Nothing but the mouse and a few task bar popup windows work after resuming from sleep

[wmassey]

In a nutshell, Windows Explorer (and most but not all of the GUI) hangs/freezes on this system after it resumes from a standby state.

I have just installed Windows 7 (64 bit, Home Premium) on a PC that had been running XP Pro (32 bit). As such, it is a clean install of Windows 7 onto a new SSD bought for that purpose.

All current critical updates are installed.
All optional hardware updates are installed.

The BIOS, motherboard drivers and video card drivers are the latest available as of 24 hours ago.

Here are some of the specifics for the hardware installed:
System Model EP45-UD3R (rev 1.0)
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q9400 @ 2.66GHz, 2133 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. F12, 1/25/2010
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
CD-ROM Optiarc DVD RW AD-7260S ATA
SSD OCZSSD2-1VTXLE100G
DeviceDisplay ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series (3650, 1GB)
RealTek Audio & Ethernet is provided by the motherboard.

Under XP, the system will hibernate and/or standby and resume without problem.
Under Windows 7, the machine is setup for hybrid sleep and it will "go to sleep" (power down to S3 state) OK but when it reawakens, it will not do anything useful. Some of the taskbar icons (like the action center) will produce information-only popup windows but none of the other toolbar icons (like the "pearl" or Internet Explorer) cause anything to happen other than a spinning cursor.
If I have the task manager open and showing the Performance-tab strip charts when the system is put to sleep, when the system is reawaken, it will still appear and the strip charts will still run until I start clicking around on things with the mouse, at which point the strip charts will freeze. If I have a window open when the system goes into the S3 state, it will still be open when the system resumes from S3 and I can use the scroll bars for the window to move the contents around without problem but if there are controls or links in the window and I click on them, they will not respond other than to cause a "busy" cursor to start being displayed.

If the cursor is left to spin long enough (3 or 4 minutes), the screen will go black and only the cursor arrow will be left. A reboot of the PC at this point will retrieve the hibernation (S4) settings saved when the PC was put to "sleep" and after those settings are loaded the machine will be fully functional and in the same state it was in when it was put to sleep.

At this point, no other software than what comes on the Windows 7 installation DVD and from Microsoft update is installed on the machine. Subsequent addition of the ATI/RealTek/Intel drivers do not help this problem (though they do get the display and sound working better).

I've tried the extremes of the sleep-related power settings for the PCI-bus, processor and USB and those did not make any difference. Standby-only (no hybrid) works the same except the resume after reboot does not work.

I have run the Windows 7 provided extended memory diagnosis for a half-dozen cycles and those did not find any problems. The Windows 7 60-second diagnostic does not find any problem.

I have tried installing the 32-bit version of Windows 7 and it too has this same behavior. The problem will occur if the the USB is free of all devices.

The system also has a SATA HDD and both the SSD(Windows 7 OS) and HDD(XP OS) are configured as IDE (as opposed to AHCI) devices in the BIOS so that I can still boot/run XP until I get this Windows 7 silliness sorted out. I have installed Windows 7 several times now (I'm beginning to get the MS key memorized) with the HDD unplugged from the system and the hang still occurs. It will also occur if the CD/DVD drive is missing from the system.

I found this discussion and setup to get a trace of what was happening when the system resumed from standby and everything went according to the script (Command used = xbootmgr -trace standby -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP) until the system actually resumed running after S3 and a window popped up that said "Changing power state..." which lingered for about 4 minutes until I decided that the power state was never going to change (the network status icon in the taskbar area almost immediately gets/keeps a red X over it which is another symptom of this standby-hang state) and I pressed the reboot button. The system then restarted from the hibernation settings and the xboot log file ricked up from there and showed a normal completion of the process.

What else might I do to diagnose & fix this problem?

Thanks in advance,
Warren

 

[Fire cat]

Welcome to the forums!

How very strange...

Since you have all drivers up to date and no hardware incompatibility, I guess it could be due to a corrupt hiberfil.sys file. Why? I can't tell, but that might be it.

Try disabling hybrid sleep and all other sleep options, then reboot.
After the reboot try enabling sleep again and see what happens.

 

[Nibiru2012]

Well, your first problem is the SSD HAS TO BE configured as AHCI. SSDs will run at their optimum when this setting is used.

You can dual boot still with the system set up as an AHCI with no problems. I have put linux on one hard drive and Windows 7 on another and then change the boot primary from the BIOS when I want to change the OS.

I have exactly the same motherboard as you with no problems at all. You must enable the HPET setting in the Power section of the BIOS to 64 bit if you're running a 64 bit OS though.

