XP - Resuming from Hibernation frequently hangs for a minute

Morac · 06-30-2009, 12:33 PM

I've been using the hibernation feature on my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop for a number of years now and it's worked flawlessly until relatively recently.

Lately upon resuming from hibernation, the machine will just kind of hang for a minute or two once the hibernation progress bar hits 100%. There's no activity from the machine at all during this time and then all the sudden windows just resumes as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

I have not made any hardware or hardware driver changes in years so it shouldn't be a hardware or driver issue. I do have Norton Internet Security 2009 installed if that makes a difference.

Other than this the machine has been running fine with one exception. The other day the fans on the laptop went into high speed when the machine got hot and then never shut off. At the same time the CPU got stuck in low step state (800 Mhz and opposed to 1.86 GHz). A reboot fixed this and I haven't seen that again. When I ran the Dell diagnostic program all the tests on the processor and the fans passed so it looks like that was a one time glitch.

Any ideas why resuming gets stuck for so long?

Dogg · 06-30-2009, 12:43 PM

You could check the System Event Viewer to see if Windows is logging any errors.

Morac · 06-30-2009, 12:47 PM

Sorry forgot to mention that I didn't see any errors (or anything else of interest) in the Event logs.

It appears, as far as Windows is concerned, that nothing unusual is happening. Since Windows used to load pretty much the moment the resume progress bar hit 100%, something is definitely off.

I'll mention it doesn't always happen, but it's fairly frequent.

Dogg · 06-30-2009, 12:51 PM

Could just be a matter or Windows "aging". The longer it's been since your last reload of XP, the larger the registry and the more junk that has likely accumulated on the HDD.

It may just be time for a system cleanup. Uninstalling unused apps, removing all the temp and misc files, malware/spyware scan, and a HDD defrag.

Morac · 06-30-2009, 01:04 PM

If it was "aging" I would think it would affect everything not just resuming from hibernation. Resuming from Standby works fine and booting from scratch is not any slower than it used to be.

I actually did do a drive clean-up recently and have done a few HDD's since then. Last night I decided to turn off hibernation and then re-enable it to clean out the hibernation file in case it was damaged, but since hibernation works and the problem seems to occur after the file is read, I doubt that was the problem.

06-30-2009, 12:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
Morac Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 3 OS: XP SP3 My System	XP - Resuming from Hibernation frequently hangs for a minute I've been using the hibernation feature on my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop for a number of years now and it's worked flawlessly until relatively recently. Lately upon resuming from hibernation, the machine will just kind of hang for a minute or two once the hibernation progress bar hits 100%. There's no activity from the machine at all during this time and then all the sudden windows just resumes as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. I have not made any hardware or hardware driver changes in years so it shouldn't be a hardware or driver issue. I do have Norton Internet Security 2009 installed if that makes a difference. Other than this the machine has been running fine with one exception. The other day the fans on the laptop went into high speed when the machine got hot and then never shut off. At the same time the CPU got stuck in low step state (800 Mhz and opposed to 1.86 GHz). A reboot fixed this and I haven't seen that again. When I ran the Dell diagnostic program all the tests on the processor and the fans passed so it looks like that was a one time glitch. Any ideas why resuming gets stuck for so long?

06-30-2009, 12:43 PM	#2 (permalink)
Dogg Tech Hardware Team Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: St Louis, MO Posts: 1,698 OS: XP sp3	Re: XP - Resuming from Hibernation frequently hangs for a minute You could check the System Event Viewer to see if Windows is logging any errors.

06-30-2009, 12:47 PM	#3 (permalink)
Morac Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 3 OS: XP SP3 My System	Re: XP - Resuming from Hibernation frequently hangs for a minute Sorry forgot to mention that I didn't see any errors (or anything else of interest) in the Event logs. It appears, as far as Windows is concerned, that nothing unusual is happening. Since Windows used to load pretty much the moment the resume progress bar hit 100%, something is definitely off. I'll mention it doesn't always happen, but it's fairly frequent.

06-30-2009, 12:51 PM	#4 (permalink)
Dogg Tech Hardware Team Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: St Louis, MO Posts: 1,698 OS: XP sp3	Re: XP - Resuming from Hibernation frequently hangs for a minute Could just be a matter or Windows "aging". The longer it's been since your last reload of XP, the larger the registry and the more junk that has likely accumulated on the HDD. It may just be time for a system cleanup. Uninstalling unused apps, removing all the temp and misc files, malware/spyware scan, and a HDD defrag.

06-30-2009, 01:04 PM	#5 (permalink)
Morac Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 3 OS: XP SP3 My System	Re: XP - Resuming from Hibernation frequently hangs for a minute If it was "aging" I would think it would affect everything not just resuming from hibernation. Resuming from Standby works fine and booting from scratch is not any slower than it used to be. I actually did do a drive clean-up recently and have done a few HDD's since then. Last night I decided to turn off hibernation and then re-enable it to clean out the hibernation file in case it was damaged, but since hibernation works and the problem seems to occur after the file is read, I doubt that was the problem.