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| Sleep Disorders |
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General System Issues March 2003 • Vol.9 Issue 3 Page(s) 88-90 in print issue |
Sleep Disorders Troubleshoot Windows Sleep, Suspend & Hibernate Problems | ||
 Everyone needs sleep. Like food and water, sleep is necessary for human beings to live. Sleep reduces the body's activity level, conserving energy and getting the human engine ready to tackle a new day's activities. Modern PCs use power management features to accomplish the same task, conserving energy by placing the computer into a low-power consumption mode. Although a computer's components obviously do not need to "rest" in order to do work, it is often useful to place a desktop or notebook computer into a low-power sleep mode when it is not in use. Unfortunately, power management features in Windows 98 and Windows Me occasionally behave in unpredictable fashion. A PC may fail to wake up from hibernation or standby mode, or it may crash as soon as it awakens. Other times, a PC may refuse to go into standby or hibernation mode altogether, even if the PC's hardware supports power management. Many times, the only way to recover your PC from a sleep-induced disaster is to reboot. A reboot results in lost data if you neglect to save your work before putting the computer to sleep. Problems with a PC's power management features can be frustrating, especially for notebook users who must conserve precious battery power. And for those desktop users who want to conserve electricity, Windows' power management capabilities are a welcome feature when they work and a source of grief when they don't. Because power management features use software to control the power consumption states of hardware components, hibernation and standby problems can involve software or hardware components, making either difficult to troubleshoot. However, the problems are not impossible to overcome. Read on to learn more about the current state of power management in PCs, the typical problems users encounter, and the best solutions to apply. Your computer will sleep better and so will you.
 Power Management: The Key Players. Unlike most typical household appliances, computers don't instantly go from a "power on" to a "power off" state and vice versa. We are all familiar with the often-lengthy boot process as a computer's hardware powers up and the OS (operating system) loads, culminating in a machine that is ready to accept your input. Oftentimes computer users become frustrated with long boot times and wish for the day when starting a computer becomes as simple as turning on their televisions. Enter the power management features built into today's PCs. These features conserve energy and also reduce the time you spend waiting for a PC to boot from a powered down state because they introduce other modes of operation that consume less power without shutting down the PC. For example, when you awaken a PC from standby mode, the computer does not go through the lengthy boot process to get back to the active state in which you left it. Avoiding long boot times makes power management features very attractive. In order for power management features to work in a PC, you need BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) support. A PC's BIOS is a set of instructions, stored in your computer's ROM, that initialize the various hardware components residing in your PC and launches the boot process. Eventually, the BIOS cedes control of your PC to whatever OS you have installed. There are two principal approaches to power management in existence today: APM (Advanced Power Management) and ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface). APM is the older of the two. Intel and Microsoft developed APM as an API (application programming interface) that lets BIOS writers incorporate power management features into their BIOSes. Intel, Microsoft, and Toshiba were the principal players responsible for developing ACPI, which first appeared in Win98. With APM, the responsibility for power management resides exclusively with the system BIOS. You can toggle power management features on and off from within Windows, but the BIOS controls the power management of system devices. In other words, the BIOS monitors the various computer components and decides when to put the computer to sleep. With ACPI, on the other hand, Windows assumes all responsibility for power management via the use of device drivers that control the power consumption state of system devices. Thus, Windows decides when it is appropriate to put a PC to sleep and when it is appropriate to awaken it. ACPI features six power management states, while APM features only four. For example, ACPI includes a hibernation mode not available in APM. Perhaps most important, ACPI places full control of device power management modes with the OS itself, allowing for the inclusion of more comprehensive power management features. For example, many notebook computers feature an extensive set of power management schemes that you can turn on or off depending on the circumstances. Thus, if you are taking your notebook computer with you on a long airplane ride and want to maximize your battery power, you may be able to select a scheme that maximizes battery life.
Power Management Problems & Solutions In spite of the advances in power management technologies, problems do occur from time to time. Here are some of the most common problems involving power management and the solutions you can apply to get your system up and running in no time. Your Windows Me computer fails to enter into Standby or Hibernate mode when you connect it to a network. If your PC is connected to a network and WinMe thinks you are still using a network resource (such as a shared drive, folder, or printer), WinMe may not let your computer enter into Standby or Hibernate mode. The solution to this problem is to close all open network connections and attempt to put the computer in Standby or Hibernate mode. If this doesn't work, your network adapter may need an updated driver. Update your network adapter with the latest driver to solve the problem. Troubles entering Standby or Hibernate Modes when your PC has 64MB of memory or less. Instead, your PC returns to full power mode when you attempt to enter either mode. A bug in Win98/Me is the cause of this problem. A PC with low memory may not have enough room to store the data it needs to restore the computer from Hibernate or Standby to full-power mode. The memory it needs to resume operation may be tied up working with a program or a device driver. To resolve this problem, you can upgrade the amount of memory in your PC or close as many running programs as possible before putting the PC to sleep. Your Win98 PC enters Standby after a random amount of time, even after you set it to never enter the Standby mode. To implement a workaround for this problem, click Start, select Settings, click Control Panel, and double-clicking the Power Management icon. Click the Hibernation tab, deselect the Enable Hibernate Support checkbox, and click Apply to disable the hibernation option. Click the Power Schemes tab, set the Standby Time to a value other than Never, and click Apply. Next, return to the Hibernation tab and select the Enable Hibernate Support checkbox to enable hibernation again.
