How to disable Hibernate function in a Vaio SZ 780?

My idjit (but usually smart) kid spilled some chili on her very expensive Sony VGN SZ-780. A little while later, she notices that the notebook "blinks black" once, then goes into hibernation.

It boots up again quickly, but repeats the hibernation at 25 minutes after bootup.

Is there any way to disable the hibernate function on this model ?

Thanks in advance.....

 

Open a command prompt, type the following: powercfg -h off

 

^, or you can go through the power options control panel. However, it appears that there is something else going on that you need to have checked out. On which part of the laptop was the er.. chili spilled? Also, can you monitor the state of the power icon in the system tray and log what's going on? Is the battery charging properly? Is the charge dwindling during use even if the adapter is plugged in? The laptop is supposed to automatically go into hibernation when the battery is nearly empty, so that any unsaved data is not lost. You disable hibernation altogether and you lose that rather important feature.

 

You are asking to eliminate the symptoms and not cure the disease. What you need to do is find out WHY it is going into hibernation.

Gary

 

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I agree there is probably more going on. But I am supporting my daughter at college via telephone, and it took well over an hour just to figure out that it was entering Hibernation and not shutting down.

So here's where we are as of last night -- got her to disable the power options via GUI (no hibernation, no screen off after x minutes, etc). That has kept the machine running, BUT....

There are more symptoms. She says the "screen blinks and sometimes it thinks that I've clicked & dragged my mouse when I haven't."

She says the chili "only spilled around the S key" and she wiped it off.

My guess is maybe I can buy a new keyboard and see if that works? Is that logical ?

Thanks...

 

Funny, I thought I answered his question.

Thanks, please drive through

 

Pardon me for not reading the replies before I responded. Yes, you did answer the question. The problem is, he was asking the wrong question. The real question here is not how to eliminate hibernation, but WHY is it trying to go into hibernation. This is indicative of some other issue most likely a problem with the battery an/or power circuit. And his subsequent reply seems to back that up.

Gary

 

Whether it is logical or not really depends on how "runny" the chili was. It it was thick and gloppy then yes it might be. If there was a lot of liquid, then no it isn't. The fact that she is seeing screen blinks and erratic mouse movements, points away from the keyboard. I know this is tough for you to diagnose from afar, but I'd be very concerned that the motherboard has taken a hit too. Especially given it was trying to go into hibernation of its own accord. I can't think of any reason whay a bad keyboard would cause hibernation given that most keyboards require a two key combination to initiate the hibernation sequence.

Let me ask a couple of questions: First, was it on battery or AC power when it was hibernating? How long after starting up was it doing this? (Nevermind, I see you said about 25 minutes.) Was the length of time consistent? If she brought it out of hibernation would it re hibernate again EXACTLY after the same amount of time? What were those GUI settings before the change last night? Was 25 minutes one of the settings?

There are also GUI settings about hibernating when battery power falls below a certain level. Did you change any of those as well last night?

 

Thanks for the continued responses.

I believe the Vaio was on it's Sony docking station (external monitor, external HDD) when this started happening. Since this all started a couple hours after the chili incident, I'm assuming it's related to that.

I will ask about the other power settings (battery, etc). I'll get back here later with a few more answers.

 

If it was on the dock and remained on the dock when this started happening and also when you were making the changes then the battery related settings were most likely NOT in play. Hmmm, having said that if the computer THOUGHT it was on battery then those settings might still be pertinent. Last night did you have her change both the "on battery" and "on AC power" settings in the GUI?

When you contact her ask if the computer recognizes that it is in the docking station. I would think that the power icon in the task bar/system notification area would indicate this. Make sure it DOES change state.

Then have her make note of all of the power settings displayed in the GUI where you had her disable the power settings.

And finally have her describe these "screen blinks" a bit more. Does it flicker, dim, go black and come back on, what does she mean by "blinks". And does this occur on the same 25 minute "schedule" that the hibernation occurred?

