Black screen resuming from sleep

I've noticed this problem since yesterday but it's now starting to bother me. I'm using a Vostro 1500 with the nvidia 186.82 drivers (I know they're old, but they've worked as expected until now).

I've normally put my PC to sleep when I'm not using it for less than a day and then resuming it when required, however lately the screen remains black upon switching the power button. My external mouse and system reacts fine but it's the black screen on resuming from sleep that forces me to press the power button for a forced shutdown and reboot.

Anyone have any idea on how to fix this? Does it mean updating GPU drivers or the like? I don't recall installing anything driver-related recently.

 

If this started recently as you have indicated, something did change. What changed is the question. If you have Windows update currently switched on, it could have updated drivers without your knowledge. Drivers may or not be responsible but it is a good place to start. Also, I would check your power options for those may have changed, in an effort to conserve power the system can suspend the screen and when that happens, nothing will wake it up again without a restart.

 

Whoa that is really old. Are you still on the Dell drivers? I upgraded my Vostro 1500 to Windows 7 and I am running maybe 2 month old drivers.

Have you tried the latest drivers? Checked your power settings?

 

I haven't updated video drivers for so long, I've completely lost touch as to which drivers are worth downloading for stability and acceptable performance.

I've set my PC to sleep again while I'm at work and will see what the results are when I get back.

 

Oddly enough, after getting back yesterday the PC resumed from sleep normally. I suspect it's my video drivers not initialising properly every other time I resume from sleep/switch on the notebook. Little I can do about it other than wait to purchase a replacement later in the year.