With ICS, a computer connected to the Internet functions as the host and shares the connection with other computers (which function as clients) in a small network. ICS requires the host PC to be in full-power mode to maintain an active connection to the client PCs, so WinMe does not let a host computer with fully configured ICS enter Standby or Hibernation mode. ICS first appeared in Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), and it is available in all subsequent releases of Windows. If you don't use ICS but it is enabled on your WinMe computer, you must disable it in order to use the Standby or Hibernation modes. To disable ICS, click Start, select Settings, click Control Panel, and double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon. Click the Windows Setup tab in the Add/Remove Programs dialog box and scroll down the Components list until you reach the Communications item on the list. Click the entry to select it, and click the Details button. Scroll down the Components list in the Communications dialog box, deselect the Internet Connection Sharing checkbox, and click OK. Click OK again to accept your changes; you may need to restart your computer at this point. If you are using Win98 SE, you will enable and disable ICS in a slightly different manner. To disable ICS, you'll follow the same series of steps to access the Windows Setup tab in the Add/Remove Programs dialog box. However, the ICS component found in Win98 SE is grouped under Internet Tools in the Components list within the Windows Setup tab. On the other hand, if you need ICS to share a connection among computers in a simple network, you must ensure your computer stays in full-power mode at all times. To maintain your Win98 SE/Me computer in full-power mode, click Start, Settings, and Control Panel. Double-click the Power Management icon to launch the Power Management Properties window, and select the Always On power scheme from the Power Schemes drop-down menu. Also, make sure Never is selected in the System Standby drop-down menu under the Settings For Always On Power Scheme heading. Also, if your computer supports hibernation, select Never in the System Hibernates drop-down menu. To ensure hibernation is not turned on in any circumstances, click the Hibernate tab in the Power Management Properties dialog box, verify that the Enable Hibernate Support checkbox is deselected, and click OK to accept your changes.
Of course, other hardware drivers may be responsible for your power management woes. Unfortunately, the best way to resolve the problem is to disable hardware devices one by one and then try to enter Standby or Hibernate mode with the device disabled. By doing this, you can isolate the hardware device that is wreaking havoc on your PC's power management. When you find the device that is responsible for your trouble, obtain and install the latest drivers. If replacing the driver for a problematic device does not work, you may have to disable the device or replace it with a newer model. The moral of the story is that to ensure you have trouble-free power management, maintain all your PC's hardware components equipped with the latest drivers. In some cases, the floppy diskette drive's controller may prevent your WinMe PC from entering Standby mode. When this happens, Windows generates this message: "Your computer cannot hibernate or standby because the standard floppy disk controller cannot enter into low-power state." Iomega's Ditto Tools (http://www.iomega.com) are at the root of this problem. These tools install drivers that prevent your PC from entering low power modes. Browse to Iomega's Web site and download and install the latest version of the Ditto Tools. If this does not solve the problem, you may have to remove the Ditto Tools software or disable your PC's power management features. If replacing or removing the Ditto Tools does not solve the problem, an outdated Hsflop.vxd file may be the culprit; to replace the file, click Start, select Settings, and click Control Panel. Double-click the System icon, click the Device Manager tab, double-click the Floppy Disk Controllers category in Device Manager, and click Remove. Click Refresh or restart the computer so Windows can rediscover the device. Sleep Well. Although power management features in Win98 and WinMe appear to behave in random, erratic fashion when issues occur, you can narrow down most problems to the delicate interface between hardware and software. At the heart of this interface are device drivers, those snippets of code that serve as go-betweens for Windows and hardware devices. Also, many of the problems documented here are the result of bugs in Windows (and Microsoft may already have fixes available for a number of them). As with many other computer issues, keeping your device drivers and Windows itself up-to-date is a great way to minimize your PC's chances of getting a sleep disorder. You'll sleep better knowing your PC will be ready to awaken when you are ready to get to work again.  by Sixto Ortiz Jr.
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