59) *

My computer is set for the screensaver to come on after five minutes of inactivity, the monitor to switch off after 10 minutes, and the hard drives to switch off after 15 minutes. This is fine, except that now and then the monitor comes back on for five minutes, and then the cycle starts again

Why do you have your hard drives set to turn off..??? What's the need for that..???

I don't at the moment because I was worried by the time taken for the desk top to reapear after moving the mouse. It was because I tried this mode and had problems that I made my initial post.

I am not happy with constantly using the on off switch, I wonder if this helped in the premature demise of my last monitor.

I wouldn't doubt it..!!! You see when you press the power button on your monitor your actually turning off all the power..!!!

It's no differant than unplugging it...

But when you let windows do it , It's not completely cutting the power to it , Just to the circuitry that's in control of displaying images on the screen.. So in other words, when windows does it , even though the power light changes colors and the screen blanks out the monitor isn't actually all the way off.!

Whether I use a screensaver or not doesn't really concern me,

It'll concern you when your monitor becomes phosphor burned Link ( click here ) ;)

The reason I am not concerned whether or not the screensaver is used is because I can set it for no minutes and for the monitor to switch straight off.. What was concerning me was the fact that with the monitor just set to turn off, it does that OK, but then switches back on after a while, and starts the whole cycle again. This is why I set the hard drives to go off. My concern was that in this mode the time taken for the desk top to reapear was anything up to 40 seconds or more.

Burn-In..! ;)

[cozofdeath]

With the graphs you emailed me, it looks like you only have a 12.29s delay and it looks like almost all of it is the gameenum.sys driver. Your other times seem great. I also seen your not going completely into sleep (S3) mode only (S1), which means the BIOS or a driver is not giving the system the go ahead to move into a deeper sleep state or it unsupported on your system. S0 is a fully working computer. This tool will tell you what sleep states are supported on your computer. As for making it faster, I would enable write caching (in Device Manager expand your disk driver and select your main drive, right-click, properties, policies, check Enable write caching on the disk). If you want to know exactly what that does HERES a good page of info on it. The driver thats causing the delay can be uninstalled or disabled. But before you do that have you upgraded from Windows 2000?

That driver only seems to be on 2000 systems and your screenshots are of xp, so you shouldn't need it anymore. Many apps and upgrades leave behind drivers. You can simply delete it in your C:\WINDOWS\inf\ folder (must show hidden files and folders to see the inf folder) or you can follow a guide like this one. If you delete it making a backup wouldn't hurt.

Try that and run BootVis again then see what you get.

Also you should be able to save your scan from bootvis, in File, Save As. In case you need to upload it somewhere again. I'm not positive on that however, the computer I have now won't allow me to run BootVis because of my SATA drive. Good luck and happy holidays to you. Post back how you make out!

[andsome]

Thanks, just got home. I will look at all this when I get the chance. I have NEVER used any other OS than XP Home on this machine. All installed drivers came with the machine. I have reinstalled Windows several times myself, and all the drivers that I installed came with the C D's that came with the computer.

[andsome]

I have downloaded the tool that you suggested. I have to be honest and admit that I feel a bit out of my depth with these tools and don't really know what I am doing. As the only problem that I was experiencing was that from time to time the monitor having switched off for a time, it would be switched back on by something. I solved this by setting the disks to switch off after a time, but then found that it took ages to switch back on again. I will therefore leave it as it was before with the hard disks set to go off, and put up with the delay in switching back on. Many thanks for the advice and assistance.

[cozofdeath]

No problem. The BootVis program confused me for a while when I first started using it, but it does yield a wealth of info. It was interesting looking some of the info up. I still have no clue why you have gameenum.sys on your system. I'm thinking it could be from installing a game/joystick/ or it came with a cd used to install hardware drivers for like a video/sound card? But anyway goodluck

[andsome]

No problem. The BootVis program confused me for a while when I first started using it, but it does yield a wealth of info. It was interesting looking some of the info up. I still have no clue why you have gameenum.sys on your system. I'm thinking it could be from installing a game/joystick/ or it came with a cd used to install hardware drivers for like a video/sound card? But anyway goodluck

Thanks again for your help. I have never installed a joystick or similar. Last time I reinstalled windows a few weeks ago, I installed ONLY the driver C.D's, and avoided most of the extras offered, such as outdated Adobe readers etc. As far as I am aware I only installed the useful bits and pieces such as drivers.