If I were there on site trying to sort this out, I would actually put the power settings in the gui back to the way they were when this started, just so the symptoms are consistent, I would just alter the values for the various timeouts to say a minute or two minutes just to reduce the amount of time necessary for one of these events to occur. (A trick I have used in the past is to set each of the events to a different amount of time, one to one minute, another to two minutes, a third to three and use that to help me determine WHICH event was firing.) Then I'd try to sort out WHY the machine was hibernating. Was it because the machine was idle and the power settings told it to hibernate after 25 minutes of inactivity? Was it because it thought it was on battery power, the battery power was low and the low battery power settings told it to hibernate. You need to get to the root of that to determine what is going on. Again, I suspect that the chili was a bit runny and liquid got to the motherboard and may have affected some of the AC power/battery/battery charging circuitry.

Gary

 

New info -- Looks like lots of video problems. She has a docking station (PGP-PRSZ1) and external monitor, and now says the laptop stops recognizing the external monitor or changes the image on the external monitor (ie screen image not taking up the whole screen).

I'm going to travel to her school this weekend anyway, so I'll post more when I get my hands on it. Scuderia, I will try your suggestions tomorrow night.
Really hope I get get this Vaio to last another two years.

It's interesting how a question about hibernation evolved into such a tangled thread.

Thanks ...

 

Best of luck. I've already told you what to look for in the charging process, as has ScuderiaConchiglia - download and install BatteryBar to help you with this task.

At some stage, the laptop will have to be cleaned either by you or by a technician. If you decide to do it yourself, there are good disassembly guides in this forum for your reference. Be very careful with the screws - the recommended procedure is to take printouts of photographs of the bottom cover etc. and stick each screw in its corresponding place with scotch tape.

IsoPropyl alcohol is the safest cleaning fluid to use - photocopier guys use it to clean the selenium drum, so ask nicely and they'll let you have some, or buy a small bottle. (do not use methylated spirit as that leaves a nasty oily residue). A toothbrush (doesn't need to be new), thoroughly cleaned and dried, works well as a scrubber. Make sure everything is completely dry before putting them back together and powering up.

 

Thanks Anytimer -- I will give your suggestions a try. And I'll check out BatteryPro.

 

Er.. BattteryBar (free) BatteryBar Pro (paid)
Osiris Development - BatteryBar, the most accurate battery meter for Windows

 

I finally got my hands on this Vaio.

I made sure both "battery" and "on AC Power" settings were changed to "never"
Battery power scheme = Balanced
Plugged in power scheme = Balanced

Vaio is removed from the docking station, no external monitor or HDD running.
Only a wireless mouse

Also installed BatteryBar Pro.

Short version (it's late and I'm tired).
-- Vaio ran for one hour (no activity) and then shut itself off.
-- BatteryBar shows the following:
-- senses that AC is connected/unconnected
-- Battey charges up quickly (per BP)
-- Battery wear = 13.5% of 62,640 mWh
-- Flickering: Vaio screen flickers occasionally, usually once or twice, with no real pattern to it.
Once I moved the mouse and it ceased the occasional flickering for quite a while.
-- Just prior to shutdown, flickered many times, no pattern to it.
-- Wondering if this is related somehow to either the wireless Logitech mouse or maybe an HDD shutdown signal somewhere due to inactivity.

I'll start again in the morning, check the bios, etc.

 

Current update:
The system shuts down randomly, 2-60 minutes after boot.
It's not hibernation, but a full shutdown:

From the events.msc:

8:15: The process c:\Windows\system32\winlogon.exe has iitiated the power off of computer on behalf of user <username>
for the following reason: No title for this reason cold be found

reason code: 0x500ff
Shutdown Type: power off

I notice that it shuts down quickly if I try to run CCleaner scan.

Also, if I have, say, a text file open but not saved, the shutdown command stalls and I get an opportunity to cancel the shutdown. So I guess that's a workaround, but I'm wondering what is issuing the shutdown order.

 

Get a copy of speedfan and install it. Use it to monitor the temperature of the processor. That CAN be one source of forced shutdowns. Stay away from CCleaner. It can cause more harm than good and will do nothing to resolve this issue. Have you run a thruough virus malware scan. Try Malware bytes, but that is a LONG shot. I am still betting on a hardware issue.

Gary

 

Malwarebytes shows no problems (quick scan).

