Computer sleep issues?

February 6, 2012 12:30 PM

Why is my Windows 7 laptop crashing when I close the lid?

My laptop is an Asus UL30A, Windows 7 Home Premium, which I bought new in Sept. 2010. Over the last couple of weeks, it has changed its behavior. It used to go to sleep when I closed the lid, but now it crashes and I get the "windows didn't shut down properly" blackscreen when I open it back up and hit the power button. This also happens if I try to put it into sleep or hibernation mode using the start menu, before I close the lid. I have checked my power settings and they seem to be correct. Other ideas?

posted by acridrabbit to technology (5 answers total)

look at the event logs to see what's being reported there.

It should point towards the culprit, but you might have to wade through a bunch of nonsense/ignorable messages to find the right one.
posted by k5.user at 12:38 PM on February 6

We need more information- and the event logs would be a big help in getting more info The fact that it does it when you try to put it to sleep means that it really has nothing to do with your lid or power settings.

My guess would be a bad driver of some sort. Do you have the latest drivers (print drivers are notoriously unreliable) for most of your devices? Have you checked the windows action center to see if there are any updates for this issue?
posted by thewumpusisdead at 1:55 PM on February 6

Something pretty similar happens with my Asus Timeline laptop, which I bought in the fall of 2011. My laptop will frequently, though not always, crash not long after I open the lid back up. Then it will often run through a check disk. The laptop otherwise runs perfectly. If your laptop didn't do this originally, I wonder if the problem was caused by an update that my laptop had from the beginning.
posted by imalaowai at 6:36 PM on February 6

Hmm, event logs. Never worked with those before. I don't really know what I'm looking at, so I'll have to dig a little to see if I can figure them out.

Haven't installed any new hardware recently, unless my new nook tablet counts.
posted by acridrabbit at 10:10 PM on February 6

What happens when you sleep (not hibernate) from the Start menu? It sounds like the laptop powers off. If that's the case, it's most likely a hardware issue. If it was just an issue with your power settings, it wouldn't be telling you that Windows had not shut down correctly.

If it's actually rebooting or blue screening instead of sleeping, then it's probably a driver issue, most likely the video driver. Check to see if it was updated recently, or try a different version.

If it is a driver issue, you can also look at the crash dump to determine exactly which one caused the problem, but that can get confusing rather quickly.
posted by Sibrax at 10:11 PM on February 6