Power Management Making Me Crazy

[mylanta]

This is a new system of about 3 weeks. Hibernation never worked right so it has been disabled. You can hibernate but won't wake up. Standby worked, so I didn't care about hibernate.
Now standby will go in but will not come out either when it had worked.
I really need this as I often leave this pc to work on others, and all pc's access some of the files from this one.
I restored to the first day using image files and no difference. Updated mobo drivers,video card drivers and did every Windows update.Then I installed XP virgin on a drive with no programs and no dice either.
So I moved on to hardware. Change out pci-express video card, took out soundcard and 1394 Adaptec controller. Then unplugged cdrw and dvdrw...
switched hard drives and unplugged second hard drive...no change.
I updated bios to newest one, reset to default settings, and nothing.
Appreciate any help as I have looked for crossed wires, or anything and it is coming down to motherboard.
Asus A8N-SLI, 4200 Amd Athlon dual core,Nvidia 6600 pci-xprss 256 meg video card, 10,000 rpm sata drive, Audigy 2 sound card,2048 meg Corsair XMS ram....
From another forum I got:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907477/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308514/en-us

And added another 4 hours to no avail...Intel looking better and better to me again, never had these problems and I know Amd known for PM issues.

[dbarrow]

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/

There are over 300 posts here on A8N-SLI

I didn't see anything about standby in a quick look
but maybe refine search and it will be there.

[Dan18960]

Rich,

I am not ignoring you - remember I am not a user of the Hibernate or Standby functions.

But I did notice that on the Windows site it mentioned that there could be problems with both services IF a program or access is being done to the computer while in either state.

Since you say that you access the computer while working on others - is it possible that the PM dll files got corrupted?

That is the only thing I can think of. You have been doing this longer than I have. Shucks I burned up an HP LaserJet because I didn't want it to go into Power Save LOL!

[mylanta]

Rich,

I am not ignoring you - remember I am not a user of the Hibernate or Standby functions.

But I did notice that on the Windows site it mentioned that there could be problems with both services IF a program or access is being done to the computer while in either state.

Since you say that you access the computer while working on others - is it possible that the PM dll files got corrupted?

That is the only thing I can think of. You have been doing this longer than I have. Shucks I burned up an HP LaserJet because I didn't want it to go into Power Save LOL!


While that was possible Dan, remember io said I did a clean install with no programs loaded and it still will not go into standby...also with the drives I access unplugged as well for that install. This has to be hardware because it did work...though I have eliminated everything new and even old at one time or another.

[mylanta]

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/

There are over 300 posts here on A8N-SLI

I didn't see anything about standby in a quick look
but maybe refine search and it will be there.

Thanks Doug,
I read through most of it but nothing really on this problem..
I also did some searches and not coming up with anyting. If Asus doesn't answer me adequately, I'm going to dump the board. PM is more important to me than most of the other features that work great!

[dbarrow]

Why are you so obsessed with power management? It's not a laptop and won't save a bundle on your electric bill.
Power management, aside from laptops where battery life is important, has been one of the biggest buggaboos for MS since day one!

Not only MS, half the mobos out there have BIOS problems with power mangement and it never works on them right anyway.

The only thing I ever use is turn off monitor rather than a screen saver, another problematic area that always gave me fits, especially if you mix the two. All mine are 24/7 and I get really upset if I don't hear those fans running!

[mylanta]

Doug,
Remember to each his own. I am not from the school of leave em on all the time, and it has nothing to do with electric usage. I shut all systems down at night and only start up one at a time when I use them except for unit 1 which is on all day, asleep if I am away from it for a while.
I have never had a system fail to operate perfectly on standby and hibernate since an Compaq 6 years ago made me equally crazy, and that was the year I bought and sold 4 pc's until I got one to run right with PM.
I love it, think it is the best way to maintain your equipment and you have to remember I need to occasionally wake up unit 1 to access Quicken from a bench unit, or print something off the Laser again from the back. I cannot stand booting up to simply do something like that, or add a figure into a Quicken account I forgot to add, and without PM, I would not leave units running all the time, I would shut them down. That's me and how I run them.
You can say what you want about me as a hard drive killer, but I have not lost one now I bought in over 3 years since I converted to sata drives and bought all WD to do it though believe it or not I have one sata Deathstar and even a Maxtor (I won in a contest as you know I would never buy one and it croaked and was replaced a year ago).

[Smokey]

When you are doing your install, what drivers do you install? Please include ANY drivers you install (as well as versions) From audio to printer to chipset.