Just installed Speedfan. Here are my initial numbers:
INITIAL 10 minutes later
HD0 32c 33c
Temp1 41c 38c
Temp2 32c 30c
Temp3 32c 30c
Temp4 32c 30c
Core 0 32c 30c
Core1 32c 30

I'm gonna watch it for awhile.

Thanks ......

 

Update (using Speedfan)
Temp1 shoots up past 55c when it flickers.
Temp2 to 48c ... and stays there.

Stays that way for a few minutes, then flickers again, this time shooting down to 46 anc 38c respectively.

This plateaus out to 42 and 34c respectively. After 5 minutes or so,
spikes back up to 55 and 50c, then wants to shut down. I cancel this action, keep monitoring

Screen flickers seem to correspond to a spike up or spike down.


Note -- under FANS, no fans are listed. There should be at least one fan on the SZ780, no?

 

AND ..... when the Vaio screen starts flashing frequently right before it tries to shut down, SpeedFan shuts itself off first.

 

Speedfan does not always recognize fans, so that is not an issue. You do HEAR the fan spinning, right? When the temps jump up do you hear a difference in the fan? Lets add one more diagnostic tool to the mix. Grab a copy of Process Explorer from the Sysinternals site. Load it and sort the display by cpu usage. This will let you see what app is consuming processor cycles resulting in the rise in temps.

I am confused by the "After 5 minutes or so, spikes back up to 55 and 50c, then wants to shut down." What do you mean by "wants to shut down". A shutdown triggered by an over temperature situation I believe is a HARD shutdown, i.e. it won't even do a normal Windows shut down. It will be more like the type of shut down that occurs when you press and hold the power button.

It sounds like you are seeing some sort of dialog, right? What does it say? I don't think 55c is anywhere close to the thermal shutdown limit though.

Gary

 

>>"wants to shut down"

BY that I mean that it is if I had initiated a hard shutdown via Start->Shut Down. Windows closes some applications
(like SpeedFan) and prompts me to save the unsaved text file I had open in Textpad.


And YES, I do hear the fan increase when the SpeedFan temp indicators spike.

I'll check out the Sysinternals site....

Thanks

 

I'll get back to this later today, but the first thing I see is that Process Explorer shuts down at the first screen flicker when the machine starts shutting itself down. No opportunity to see what's happening. Maybe there's a way to set up a log.

 

What I was curious about in this statement was that it "wants to shut down" but you cancel this action. This implies there is some sort of dialog box coming up that is allowing you to cancel the shutdown. Am I right in that assumption? If so this is not indicative of a overheating shut down. Typically those are an immediate shutdown, as if you had hit the power switch and held it down. That is typically how most BIOS initiated overheat shut downs occur, but I can't say with any certainty that your BIOS does it this way. It might very well initiate a soft shutdown.

But let's check a couple of things, first if you are indeed able to cancel this shutdown via a dialog box what is the text AND title of that dialog box. Second, make note of the exact time of this event and then go into the system log and see what entries you have for that time.

Gary

 

ScuderiaConchiglia -- Sorry for not being clear on the "wants to shut down" issue.

Normally it shuts down spontaneously without options.

However, if I open a new TextPad file (a text editor), and type something in the file without saving it,
then when the Vaio goes to shut down, the following things happen.

1. Windows shuts down most running applications without notice (ie Process Explorer).

2. When it tries to shut down Textpad, Windows offera a transparent window, no title, with the following:

"2 programs still need to close:
(Waiting for) Texpad This program is preventing Windows from shutting down.

TextPad - Document1 *

To close the program that is preventing Windows from shutting down, click Cancel, and then close the program."

There are two button options: "Force shut down" "Cancel"

Cancel then returns me to Windows, with a window titled "TextPad"
Dialog: "Save changes to Document1 ?"

Choices: Yes No Cancel

If I choose "Cancel", I am returned to Windows, but all other programs, like
Process Explorer have been closed already.


3. System log for the exact time of shutdown initiation (via MyEventViewer application):


3:17 (Application, Information, source Microsoft-Windows-Winsrv)
The following application attempted to veto the shutdown: TextPad.exe.

