# Can't wake up from Sleep Mode.



## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

Greetings,

The only problem with my computer is it can't come back on after I put it on Sleep Mode. It takes 1-2 minutes before it shuts down to sleep unlike other computers that I own that shuts down instantly when put to sleep. Turning it on with a mouse button or power button, it powers up (fans rotating, lights flash on) and you can hear everything running for 5 seconds then it shuts off, then goes back on, then shuts off again continuously struggling to wake up. The only way for me to shut it off is to turn off the power supply. Holding the power button to shut it down completely doesn't work. When I power it back up after turning on the power supply it comes back on waking up from the last Sleep Mode. I have a feeling that the power supply might not be strong enough to start up everything? I'm running with a 500w power supply - what do you think? I might need to upgrade to one with more power, right?

I own a custom-built gaming rig. Here's the specs:

Motherboard: 
GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Dynamic Energy Saver Ultra Durable II Intel Motherboard

Memory: 
Patriot Viper II Sector 5 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model PVV34G1333LLK

Videocard: 
EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

CPU: 
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80570E8400

Power Supply Unit: 
Antec earthwatts EA500 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "Compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply

With 3 Hard Drives, and 2 CD-Roms.

Any response to this I will greatly appreciate! Thanks!


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## pip22 (Aug 22, 2004)

A 500W PSU is ample. My guess is a particular hardware device (or it's driver) will be the cause, it not being fully compatible with Windows power-saving features, in particular the sleep mode.


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

Is there any way I could find out which one could be the cause?


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

Bump.


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

Bump again...


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## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

Actually, I have a hunch that it is not the power supply, it is more than likely some driver someplace, possibly from the video area. 

However, we recommend at least a 550 watt power supply (we don't recommend Antec power supplies), so it might be worth a try to borrow one and see if that helps.


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

I really appreciate your input on this. So, if its the driver for the video card, then that would mean I would need to replace it with a better one as the alternative to fixing this annoying Sleep Mode problem.

Might I ask why you wouldn't recommend Antec power supplies? I was interested in their products since they provide green or eco friendly devices with efficient power features. I'd rather build a custom built computer with Green in mind. If you provide a good reason then I'll reconsider getting a better 550v + PSU for my rig.


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## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

Some times that can be an issue with video card drivers that are not needed, but loaded as a part of the total package. I recently had one like that and took out all the video card drivers and redid it with only the essential drivers. Those are very difficult to find in most cases.

Antec power supplies are very good in some cases and very bad in other cases. They change suppiiers (those who make their supplies) quite often and never make it very public that they are doing that. Therefore, you may get a great supply if one company is making their supplies or you may get a bottom of the tank supply if they happen to be using a crap supplier at the time. There is just no consistency with their company and power supplies. 

It is a gamble, so our hardware team does not recommend them for this reason.


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## mcorton (Apr 16, 2009)

This is only a hunch but I had the same p[roblem a couple years ago after installing a PCI ethernet card. It turned out that the ethernet card and the CD ROM had been set up to run in the same IRQ. You might want to check your devices to see if this may be the case.


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

mcorton said:


> This is only a hunch but I had the same p[roblem a couple years ago after installing a PCI ethernet card. It turned out that the ethernet card and the CD ROM had been set up to run in the same IRQ. You might want to check your devices to see if this may be the case.


What did you mean by "set up to run in the same IRQ?" I don't get that part.


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

Tumbleweed36 said:


> Some times that can be an issue with video card drivers that are not needed, but loaded as a part of the total package. I recently had one like that and took out all the video card drivers and redid it with only the essential drivers. Those are very difficult to find in most cases.
> 
> Antec power supplies are very good in some cases and very bad in other cases. They change suppiiers (those who make their supplies) quite often and never make it very public that they are doing that. Therefore, you may get a great supply if one company is making their supplies or you may get a bottom of the tank supply if they happen to be using a crap supplier at the time. There is just no consistency with their company and power supplies.
> 
> It is a gamble, so our hardware team does not recommend them for this reason.


Deleted my video card drivers, and went to safe mode to delete the remainders. After that I immediately reinstalled fresh ones from online. Put my computer to Sleep Mode, only to find out it still does the same thing. I might end up getting a new video card. I'm getting issues from my video card during gaming like: characters looking like spikes becoming unrecognizeable, video card driver crashes - going black screen or screen freezes, and lastly some blocks or pixels coming out in weird colors... these all happen during gaming only. Not sure what I can do with this. Seems like the video card people are having a hard time helping me figure this one out... so yeah...


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## mario74 (Dec 2, 2010)

This is a very common problem with Vista and win 7. It has nothing to do with your video card it's something that Microsoft doesn't feel the need to fix it seems. You will have to change the power scheme and stop it from sleeping and just shut it down instead. I have 2 computers XP and vista on one and win 7 on the other. I can't use sleep mode on either and have run into this many times. Sleep mode seems to work fine with laptops though.


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

I wish I could say the same thing with your situation but I still find Sleep/Hibernation mode really handy and saves me time. I've came to love that feature since I first built my own gaming rig hehe. I'm hoping someone out there might have the answer. I'll try to play around with the power scheme as you suggested. Thanks Mario.


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## ajcc323 (Dec 31, 2010)

SOLVED!
My problems with the system not being able to wake up from Sleep Mode due to a constant Power On Loop has now been fixed. The culprit is the Motherboard itself. For people who own a Gigabyte Motherboard, you will likely have the same issues as I do. 

Here's the fix:

1. Enter your system BIOS
2. Go to Power Management Setup
3. Firstly, make sure the following is turned off or disabled:
PME Event Wake Up, Power On by Ring, Resume by Alarm
(*Trust me, this will spare you from future headaches and misery.)
4. And lastly, make sure you set AC Back Funtion to FULL ON or Memory whichever state you prefer it to wake up in. Under its default, Soft-Off, the system refuses to wake up from Sleep mode thus causing it to go under continuous Power On and Off loop. I hope this solution helps anyone with similar situations.


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