Ken Robertson's Blog

Ramblings of a .NET developer

SP2 and Laptops

Has anybody else noticed an issue with laptops running Service Pack 2 and resuming after sleeping?  After putting the laptop to sleep for a while, when you open it back and it resumes, it either takes a really rediculously long time to come back to life or it just never does it.  And if it does resume, afterwards it continues to run incredibly slow.  I've noticed this so far on 2 laptops, my new IBM Thinkpad T40 and my fiancee's Toshiba Satellite.

I've already tried disabling the Security Center service, but doesn't seem to do it.  My next thing will be to disable my antivirus (Panda Titanium Antivirus) and see if it is an issue with that, since its icon does come up on the welcome screen first while resuming.

Anyone else had this issue and possibly know of a solution?

Update: I've been tinkering with it some more and found out that it doesn't have anything to do with my antivirus software, since it'll still do it with it completely disabled.  Also, it has nothing to do with suspend/sleep/standby vs. hibernation.  I had it hibernate and it still did it when I turned it back on.  In fact, it was even worse.  It could go to standby for while and be ok, but have it hibernate for any amount of time, and it is stuck.

Update (9/13/04):  I finally found the cause of my woes.  As it turns out, the cause was my antivirus software (Panda Titanium Antivirus 2004).  After resuming, I went to try and load the task manager and I came back a while later when it had finally opened.  I managed to get to the process list and saw that the process pavsrv51.exe was taking up 100% of the cpu time.  I couldn't find anything about the issue anywhere, and I've been having a few annoyances with it, so I uninstalled it.  Trying out BitDefender Professional now and it works great.  Will probably end up sticking with it.

Posted: Sep 12 2004, 04:04 AM by qgyen | with 8 comment(s)

Comments

Alex Campbell said:

If by "sleep mode" you mean what Windows calls "standby", then I don't think anyone is going to be able to help you.

I've never found a laptop on which the "standby" functionality works correctly. I find "hibernate" a much more reliable way of quickly saving state. So I suggest you enable hibernation in your Windows power settings and use that.

I've found that XP SP2 has fixed some issues I was experiencing with multiple monitors and laptops (when I closed the lid of my laptop, the screen resolution would drop to 640x480, and the video card would generally freak out and do crazy things). This drove me insane and no longer happens since installing XP SP2.
# September 12, 2004 8:09 AM

Jeff Atwood said:

Standby works fine on my desktop and my laptop.

I *did* notice, however, that after installing XP SP2 the default settings were screwed up-- my laptop and my home theater PC would not standby correctly. The laptop would immediately hibernate after I opened the lid (!), and the HTPC never went into standby.

The fix is easy though: go into Control Panel, Network and specify power saving settings, then save the settings. Once I did this things were back to normal in both cases; the laptop stands by as before, and the HTPC goes to standby mode after 30 mins of inactivity.

SP2 somehow messes up the default settings for power saving! I've experienced this on 2 PCs so I think it's a real bug.
# September 12, 2004 1:03 PM

Ken Robertson said:

Alex, it is even worse when hibernating. I could have it go into standby and bring it back ok if it was only a short while, but when hibernating, it gets stuck after any amount of time. The screen will come up, but the menus are incredibly slow and I cannot get any new processes to open.
# September 12, 2004 2:50 PM

Jeff Atwood said:

Er.. I meant "Control Panel, Power"

I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue..
# September 12, 2004 5:47 PM

Slobodan Mumovic said:

I have a problem with my eMachines M6805 that behaves strangely after i installed SP2. It wont turn off while shutting down or hibernating (i have to kill it manually), and after a full shutdown it takes obscene amount of time to show the desktop icons. It also takes a lot of time to read battery status, and freezes completely when toggling between battery and AC power. I strongly suspect problems with the battery or APM drivers.


I contacted Microsoft SP2 support and they did not come with an answer yet. They are (im)politely ignoring me. Tried to talk to eMachines support but they are unreachable...


I'll try uninstalling SP2 if I can get the courage from somewhere. SP2 SUCKS!
# September 21, 2004 7:14 AM

MikeV said:

I had the same problem with a ThinkPad 600 and XP SP2 with Panda Titanium 2004.

I just tonight upgraded Panda to Version 3.02.02 and the problem is GONE!!! Really!!!
# September 21, 2004 9:31 PM

Ed Acciardi said:

I'm having the exact same problems with my eMachines M6805, so it's not you.
# October 7, 2004 5:37 PM

John W said:

I too am experiencing the eMachines problem. I emailed their tech support and the response was not at all helpful. In fact, their only suggestion was "eMachines recommends you restore your computer to its original state". I suppose they want me to run WinXP Home forever and never upgrade drivers and OS's. If anyone receieves any helpful info, please post it! Thanks!
# October 11, 2004 4:37 AM
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