[mylanta]

Yikes I could never do that...there is so muc stuff on that pc. I have an HP 2500 laser printer with their 2500 newest driver on Lpt1, Audigy 2 soundcard again with newest download,Adaptec 1394 card,Ms media Pro keyboard, Kensington Laser mouse (no driver),USR router (again no usr driver)...the mobo has ethernet, Real tec ALC 850 sound and Nvidia nforce 4 mobo drivers. I did not install their firewall (surprise!!!)
Actually there has been a new development and that is the board won't save settings any more. Got up today and all settings gone. I did pull the battery yesterday and the jumper to reset bios, but it went back in fine. I tried 3 other batteries and forget it so I rma'd the board today and bought a BIOSTAR TForce4U Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard to replace it!

[mylanta]

Oh and one more thing Adam the only unsigned driver was Realtek sound which I didn't install the second time and PM still didn't work, if that was what you were getting at.

[Smokey]

I was getting at the specific system drivers, and not the extra drivers from various accessories. I was also then going to recommend the clean install with NO other hardware other than the video card in the machine. No extra sound card, firewire card or anything. Just the base requirements to get the machine up and see how that goes. It could be a device not wanting to come out of sleep mode, not the motherboard.

[mylanta]

OK Adam I did do that. I did one clean install with only video card and 1 hard drive, 1 memory stick and no pci cards and no other drives, and no change.
Then I added in the mobo drivers, and still no difference. I even swapped out and used a different hard drive just in case....

[Smokey]

meh, what version of the nforce drivers were you using?

[mylanta]

Anymore don't know as board and cd driver on way back to D&H.

[Smokey]

NEVER INSTALL THE DRIVERS FROM THE CD! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU THAT! No wonder you had problems, you use old drivers that potentially have bugs that have already been fixed and yet you don't download the newest ones off the site.

DOWNLOAD DOWNLOAD DOWNLOAD DOWNLOAD

[mylanta]

No one is newer or more current than I with downloads Adam, but when it comes to mobo drivers, I am shy and never used to use them at all (a throwback from my Intel days where I saw systems corrupted and maimed by Intel mobo drivers)..
However I misspoke here because in my quest for sanity, I forgot I did finally download newer drivers, though one wonders if you ever really get older ones out.
Remember the one time I did no drivers at all though as well.

[Smokey]

With nforce chipsets and any newer board you MUST MUST MUST MUST download the newest drivers. For one, windows doesn't pick up all the hardware, two - it doesn't take advantage of hte features without the drivers installed and three - 1/2 of it just plain won't work without drivers.

When you get the new board if you haven't already, go directly to nvidia's website and download the newest nforce driver pack.

[mylanta]

Well it twasn't only me....have a guy on Cyber tech now with a 6 month old version of this mobo, whose pci slots are dead! I think Asus is in trouble....

http://www.*************.com/forums/showthread.php?p=591450#post591450

[mylanta]

Oh and Adam,
So much for "trigger happy" NForce4 chipset driver updates, which I did on new Biostar mobo, and had to undo with restore and put back cd drivers because it was blue screening like crazy on internet...and I read new nForce chipset driver as suspected cause on 2 forums. I am always leary of newest or sometimes any chipset drivers for Amd boards being new!!!!

[dbarrow]

Asus/Asustek, while being one of the biggest mobo suppliers, has had its share of problems.
As with any mobo, read their own forums and other tech forums to find the common problems and complaints with the board before you buy!
It would appear quality control is a major problem for all of them and various forms of dead this and that on brand new mobos is not uncommon.

All of them got stung with the 'bad capacitor' problem that surfaced a while back because they were all buying the capacitors from the same firm that churned out the 'clunkers'.

Despite how difficult it is to get Tech Support from Asus,
I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get an RMA for daughter's board with the clock problem. It took less than 5 minutes to get a live tech online and about 30 seconds for him to attribute it to a bad capacitor and give me an "incident" number and another 5 minutes with the RMA Dept. to get an RMA number.

Now, to see how long it takes to get the board back!

[mylanta]

I had an even easier time with Gigabyte...no online tech and send rma right away. And yes, getting the board back, well that took 6 weeks and 3 nasty emails!

[casey]

My only RMA for a MB in the past years was an Abit, they gave me an RMA number over the Internet and then by giving them a Credit Card number they cross shipped the board and I had it within days. The credit card was never
charged because they received the old board. I thought this was a good process and help speed things up.

[mylanta]

That's what WD does with hard drives...and I love it. Problem is WD hard drives never drop!