Laptop trouble: sleep mode

[Magmoormaster]

A few years ago, I purchased an Acer Predator for school and work. It's been a great computer, but for some reason it has a problem with the sleep mode that I can't figure out or find info for on google. It was only occasional at first, but it's reached a point where it happens almost all of the time. When the computer goes to sleep, it refuses to wake back up. The light on the side that indicates if the computer is on, or in sleep mode, or off, shows that it's "on", but the screen will be black and USB devices (IE, my mouse) don't receive power. I have to manually power off the computer and restart it, which often means I lose unsaved data. And like I said, it happens pretty much every time the computer goes to sleep, regardless of whether it's from the timer or if I close it.

Any idea on how to fix this? Or who to talk to? I don't know if this is a windows/microsoft issue, or if it's a hardware/Acer issue. Either way, I can't find anything on google on this.

[flyweightnate]

Microsoft did a "modern sleep" for tablets that created all sorts of problems when the update hit older laptops. I had a Dell XPS that was a fire hazard as a result - literally couldn't put it in a bag without a full shutdown. But I digress...

One of the new settings was putting peripherals to sleep to save power. Check your power settings, go advanced, see that you have that unchecked. The default is that just about everything goes dark for certain builds.

[ford]

I hate issues like this... You've got one vendor in charge of code related to your hardware, and another responsible for the software... and you have to pray everything plays nicely together.

Looking through Acer's community forums there is this post: https://community.acer.com/en/discus...-up-from-sleep which is a little ambiguous. It sounds like the average suggestion is making sure your windows version is up to date and your hardware drivers are equally up to date... I mean, sure, not a bad place to start but a lot of work for what may be completely fruitless.

A separate thread mentions a hardware issue that was keeping the laptop from going into sleep... That's interesting to me because the nature of this issue you have is that it was sporadic at first but has gotten worse over time. The idea a cable in your laptop wasn't seated very securely and over time has gotten looser makes sense to me.

So how would I approach it?
- I'd crack open the laptop first and just ensure all the connections are secure.
- If connections are secure and the issue persists I'd go ahead and try to get the latest hardware drivers installed from Acer's website.
- If the issue still persists I'd probably give up like the rest of the folks in that thread I linked, but if I was truly invested I may try some more isolation steps.
-- I would try and create a boot disk for linux and see if I can get the feature to work as expected. https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-...ntu#1-overview
--- If it works via the boot disk you at least know it's Windows that screwed the pooch and isolate it to a software issue... It won't fix the problem but you'll know who to blame =P

[the_matrix_guy]

I had a similar issue on a desktop I built, and found out it was video card related. Make sure you update your drivers, also make sure your graphics settings are set so that it shows the main display only (not extending.)

That being said, the video driver update did not help, the issue didn’t stop until I switched video cards from AMD to Nvidia. Which is very impractical to do in a laptop, you’d have to run an external graphics card. What video chipset is that laptop running? Just out of curiosity

[Magmoormaster]

Sorry for the delayed response, I forgot I made this thread.

To my knowledge, all of my drivers are up to date. I've updated the power settings, both when the display turns off and the USB settings, as well chaning when the hard disk turns off to "never." we'll see if that works. If not, I'll crack it open and take a look at the connections.

As far as the video chipset, I cannot tell you. I know I have a GTX 1060 6gb.

I did add a 2tb SS HDD to the laptop at one point, is it possible that could have caused this somehow? I don't remember if I had this problem before doing so, it was about 2 years ago.

[moonweasel]

Curious, I have a 2yr old Acer laptop doing the same thing. I will be watching

[RAZRBAKK]

Have you disable fast startup? I remember that being an issue for me on windows 10 laptops in the past.

[Seajay]

Everyone has touched on the basic steps to resolve this.

In Windows disable Fast Startup.
Reset Power Plan / Run Troubleshooter
Update Video Drivers

You can try Hibernation vs Sleep but this shouldn't really matter. Hibernation saves state to disk, while sleep saves state to memory. There's a hybrid of the too as well. (I wouldn't even worry about it).

If it isn't one of those things something might be broke.

[Tracker]

i would want to check the power supply side as well..

maybe a new battery and power brick, or perhaps try running it without the battery if you can and see if theres a difference

i dunno how easy those would be for you to get.. or how expensive though (could be prohibitive)