Vaio Z - hibernation and sleep causes computer to crash

I'm having the following issue with myVaio-Z550n:

On random occasions, when I set the computer to sleep or hibernate (they seem to trigger this problem equally), the computer screen will go black, the fan kicks into a steady overdrive and on/off button's green led remains solidly lit -as if the computer were still on.

The only way to fix the problem is to manually power down the computer by depressing the the on/off button.

It happened under Windows 7 RC and it is happening under Windows 7 32-bit home premium as well. I haven't used Vista for quite sometime so I don't know if is an OS-triggered issue.

Anecdotally, it seems to occur more often when I close the lid to put it into sleep, rather than do it manually through the start menu.

It also appears to be occuring with more regularity in recent days. Before it was like 10% of the time... now it is something like 30%.

Has anybody run into this issue or is there any insight that can be given?

 

you didn't install Sony Power Utility did you? Also, don't install Battery Checker... see if that helps..

I have Z570, and I don't have this problem under Win7-64bit even with all the utilities installed.

If you can't get it fixed, you may want to update the firmware, and re-install windows 7.

 

Power utilities are installed but not battery checker.

The problem was occuring under Windows 7 RC and I had thought that after I clean installed the new Windows 7 32-bit it would go away but it hasn't, unfortunately.

 

This could be a common issue caused by defective memory modules. I would recommend a stress test by memteset86+ for at least 10 passes in such situation.

 

I had this problem in the past, found that my AV was the culprit, Kaspersky 2009 then i desactivated i got success when resumed or hibernated.

Changed for NOD32 the issue was gone, recently switch again to KIS2010 and the issue seems to be fixed.

 

Ditto here. I had similar problem with Avira causing problems with hibernation.
A kernel debug will pinpoint if it’s a particular piece of software.

 

Thanks for the insights guys.

I don't use anti-virus software so, unfortunately, I don't think that's the fix.

I'll run that memory testing application that was suggested and see where it takes me.

 

Darius,

I used to have your prbblem of it waking up (wasn't AV software) -- I reinstalled some of the system software from the Sony support site (I know, without telling you which it's not much help), and the problem was resolved. Only mentioning this because it might help you narrow down options.

I switched to W7 from Vista 32 and now have a new sleep/hibernate problem:

Unable to wake up from sleep. No problems with hibernation (other than taking a long time -- almost the same amount of time as a soft boot.) When I put it into sleep however, I can never wake it up. It has no response, though lights are on and I end up having to just turn it off.

Also, battery life seems to have gotten worse. Normally, I would get around 3 hrs on stamina, no wireless, medium brightness. When I switched and used W7's power scheme, it got better -- about 20-30min. Now, however (not sure if this is related to #2 above), the battery life has been reduced to around 2.5 hrs under the same usage. Does anyone definitively know if W7 or Sony's power scheme is better?

Before I reinstall all the Sony components, I thought I'd see which ones I had to. I want to avoid loading any that are not needed because I don't like the impact on my machine's boot time or resident memory.

Anyone else having these problems?

 

think i ll keep my vista configuration...
but this happened to me today, the laptop resumed from hibernation and report error. Then the laptop booted again and that was terrible! i saw the assistant for first booting configuration, with sony register, burn dvd and all my desktop set to original factory.
I was so scared, finally boot again and my desktop and programs came back.. what s a vista joke, can t believe that happened to me.

 

I have exactly the same issue on a fairly new Z790 after upgrading to Windows 7 using the Sony upgrade package (i.e. Windows + Sony drivers disk). Basically it would do the "fast fan" lock-up when going to sleep (either by lid closing, button pushing, or power plan timeout). I was able to make it go away (or at least change it) for a while by going to BIOS R4041M3. After that it would go to sleep OK but crash / hardboot when coming out of sleep. With the help of Sony support we tracked the post-sleep restart problem down to the Acrobat start-up software bits and by disabling them from automatically starting at boot time we were able to solve it for a few days.

As it turns out I had to install full Acrobat and Quickbooks on that same unit afterwards and unfortunately the original problem returned (i.e. not going to sleep reliably). I then upgraded to the Video drivers for the Z890 and now it doesn't happen as frequently but, unfortunately, it still happens occassionally. I can also consistently make the post-sleep-restart problem reappear by autoloading the Acrobat bits.

Anyway, I am posting my experience in the hope that others who are dealing with this on the Z series can weigh in. It would be nice to find a permanent and reliable solution!

 

I hate to bump this but I have recently developed this problem on my Z11VN and can't go to sleep (fast fan lock, green light stays on). I've restored my laptop, updated everything (drivers and software) and it still has this problem. I've tried reinstalling Vaio Power Management too which didn't work (worked once after restart from installing but since shut down broken again).

Does anyone know of a fix as I have yet to find one on this site? Or at least a way of finding the culprit?

Thanks

 

I used to have a problem with my Z690 going to sleep; the computer would freeze/lock up in the attempt, forcing me to force shutoff (holding the power button) or remove the battery to regain control.

In my case, Norton Internet Security 2010 has a factor. I found that if I turned off "auto protect" just before putting it to sleep, it would go to sleep reliably every time (and then I would immediately turn it back on when I woke the system back up). This was a problem in BOTH Vista 64 and Windows 7 64.

However, there was another player: the nVidia graphics driver. The problem went away entirely after I updated the driver. Not only that, but the time it took the system to go to sleep changed from 20 seconds with the old driver to 6 seconds with the new driver.

I know that is not exactly the symptom you are describing, but I mention it because there are many, many players in entering the sleep state, and any one of them can cause problems. Sometimes it can be the interplay between different programs. I would suggest, however, as a test, that you disable your anti-virus program momentarily and then try entering the sleep state.

 

I also used to have a problem with my Z46 waking up from hibernation. It would cause my computer to BSOD and reboot the whole machine.

What I found was that Sony had EFI boot support and I did a clean Windows 7 install with EFI support enabled (unknowningly). And that caused a lot of problems like the hibernation crash. I didn't realise what was happening until I read a thread in this forum that EFI support under Windows 7 was causing strange errors on people laptops as well.

In the end I did another clean install with EFI disabled. That solved my problems.

Your problems could be similar to what I had experienced before.

 

Thanks for the replies. Other than turning off each program in turn, is there any other way of finding the problem program/driver?

One thing I have noticed is that as soon as a hit "sleep" the laptop would make the unplug hardware sound so I'm not too sure what is happening there either.

 

So I checked and disabled Norton Internet Security 2010 and tried sleep and it did work. So it turns out that NIS 2010 is the culprit or at least partly responsible. I then uninstalled Norton using the Removal Tool, reinstalled, fully updated and the sleep worked once. The second time I tried it, the same problem returned. I really have no idea what is wrong with it now.

The nVidia driver on my Z11VN is the latest that Sony is offering and I'm not sure it's possible to update to a later one through nVidia themselves. Am I right in thinking this? Or is it possible to update the driver around Vaio Update?