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Dimension 5150 won't sleep

Created by dave. Last edited by dave, 13 years and 99 days ago. Viewed 3,774 times. #2
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Question

(posted >>here)

I have a Dimension 5150 which I have recently installed Vista Professional (Windows Update to current including SP1) on (it ran Linux for two and a half years, but I don't need a server at home any more). I would like to be more power-consumption friendly, so I would like the computer to reduce its power draw when it is not in use; however I'm lazy and impatient, so I don't want to have to either shutdown the computer when I am finished or start it up again when I want it.

While the computer will hibernate properly, I would prefer to put the computer to "sleep" or "suspend" instead, because restarting is so much faster. However, when I try to put the computer to "sleep", it only locks the screen and puts the monitor into powersave mode. I have Dell laptops, and I am expecting it to do things like stop the disk, stop running the power-supply fan and CPU fan.

I updated the BIOS to A07, which appears to be current/latest for this system.

The BIOS has two settings, S1 and S3. Under one of them, hibernate is not available. I can't remember which is which, but the computer won't "sleep" under either setting.

Besides the obvious fan and hard disk noise going, I have a Kill-O-Watt on the outlet feedign the computer and peripherals and while the draw drops a bit (reflecting the LCD going to powersave mode) the computer clearly isn't sleeping.

Note that all the peripherals attached to the computer (USB drives, keyboard, mouse, video) were attached to a Latitude D830 dock that was perfectly willing to go to sleep, so I don't think this is a peripheral issue.

Besides the BIOS update, I have not installed any other Vista drivers, should I have?

The documentation says very little about Sleep and Hibernate modes. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get this computer to go to sleep properly?

Answer

No. Sleep mode is not well supported on desktops, and using them can be hit-or-miss. If hibernate works, use that.

Update

(December 2010)

Sleep seems much better supported under Windows 7 64-bit. Better == "I've been running it thusly for a year and can't remember more than one or two incidents where it failed to unsleep".

There have been incidents where it didn't go to sleep and was found still running when it should have gone to sleep, but this seems related to using media players (several of which disable screen savers and sleep/hibernation when running, even if idle).

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