Laptop cannot "wake up".

Since 4 days, my laptop's screen stays black when I close (Standby) and I re-open the lid. My only option is to restart. The computer DO come out of standby mode but everything stays black. If I set it to "Do Nothing" in the Power Scheme it works, but i would like it to standby on the batteries you know.
It's an Inspiron 6400. I heard it could be WinXP related, i have all the updates.

Thank you.

 

While the screen is black, can you still can hear the sounds ?

 

What sound ?

 

The sounds from the speakers, the windows sounds. Because there is some issue like this with the W3J where the computer wakes up but the monitor will stay off.

 

I had similar issues with my e1705 with WMP 10. If you have WMP 10 installed, downgrade to version 9 and see what happens.

 

I unplugged my SD card it's supposed to do a "tooding" sound and it doesn't do it.

I'll try this out after work tonight, thanks.

 

I just got my 1520 yesterday and I have the same problem, haven't figured it out yet. Help would be much appreciated.

 

Same issue here. I went into the 'what happens when you close the lid' options menu and selected 'nothing' (I think, I don't have my laptop with me).
The screen shuts off and comes back on fine now, but it doesn't go into hibernation (which I think is the problem).

 

^^ exactly the problem... the do nothing works but it cant come back from standby on the screen

 

well my 1420 is now having this issue. nothing really changed so i dont know wtf is going on.

 

ok i dont know if this will help anyone but just in case: i had installed drivers from laptopvideo2go.com and well i believe that is what caused my problem. i reinstalled the drivers from Dell's site and now it's back to working. so somewhere in the encoding of those drivers on laptop2video, i believe the 163.14 drivers, caused my 1420 to act up.

 

Is it not coming back from SLEEP or HIBERNATE?

When I close my lid and reopen I have no problems, but if I let it sit idle for 20 minutes and it goes to SLEEP, I can't wake it up - anyone know how you're supposed to be able to wake it?

 

my situation was sleep because i disabled hibernate all together, never use it.

 

I found that if the computer goes to sleep by itself, I can wake it up by shutting and opening the lid.

That makes sense, sleep must be tied to the lid somehow.

 

I believe it's the display drivers.. i think i read something on the nvidia site saying vista sleep wasn't working right.

my machine seems to switch off completely when it sleeps.. have to use power button to get it up again, then i see the boot screen for a second, then it's in windows login screen in a second or two.. weird.. it's not hibernating. most odd.

 

clester, that was happening to mine until i changed the power settings. what is happening is that after a period of time in sleep mode, the computer will boot up and go into hibernate mode. so when you open the lid, you will see what you described. i had to disable hibernate and adjust the settings to stay sleeping for like 99999 minutes.

 

ttt, it's seem that lots of people had the same problem at the same time.
I checked the Windows Update, removed the latest one (July 14th) and no changes....

 

ttttttttttttt

 

can't you just go into the power options under the control panel and tell it to Never sleep?

 

hmm my problem might be because I am using drivers off of laptopvideo2go, i'll try installing those and get back.

Update:Using Dells drivers allows me to wake up from sleep, while the laptopvideo2go doesn't

 

The solution to this problem is actually easier than you would think. At the same time, press Ctrl + Alt + F10. If that doesn't work, press Ctrl + Alt + F9. Close the lid, and immediately open it again. Your display should be on again.

Dell has programmed some laptops to respond to the F9 key and others to respond to the F10 key. There is absolutely no rationale to this, but it is not a drivers problem, has nothing to do with your Windows XP or Vista or their updates. That is just the way Dell has designed their equipment. Why they didn't put this in their troubleshooting FAQ in the manual is beyond me.