SWMBO's PC won't come out of hibernate

[Ratbag]

Now, if only I could work out why SWMBO's PC won't come out of hibernate mode when the power switch is pushed ... CR2035 BIOS battery is fine (3.194V); cleaned all the fans and heat sinks; vacced the case; removed, cleaned and re-fitted the video card and RAM chips; pressed the ROM down to make sure it was seated in its socket; checked the functioning of the switch with multimeter .

Over the last week, I have: de-fragged and optimised all the HDDs (i.e. all the partitions on the 2x HDDs = 1.5 TB total); run boot-time CHKDSK on all drives; run full malware (Malwarebytes and SpyBot) and AVG a/v scans on all HDDs; deleted and reconstituted the hibernation file, hiberfil.sys.

Other than the re-start problem, the computer runs like a little lamb.

It can always be re-started by switching the PSU switch off, waiting 20 secs, switching the PSU switch back on, then pressing the power button on the front of the case. However, there is a delay of some 20-30 seconds between pressing the power button and the re-start commencing. That's different from the way it has always behaved previously.
It seems to be a time for weird occurrences ... .

Any suggestions welcome ... :iconwink:

 

[Ratbag]

Ah well. It appears to be the old dodgy front USB port/s problem.

I have come across this once or twice before.

The USB board behind the ports on the front panel fries itself, and the computer won't start because it cannot latch the port/s. Unplug the cable from the motherboard and the problem goes away. I can always use a spare backplane cable and ports to provide access to those MoBo ports, assuming that the USB hub on the MoBo that controls the ports is not dead.

Hopefully this solves this annoying problem for my wife (and me ... ).

 

[Ratbag]

^ That seems to have fixed it :biggrin:.

Seems to be a characteristic of the chipset design of motherboards manufactured between about 2004-2007, and the design of the little circuit board that the front panel USB ports are mounted on. Quite strange really, but there you are .

 

[lefty]

I have a work server PC that has a strange problem. When I restart it, the screen is blank but you can hear the PC boot up properly.Same if I turn it off and on again . The only way it will boot properly is to turn it off, pull out the power cable, count to 5 , plug it back in.
It has front USB ports and in the vintage of 04-07 you mention. Reckon could be the same problem?

 

[Ratbag]

Gidday Lefty

Sorry to leave you alone in the dark for so long .

What with the fixing of my wife's PC (finally achieved yesterday), and the attendant back problems, plus teaching her how to do PowerPoint again, among other little problems she is having ... I've been sort of busy, and sort of knackered!

Anyway, back to your problem. It sounds as if the video card is loose in its slot.

Power down the PC when convenient. Turn it off (or disconnect the power cord - best); remove the video card; give it a really gentle clean on the top side where all the bird poo accumulates; make sure that the heat sink is clean (if it has a fan type heat sink arrangement, ensure that the fan blades are clean and that the fan actually functions when the PC is running!); clean the terminals on the card (without touching them - and touch the metal part of the case first); blow the slot out to remove anything like stray cat hair (I'm not kidding ... ); re-insert the video card, ensuring that the lock at the inside end is properly latched in position; if the computer case is of the 'screw-less' variety, put a screw into it to hold the video card firmly in place.

I finally tracked our problem down to a poor power connection to the floppy drive ... I had this happen once about 20 years ago! A defective floppy will prevent a system from booting if it shorts the power supply. This FDD was fine, just dodgy contacts for the power. I have never had that happen before. I always install floppy drives because: 1) they are so cheap, why not? and 2) there are some exceptionally good memory diagnostics that are only available if one boots any system as a DOS 5.5 or DOS 6 machine.

In the meantime, someone (me) had re-set the BIOS to the defaults by removing the MoBo battery for testing. I forgot to reset the f/w switch back to 'Plug and Play OS installed', which was the last chain in the link.

Both the front USB ports and the power switch were blameless ... and have been granted a full pardon :lol: :rotfl:.

Hope this helps you.

 

[lefty]

but its onboard graphics

 

[Ratbag]

^ Gidday Lefty

Did you find the solution to your problem with the work server?

On-board graphics and NIC are a right proper PITA, IMNSHO. When They poop themselves, I replace them with 'proper' NIC and video cards, disabling the on-board devices via the BIOS.

Anyway, last night when SWMBO got home, she went to turn on her PC and it was as dead as the proverbial Dodo. On-board power light was on. How misleading is that? Turned out that the PSU was dead, and has probably been causing the problems all along. It was a very strange presentation for a failing PSU, but that's how it is sometimes.

Went down to the local MSY and bought another 400W Coolermaster PSU (the old one was nearly 7 y.o. ... ). Fitted it. PC booted up like a lamb.

BTW, folks, never get lured down the path of buying humongous PSUs. A 400-450W unit (decent quality costs around $40-50) is more than adequate, even if you have a box full of HDDs.

I have had a drain tester on my main workstation (software that came with the pro-grade UPS belonging to a client), and with all three internal drives working simultaneously (i.e. doing disk tests of one description or another), and all the USB un-powered external drives connected and working, the total power consumption was about 145W ... That was including the 1920x1200 24.5" professional monitor running off the same UPS unit that was giving me the power consumption data.

My main w/s has 2x DVD/CD drives; floppy; 2x 320 GB and 1x 2TB internal HDDs; 4 GB RAM and running a Core 2 Duo CPU. During the above testing, it never drew more than 150W ...

 

[ALMOSTunseen]

Yeah people are suckered into getting larger power supplies because bigger just sounds better. Only reason why I get slightly larger power supplies is I like to get ones with auto PWM/VR fan control, so on my one if it is using below 300W the fan isn't running at all, I like it quiet
And those 400w powersupplies are handy to have, we have a thermaltake one sitting around at work waiting for one of the PC's to blow up

 

[lefty]

Haven't had a chance to test yet

 

[Ratbag]

^ Keep us posted, mate . And good luck with it.

Just ask if I can be of any assistance. I have been doing this kind of stuff for a very long time ...