3:17 (System, Warning, USER32)
The attempt by user <username> to restart/shutdown computer <username> failed
Event Data: 0000 00 00 00 00 70 0B -- -- 6C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ....p...1.......
Event Data: 0010 6C A1 BD 4E 7D 87 CC 01 76 02 02 00 0 00 00 00 1..N}..v........

3:17 (Application, Information Winlogon)
The Windows logon process has failed to terminate the currently logged on user's processes.
Event Data: 0000 E3 03 00 00 09 00 01 00 ........



BUT .... I notice whenever these errors occur, about 4 minutes prior to the shutdown I see
something like the following:

The Windows Error Reporting Service service entered the stopped state.

Event Data
0000 57 00 65 00 72 00 53 00 76 00 63 -- 2F -- 31 -- W.e.r.S.v.c./.1.
0010 00 00

 

OK, I get it now. So this is a soft shutdown. Now we just need to get to the bottom of what is triggering this. Process Explorer does allow you to create a log. What I suggest is if you reliably know how long it takes for the shut down to occur then start up Process explorer and a minute before the next shutdown is due to occur, enable the logging. Lets see where that gets us.

Gary

 

Thanks Scuderia -- I will give Process Explorer log a try tomorrow. I'm on the road today.

 

OK, I've got some logs. How does one open, read and interpret a Process Monitor PML file ?

 

I think you can open it within Process Explorer. What you want to see are the processes that were active just before the last shutdown.

Gary

 

I'll see if I can upload the ProcMon output in a couple of days. Tried to do it today, found out the file upload limit is just a few hundred K, no time to deal with it right now.

Thanks ....

 

Try compressing it before uploading - right-click>send to compressed folder.

 

Unfortunately, I have to put this on hold for about two weeks.

 

I'm no going anywhere. Drop a note here when ready.

Gary

 

I am finally getting back to this "hibernate" problem after a month away.
I cannot replicate the problem. I left it on all night, it didn't shut itself down.

BUT -- then I hooked it up to the Sony docking station, and found that the DVI connx to a large monitor doesn't work (Control Panel --> Display doesn't acknowlege the DVI connx).

This VGN-SZ780 is supposed to have both Intel i945 AND NVidia GeForce 7400.

So I looked under Device Manager -- only i945 is listed. NVidia not listed.

I'm wondering if the GeForce failed completely. Is there a way to check this?

 

I am not familiar with any of the models with two video chips like this. But I would start by looking in the BIOS. Does it show both? (Knowing Sony though and their minimalistic BIOS approach, it may not shed any light.) Is there some sort of physical switch for enabling/disabling the GeForce? I wonder if any of the Nvidia apps contain any sort of diagnostics.

It does sound though like it may have failed.

Gary

 

Update on Vaio VGN-SZ780 fail:

I took this to a local repair place. They told me that there were two problems:

1. Some corrosion on the motherboard most likely due to liquid spills. (The Chili incident).
2. NVidia 8400M GPU came loose, most likely due to overheating caused by clogged vents.

They recommend dumping the Vaio, not repairing it, due to age and cost of repair. They tried "all the usual places", but could not
find a motherboard for this model, could not even find a part number. They tried contacting Sony -- no response by email, call not picked up after 90 minutes on hold with Sony.

My daughter really likes this Z, and I'd be willing to try repairing it myself. The only loss would be the cost of a refurb motherboard. I poked around some web sites -- for hours -- could not find a trustworthy source for the part number, and could only locate MB for "the SZ series", not specifically the SZ780. This machine is only 3 years old or so.

It's like trying to find a part for a 1958 Morris. Except I was successful doing that.

 

I have had good success find parts and parts machine on ebay. Worth a shot.

Gary

P.S. I just did a quick search on ebay and found a LOT of motherboards. Most of the time on SOny models the mother board is common to several models variants and I bet the same is true here.

VGN-SZ motherboard | eBay

 

Thanks for the response. Part of the problem with online sources so far is confirming the part number, and confirming that the motherboard for sale has the correct GPU already attached (NVidia 8400M GS). I've poked around a bit, written to a few vendors and can't get a confirmation on either. "Yeah, the GPU should be on there" is the type of response I'm getting.

But I'll keep looking. Thanks.