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No S3 Sleep anymore after power outage.
this thread has 19 replies and has been viewed 1576 times
I have had this recurring S3 problem with my HTPC (Vista64 Ultimate). What happens is that the HTPC will not go into S3 sleep and wakes instantly whenever I turn it off. This seems to always happen after a power outage. The problem disappeared when I updated my BIOS a few months back and didn't return, but last night the power went out during the storms (I'm in Melbourne) and when it finally came back on the HTPC will now no longer go into S3 sleep. It used to work perfectly and would sleep fine.
What I think is happening is the VMC services/tasks are getting corrupted when there is a power outage and upon rebooting the PC they are somehow not corrected and this problem returns. I did a quick test by resetting the BIOS using "Load fail safe defaults" last night and rebooting the PC. Upon reboot I set the guide to record the Arsenal v Liverpool champions league game at 5:30am on SBS and pressed the "Off" button on the remote. The HTPC shut down and went into S3 sleep. It was recording SBS when I woke at 7am so I don't know if it turned on again during the night but when I pressed the off button again when I left for work it again refused to go into S3 sleep and woke up instantly. When I turned it off last night it stayed off initially until I was at least in bed which makes me think this fixed it as usually it is only milliseconds before it wakes.
IS there some way to completely reset VMC without re-installing? or at least kill ALL VMC tasks so they reset to default??
This problem doesn't seem to be hardware related but related to the VMC tasks. Does anyone have an understanding on how VMC "works" and can provide some insight into what may be going on here and why a power-outage stuffs it up so badly?? any advice, theories, similar experiences would be most welcome.
When VMC won't go into sleep mode when you press the power button, does it still blank the screen? If so, close the MC interface and check that there is not dialog on the Vista desktop that requires attention. I had a problem for a short time that after a reboot my machine wouldn't go into sleep. Turned out that my IceTV application checked for updates on reboot. There was an update available, so it put up a dialog to that effect on the desktop. Only trouble was, I was in MC so didn't see the message. Once I shut down Media Center I could see what was going on and did the update. Now all is well again.
It sounds suspicously like wake on LAN has been enabled somewhere. Check the BIOS to make sure it's not an option there (in fact, in the BIOS only USB devices should be set to wake the PC).
If that isn't it, then (in Windows) go in to the properties of your network card & disable WOL there.
If that doesn't work, check the "while sharing media" sleep setting (make sure it's set to allow for sleep).
If all else fails, download MST & make the appropriate settings in that.
Justin
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Main MC: DFI LP JR GF9400-T2RS, Q8200, 2x1GB Kingston, 2xHVR-2200(4DVB-T Tuners), 32GB Patriot SSD, 750GB Samsung, NSK2480B, Corsair HX520, 32 inch Metz LCD.
Bedroom MC: Asus M3N78-EM, 4850e, CNPS7000B(mod) cooler, 2x1GB Geil 800, 1xAver Duo, 250GB Seagate, Silverstone SG02-FB, 26 inch Toshiba LCD.
This is sometimes a bit of a long shot but assuming that you find nothing wrong with the power management settings I would try running a chkdsk on your drives. Over the years I have found that even the smallest amount of HDD corruption (such as what can be caused by an unscheduled power ourage) can cause unpredictable behaviour. Mind you, even if it's not the cause it's probably something you should always do in those circumstances anyway.
and thanks go mostly to "The Rob" for at least providing the neurological kick in a remotely associated direction. The problem turned out to be with my TV guide (as bizarre as that sounds). I went into VMC and did a manual TV Guide update, after the TV guide updated successfully I then pressed the "off" button on the remote and BAM, straight to sleep she went.
Why the hell such an event would stop the PC from entering Sleep is totally beyond me and just seems ridiculous....but that is the cause of this problem.
You should pass this on to the apropriate guide guys...IceTV, freeEPG or Guide Grabber or who ever you use...this has jogged me on my S3 settings as well. I think this is why I changed my settings not to sleep as it would not resume.
This morning when I got up after successfully putting the HTPC to sleep last night and watching it for 5 mins to make sure it stayed asleep, it was back on. The interesting thing is though that even though it is on, the screen is completely black and just flashing "Component" on the screen (Happens when there is no signal from graphics card in the HTPC). Nothing would get the HTPC to wake up from this state, not the mouse, not the keyboard, not the remote. I had to reboot it to get control again.
I had a look at the MST log and it shows that after I put it to sleep last night it stayed off for exactly 6 mins and then shows "waking by user intervention". There is then just a constant cycle (also 6 mins long) of the system timing out due to no user input and entering sleep mode then waking up instantly. Each time there is an entry "Sleep mode entered successfully" followed milliseconds later by "System waking by user intervention <#number#>" (the number is always different). This happens every 6 mins, continuously.
I am pretty certain now that there has been a corruption of the files that are written when the system enters S3 sleep. They are somehow out of "sync" due to the power outage and this has somehow completely thrown the ability to sleep out the window.
Some things I have tried and their effects are:
1) Changing the power profile settings: If I change these settings (or make a completely new profile) then the system WILL enter S3 sleep directly after doing this. At some point during the sleep period the HTPC will wake up automatically and un-prompted.
2) Killing the Task scheduler and any eh* processes and services: Using task manager to kill/stop these tasks and services again allows the system to enter S3 sleep successfully. At some point afterwards the system will automatically wake un-prompted.
3) resetting BIOS to "Fail safe defaults": No effect on this problem. System doesn't enter sleep.
Does anyone have any idea how to reset the powercfg registry entries or delete the files written when the system hibernates/S3 sleeps (or infact WHERE they are)??
This problem is the biggest pain in the ass and should be fixable.
I've just been through a very similar frustration with S3 and know how painful it is. My machine was doing exactly what yours was - going to sleep and waking up either instantly or a couple of mnutes later - sometimes. My problem didn't have anything to do with power failure, but just in case my issue is somehow related to yours...
It turned out to be a networking/media sharing issue for me. It's not clear to me if you're networked or not, but this it's possible it could be your problem regardless. What worked for me was to go to Networking and Sharing and finding I had permitted other machines to media share with my HTPC (I'm not on a Vista machine now, but there might also be an option to look for media on other machines). I turned it all off. I also turned off media sharing on my other PC. I'm wondering if permitting sharing media sharing might generate routine resume from sleep events even if you're not networked.
If you're still stuck, what detail do you get in Event Viewer (Windows applications>System was where I saw my machine was being woken by my network card and led me to the sharing issue).
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to woohoo for this information:
Yes, I have it networked with my other PC. I'll give this a try as it could definitely explain the constant waking up. The HTPC is trying to do SOMETHING over and over and not getting a response (because the other PC is off). The problem is that previous to the power outage this HTPC worked flawlessly even while networked to the other PC. I think removing all networking and sharing info is a great idea as when the power goes off the Modem also goes off and all DHCP info is lost and this may be written somewhere on the HTPC and iit is trying to find a now non-existent IP (I have 4 seperate "things" that get IP addresses.
Wake on Lan is OFF. Always has been. As I said above, the HTPC used to work perfectly before the power outage and it was actually on and displaying live TV when the power went off. Power cuts aren't magically going to turn wake-on-lan back on.
The HTPC is trying to do something over and over again and failing each time. It may be that it is trying to re-aquire media shared on my Gaming PC but since the last record of that PC's network details have changed since the power outage (New Router IP and different DHCP IP for PC) it can't and this may be causing it too keep "looking" at regular intervals.