I don't use nor have used Sleep or Hibernate in several years, to me it's just a useless feature when one is on a desktop computer. Turn those settings off in the Power section of Control Panel. You really don't save that much on energy to be honest. Plus the Hibernate function puts a "hiberfil.sys" file on the hard drive that chews up as much disk space as the RAM you're running.

Try that and see how things go.

 

[wmassey]

Well, your first problem is the SSD HAS TO BE configured as AHCI. SSDs will run at their optimum when this setting is used.

Actually, this statement is just plain wrong. OCZ, the maker of the SSD, specifically recommend IDE over AHCI here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_to_set_up_Windows_on_a_VERTEX#Windows_7. And, since you don't bother with the power-saving features of the board, I suspect you don't know how well they do or don't work with your setup. Thank you, I do have the HPET (high precision event timer) enabled and set to 64 bits so that's not the cause of my particular problem.

 

[wmassey]

Welcome to the forums!

How very strange...

Since you have all drivers up to date and no hardware incompatibility, I guess it could be due to a corrupt hiberfil.sys file. Why? I can't tell, but that might be it.

Try disabling hybrid sleep and all other sleep options, then reboot.
After the reboot try enabling sleep again and see what happens.

It is the STANDBY part of hybrid sleep that is not working, the HIBERNATION part works just fine. And, as I said in the original posting, I have tried STANDBY on its own (no hybrid, so that the hiberfil.sys file was not used or present) and the problem still occurred.

 

[Nibiru2012]

Actually, this statement is just plain wrong. OCZ, the maker of the SSD, specifically recommend IDE over AHCI

No it is NOT plain wrong. I have done my homework on this subject, okay? The OCZ Vertex uses the Indilinx controller. Most the uber geeks that are using SSD are running in AHCI mode. Depends on the controller basically. Read a brief synopsis from the following review.

From Benchmark Reviews.com:

SSD Benchmark Tests: SATA IDE vs AHCI Mode

AHCI vs IDE Final Thoughts

Even before the benchmarks make their report, there's a lot of weight behind using AHCI over the less fortunate IDE mode. While the core readership of Benchmark Reviews consists of PC enthusiast users who might own only a single SSD, there are many other users who read our articles that have two or more SSDs combined into RAID arrays on server computer systems. This is why the benchmark performance results may not necessarily impact the final decision: purpose supersedes performance. If your application requires hot-plug drive support or redundant disks, then AHCI is the only choice.

​

AHCI feature-set not withstanding, the only argument IDE-mode offers in its defense is the occasional benefit of slightly faster read and write speeds. Remembering my analogy of the cargo ship and the speed it moves from the article's introduction, there's a lot more weight to be given towards operational IOPS performance over file transfer bandwidth speeds.​

As Solid State Drive storage devices mature and adoption grows, hardware enthusiasts can hope to see less separation between these two SATA interface technologies. Driver software continually improves compatibility, while SSD processor firmware steadily adds functionality and device stability. As we've seen recently with TRIM support in Microsoft Windows 7, the Operating System can also offer valuable new features that interact nicely with SSDs.​

Indilinx "Eco" Barefoot SSD - Suggested SATA control mode: AHCI.
JMicron JMF612 SSD - Suggested SATA control mode: AHCI.
Sandforce SF-1200 SSD - Suggested SATA control mode: AHCI.

I suspect you don't know how well they do or don't work with your setup.

First of all, don't be so presumptuous, I have messed with this stuff for years okay? I know what works and what doesn't work, at least for me. I don't recommend something lightly or frivolously.

I was merely trying to be helpful to someone - YOU, who asked for help. Then you reply that basically I don't know what I'm talking about. Fine, so be it. Since you apparently already know what you're doing.

 

[wmassey]

No it is NOT plain wrong. I have done my homework on this subject, okay? The OCZ Vertex uses the Indilinx controller.

Oh really? Actually THIS particular OCZ Vertex LE drive uses the SandForce controller. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2944 And you are also the one who said (with emphasis) "HAS TO BE ... AHCI" when OCZ said the opposite.

 

[Nibiru2012]

Meh..... :bebored:

 

[wmassey]

I had a second identical SSD installed in another computer here. In this other computer (with an ABIT motherboard) this second SSD did not exhibit this problem. I tried moving the second SSD to the problem system and it behaved just like the first SSD; it too would hang when the system restarted from standby. That would seem to say that the problem is probably not a defective SSD.

The Gigabyte motherboard in the problem system, in addition to the six SATA ports hanging off the Intel ICH10R south bridge, also has two SATA ports hanging off a “Gigabyte SATA 2 chip” and I finally got around to trying the SSD off one of those two ports and I’m happy to report that it does not experience this problem when run in this manner.

I have a solution that I can live with.