Windows hibernation

[Nermal]

I have a question for all the Windows experts here

My brother is trying to enable hibernation on his XP computer. Normally you can go into Power Options and enable hibernation, but for some reason it doesn't appear. The other way I know of is to hold Shift while shutting down, but that doesn't work either - the Stand By option is greyed out, and holding Shift doesn't do anything.

All the information I can find online says that this is indicative of the computer not supporting standby or hibernation, but we know this isn't the case because we've had it working before. Is there a driver we need to install or something? He says he's installed all the drivers that came with the computer (a Shuttle cube).

I'll leave you with a quote from him:
'I go to open Task Manager help, and of course it opens behind Task Manager. So I close Task Manager, and the help disappears! That's Windows for you!'

 

[daggle]

Not sure if this will help, but I have a feeling that he may need to enable hibernation support at the system bios level. I'm too lazy to boot my PC and check the bios, but am reasonably certain it has all manner of options around stuff like 'wake on LAN', 'hibernation' etc.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I have a question for all the Windows experts here

My brother is trying to enable hibernation on his XP computer. Normally you can go into Power Options and enable hibernation, but for some reason it doesn't appear. The other way I know of is to hold Shift while shutting down, but that doesn't work either - the Stand By option is greyed out, and holding Shift doesn't do anything.

All the information I can find online says that this is indicative of the computer not supporting standby or hibernation, but we know this isn't the case because we've had it working before. Is there a driver we need to install or something? He says he's installed all the drivers that came with the computer (a Shuttle cube).

I'll leave you with a quote from him:
'I go to open Task Manager help, and of course it opens behind Task Manager. So I close Task Manager, and the help disappears! That's Windows for you!'

Regarding that quote: Yes, that's annoying, but just minimizing Task Manager rather than closing it (or turning the Always on Top feature off temporarily or permanently) will allow you to view the help.

 

[3-22]

I have a question for all the Windows experts here

My brother is trying to enable hibernation on his XP computer. Normally you can go into Power Options and enable hibernation, but for some reason it doesn't appear. The other way I know of is to hold Shift while shutting down, but that doesn't work either - the Stand By option is greyed out, and holding Shift doesn't do anything.

All the information I can find online says that this is indicative of the computer not supporting standby or hibernation, but we know this isn't the case because we've had it working before. Is there a driver we need to install or something? He says he's installed all the drivers that came with the computer (a Shuttle cube).

I'll leave you with a quote from him:
'I go to open Task Manager help, and of course it opens behind Task Manager. So I close Task Manager, and the help disappears! That's Windows for you!'

He is probably missing or has installed the wrong drivers. Perhaps turned the feature off in BIOS too. The option will not be available in Windows if it doesn't have the ability to "talk" to the hardware or it's an older system. This sounds like a new system so it should be there...

I personally have never cared for the hibernation in Windows it seems it always left the system unstable but maybe thats just my experience. For Windows the occasional reboot (or poweron) is a good thing.

 

[iShater]

I have an old Pentium Pro machine that doesn't support hibernation on the hardware level, however, it is my understanding that hibernation works on two parts: software and hardware.

The software part is when windows writes the contents of memory, i.e. the state of the system, to the hibernation file and sets up the system to resume from it.

The hardware part is just a request to the system to turn itself off after hibernation.

Even if the system doesn't support the hardware part (like mine) it should still do the software one and wait for you to turn off the computer manually.

Check that you have enough diskspace to hibernate (you probably do), and verify that the user you are logging in with has admin access and can change system settings.

Not sure what else we can try after that.

I just wish OSX had a hibernate opion.

 

[Westside guy]

Hibernation shouldn't really depend on the BIOS at all - it's an ACPI function, which means it's completely controlled by the software (as opposed by the older APM power management that was BIOS-related). However as others have said, the hardware still has to support it. It is possible that there'd be a BIOS switch to toggle the ACPI functionality on or off, of course.

But hibernation is not the same as standby. Standby is an APM function, and an older computer is much more likely to support that. Usually standby means power is kept flowing to RAM etc. (which is why a PC laptop on standby can get quite hot in a backpack). Hibernation writes everything to disk, and shuts the machine completely off.

Also note that hibernation may be disabled if you've used an atypical format for the disk, such as FAT32 (you'd probably know if you'd done this). XP is normally installed on an NTFS formatted partition/disk.

 

[TDM21]

I have an old Pentium1(not MMX wither) 150mHz laptop that I stalled Windows 2000 on once. I could make it go to hibernate any time I wanted. So hibernation should work on most computers.

Regarding the greyed out standby button:
I know this can be related to a driver problem. My first recommedation is to reinstall you video drivers. If XP has to use default generic drivers then it will disable standby and I guess that would disable hibernation also. I have done this several times with success.

EDIT: oh and I have had XP installed on a FAT 32 file system and still was able to use hibernation with no problem

 

[JLS]

I personally have never cared for the hibernation in Windows it seems it always left the system unstable but maybe thats just my experience. For Windows the occasional reboot (or poweron) is a good thing.

I only use hibernation, and restart only when I have to (antivirus updates etc). I go months without restarting, with no loss of stability at all

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I only use hibernation, and restart only when I have to (antivirus updates etc). I go months without restarting, with no loss of stability at all

I used to hibernate my computer all the time (at work) when I was using my computer on a regular basis. Since that's not the case anymore, and I never hibernate at home (I don't really see the point for a Windows desktop to hibernate, especially when it boots cold into Windows XP as quickly as it does.), I don't hibernate at all now.

 

[Nermal]

OK, I gave him your suggestions yesterday and he hasn't come back and complained that it still doesn't work - but he hasn't confirmed that he has it working either.