Aspire 5630 with Vista won't Sleep... HELP!

Is anyone else having issues with Vista Home Premium and the sleep function on an Acer Aspire. I can not get this 5630 6966 to turn off the hard drive, wireless/wired network adapters or the Orbicam after I press Fn-F4, close the lid or via the power button configured to sleep. I made sure that the sleep function is associated with closing the lid and the power button under the Advanced Power options of Vista... But the only thing that happens is that the screen goes off and the computer is locked on resume as configured. Both NICs and the hard drive remain "fully" functional as I'm able to access the machine via the network... so is not just the little LEDs that stayed on. Without this functionality this laptop is severely handicapped. As I move from office to office and from meeting to meeting. I'm constantly opening and closing the lid of my laptop to take notes, check email and search the web. I will need to find an outlet and recharge the laptop by mid-day. It is not practical to hibernate, shutdown or toggle switches to turn off the adapters while on the move. Every laptop I've ever owned had this functionality out-of-the-box.

Here is what I have tried.
I have tested using BIOS 3.10 and 3.50, uninstalled and re-installed a couple versions of the Acer ePower Management and applied all Windows updates available. I also updated the driver for the 3945ABG wireless adapter. I have tested with the Acer Empowering tools installed and uninstalled. I also made sure to check the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power." under the Power Management tab of the properties of the adapters in question.

EDIT: Update... Because the BIOS updates required that the laptop be plug-in I have been doing all this testing at home without unpluging the laptop. Now the laptop sleeps properly, but "only" when it is unplugged. If I plug it while it is sleeping properly, the adapters do not turn on... As I expected. BUT... once pluged, as before, it won't sleep properly. It is a different problem now. I'm on BIOS 3.50 and ePower Management Ver. 2.5.3007 both from the European site. It is a bit better now... more testing.


I think there is a software component missing or malfunctioning between Vista and the Acer hardware. After some testing I suspect Vista more than the BIOS because when I click the radio buttons to turn the adapters listed in ePower Management on or off they toggle as expected. (Even the external LED by the switch of the wireless adapter goes off) What this tells me is that the API and hardware to "programmatically" turn the adapters on/off are functioning, but the component to toggle them from Vista’s ACPI is not working. I also looked at the manual for the old version of ePower Management there are options to Turn off the hard disk and system Standby that do not appear in the newer version 2.5 for Vista, but I doubt that this is the source. Short of reformatting this thing is there something else I should try?

I'm running out time to fix this as I requested and was granted an RMA from tigerdirect to return it. Mind you.. the actual reason for returning is that the OS, BIOS and tools like Intel Processor ID utility report that this laptop has a T5500 1.66GHz instead of T5300 1.73GHz CPU is supposed to have. This fact no longer bother me as the laptop is performing beautifully in "most" other areas. I would like to avoid the hassle of returning this thing and wasting time and money. I now want to keep this laptop as I have spent a considerable amount of time installing and configuring applications and testing. So I'm now very familiar with it and really like the performance and the looks of the hardware.

Let me apologize in advance as I asked for help with this problem in separate thread in this forum, but I received no replies. Given that I have just a few days to return it, I decided to start a new tread to bubble up the issue. I’m hopping that folks here can help me find a solution and also find out if this is a common problem with Vista and Acer laptops.

Thanks

 

The source of the problem was a setting under Advanced Power Options -> Multimedia Setting -> When Sharing Media. By default on Battery and Plugged this was set to "Allow the computer to enter Away Mode" Changing this setting to "Allow Computer to sleep" solved the problem. On Battery the Away Mode "does" allow the computer to sleep properly, so I did not look in the drop down options to see what else was there. Btw, it is possible that this setting could have been changed by WMP when media sharing is turned on. I'm a happy camper now!

 

I've been having problems with power management since I bought an 5630 in April. I've tried changing settings (BIOS, device and power plan settings), but the laptop still won't sleep on its own.

I keep thinking I've solved the problem, but I haven't. I also see the screen flicker periodically, and occasionally it dims while I'm using it.

I found the setting you refer to, Away Mode, and with that disabled, it still doesn't consistently sleep.

This laptop has spent most of the last 6 months powered up because of this - not exactly environmentally friendly. The only way around this is to go through the Shut Down process.

 

I am here to sing the same tune. Sorry for not adding anything new but have previously duplicated all of the above with no change in operation.

Given up on the sleep function now, which is a pain as the battery does not last that long anyway.

 

Hey thanks a lot I was having the same problem when into the multimedia in the power options like you said and now it works!

John