Sleep Problem in Vista? Battery only charges to 95% too?

I posted this in the Windows forum too so I hope no one minds.

I have a ThinkPad R61, running Vista 32. I've only had it for about two weeks.

I had this problem before and after a clean install, so I don't know what the issue is. When I put the laptop in sleep mode manually or automatically, the little sleep "moon" light doesn't come on. The plug-in light and the battery light remain lit, but everything else gets powered off. It stays like that and I can't bring it out of sleep. I read this is a pretty common problem in Vista but I can't really find a fix that works for me. Any ideas?

My battery also only charges to 95%. It reads "plugged in and not charging" and just stays at 95%. Any ideas? I am not using any ThinkVantage software either.


Also, when I try to add a printer shared from an XP machine, I keep getting spooler service errors even though the spooler service is running on my machine.

 

I had this exact problem on my T61 a couple weeks ago and I don't know what caused it. The cure was to update all of my drivers through the Lenovo system update and also through Windows update. The last two drivers updated were the Bluetooth and Graphics and that seemed to fix things (I have the Intel X3100.) The problem is caused by some driver now allowing the computer to go to sleep properly - it's definitely a Vista issue.

I highly recommend installing the Power Manager driver software and the Power Manager itself at least. Without that you have no visibility into what is going with the battery and it will also allow you to control the charge thresholds more accurately. I have mine set to 80% (lower) 95% (upper), others are more conservative (40/60.)

 

Unfortunately I can't offer any solutions to you, but I can tell you that Vista battery charging and sleep is working just fine for me.

I have a T61p. I did a clean install of Vista Enterprise Ed. when I got it, installed all of the drivers and system software as specified in the Vista Clean Install thread in this forum and then added the Thinkvantage Power Management & Security Center pieces of software.

 

Hi all, and thank you for replying.

I installed the power manager driver, but not the power manager. Just didn't want extra software. Does the ThinkVantage power software override the built in Windows one? Which one takes precedence if they conflict?

Lenovo's X3100 driver hasn't been updated in so long, and I got the newest Bluetooth driver directly from them. All my drivers I got directly from the website, I didn't install system update (it didn't work for me anyway originally before my clean install).

 

i don't really trust the ibm update manager....i just use windows update to update all my drivers....i occasionally have the problem once every few weeks where i press sleep and the lcd powers off...but never goes to sleep

only way to get out of that situation is to do a hard reset...with the recent vista reliability updates..i haven't had the problem yet

 

I also don't trust the IBM update manager, and as far as display drivers go, IBM's is really old, and the newest intel drivers give extremely poor performance.

I know, I do the hard reset but then I have to waste more time by rebooting which defeats the purpose of having a sleep mode. Mine ALWAYS has this problem, I've no idea why.

Actually now that I think about it, I didn't just have this problem with sleep mode. It used to be before my clean install that when I had the laptop's LCD set to turn off after a few minutes, I couldn't turn it back on without doing a hard reset. After the clean install, though, it will turn off the LCD and turn back on. Sleep mode is still a mess though.

 

that is def not normal. you must have some usb issue keeping ure computer from sleeping

i would recommend a clean install and only install drivers from windows update...don't even install ibm update manager...if you need programs like client security system, active protectoin system, etc. then just download them individually and install them

make sure you restart after every ibm install...don't install everything and then restart just once

 

Hi,

I started to have this problem recently, when I shut my computer's lid or click start>sleep manually, screen goes black, but the sleep light doesn't come on and hdd remains active. When I open the lid back up it goes to welcome screen.

Before it would just engage the sleep mode like it is supposed to, and moon light would come on and all activity would cease.

I thought what changes were made before this problem started to occur, and it turns out that I enabled media sharing to my PS3 in windows media player. When sharing is enabled, it sleep won't engage properly, but as soon as I disable sharing, sleep works fine. I still don't know how to resolve this since I don't feel like turning sharing off every time i want to shut my computer's lid and enable sleep.

Maybe this will help you in your issue, and if anyone has suggestions on how to fix this, I am very interested.

Thanks.

 

"The problem is caused by some driver now allowing the computer to go to sleep properly - it's definitely a Vista issue."

This wouldn't be a Vista issue, it would be a driver issue.

 

What's the difference in practical terms? Let's try to help the OP here. Perhaps a more general statement would be "it's a software issue, not a HW issue."

You really should go ahead and install the Lenovo Power Manager too. It's not a resource hog and merely extends the built-in Windows software. Remove it if you don't like it, but at least if it a shot.

 

for the sleep problem. you might try to disable windows hybrid power saving mode from your powerplan settings. and for your battery indicator issue. you might try to update your power manager. or you can try to reset your battery also (using power manager). cheers.

 

i think that should help you as well