SOLVED: Windows Vista Sleep Problem, Laptop Not Waking Up

ANNOYANCE: WINDOWS VISTA LAPTOP NOT WAKING UP FROM SLEEP PROPERLY

Are you puzzled by Your Microsoft Widows Vista laptop not getting back from the sleep mode? Don't you hate it when you need to reboot your laptop and lose all your settings and data in the process? You are not alone, I had the problem with Vista sleep, and so do many folks I met online. Read on, this could solve your problem of Vista not coming back from sleep.

PREVIOUSLY SOLVED: LAPTOP HIBERNATE PROBLEM

A few weeks ago I showed you how to fix a Windows Vista Sleep or, better, Hibernate Problem. The problem stemmed from the disabled hibernate file in Vista. Indeed, during the last month or so now, I had no problems with Windows Vista hibernate. However, as I also pointed out, Vista Sleep proper (not Hibernate) still failed from time to time.

WHY MIGHT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WINDOWS VISTA LAPTOP SLEEP

Here is my theory: Windows Vista Sleep is a combination of Suspend into memory and then, if allowed, Hibernate after a while. Microsoft calls this combination Hybrid Sleep. It is very useful for a number of reasons. Since hibernate part of hybrid sleep now works after the fix, the suspend part comes into question. I realized recently that Windows Vista suspend power requirement is not insignificant. That is opposite to hibernate which takes no power at all. Some claim that suspend could last 60 hours on a full battery. Others report maybe just 7 hours. What if your battery is not new? What if your battery is really really used up? What if your laptop runs out of juice before hibernate kicks in? If it does, you will come back to your laptop, press the "On" button, and you will not be able to recover, ending up with a lights on and blank screen. This is what a lot of people find.

SOLUTION FOR WINDOWS VISTA SLEEP PROBLEM: TIME HIBERNATE PROPERLY

I've played around with this theory and found it makes a lot of sense. So based on this theory, here is my solution #2 to the problem of Vista not waking up properly from sleep. Again, I'm assuming that your Vista Hibernate is already working fine. If not, go back and fix Vista Hibernate first following these directions.

To fix Sleep proper, you want to make sure that Hibernate kicks in on time. You know approximately how long your laptop lasts on battery. I would give it about that much time at most before I'd kick it into hibernate. You can accomplish this easily through Windows Vista Power Settings.

SETTING WINDOWS VISTA POWER SETTINGS RIGHT

Let's set Hibernate to kick in 60 minutes after sleep. If your battery lasts less than an hour, make the appropriate setting less than 60 minutes. Here's how:

In Vista go to Start/Control Panel/Mobile PC/Power Options/. Under your current selection of plan, click on Change Plan Settings/Change Advanced Settings. Then select Allow Hybrid Sleep ON (on battery). Second, set Hibernate (on battery) to 60 minutes. If your battery only lasts 10 minutes, set this to 10 minutes or maybe even just 4 minutes.

Save all settings and close all Power Options windows. That is it. You're done. Your laptop will now come back from sleep alright because it will never run out of juice during sleep. That is, it will kick into Hibernate before running out of juice.

MY PROBLEM SOLVED. WHAT ABOUT YOURS?

This solved my laptop's sleep problem. What about you? Have you been able to follow advice above? Has that helped you not lose data after putting your laptop to sleep? Let me know. Just leave a comment below, thanks!

UPCOMING RELATED ISSUES

Other issues: As I was playing around with the sleep and hibernate options, I got a glimpse of a possible solution to another related problem some people were reporting in the help forums. They found their Vista laptop came awake during sleep repeatedly and they lost all data and found a depleted battery when they returned back to their laptop. If you would like to find a solution to that problem let me know and I will investigate further. If the problem is happening with your laptop, please leave me as much information as you can in the comment below. Or, hit "Follow through Google Friend Connect" on the side.

Persistent Paper Jam: Buy New Laser Printer? No, Fix It!

ANNOYANCE - PERSISTENT PAPER JAM IN LASER PRINTER

I had this persistent paper jam in my laser printer. The second page would always jam. Time to buy a new laser printer? Well I sure thougth I would have to buy another laser printer, even thought of to buy a new color laser printer. But there is no need! You can fix it! Read on!



DETAILS - TRAY PROBLEM

It's been a hot and fiery summer here in Los Angeles. A two weeks long fire in the surrounding mountains. There was a lot of smoke in the air. Some of that smoke and dust came in through the window. It only made the laser printer paper jam worse. I'm not using my laser printer much anymore but I do on occasion. It's been a pain. The manual feeder works fine, one page at the time. The Tray Feed, however was acting up for quite some time, maybe months.

What happened was that whenever I submitted a print request, the first page would print fine. For some reason, even if not requested, the second paper page would be sucked into the laser printer and caused a jam. So I could never print the second page without opening the laser printer, clearing the jam, pressing the button and continuing. What a pain. I have Brother HL-2040 by the way.

SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION

So I decided to tackle this today. I googled online under "printer jam", "paper jam", "printer paper jam", "brother hl paper jam" etc. Finally, I got to a very helpful page directly from the manufacturer that helped me out a lot. Here are the directions if you ever have a paper jam as described above:

http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BSC/public/eu/gb/en/faq/faq/000000/002000/000024/faq002024_006.html?reg=eu&c=gb〈=en∏=hl2070n_all

I was surprised to find so many rollers. Separation roller, pick up roller, etc. etc. The point is, you need to clean'em all. With a wet cloth. That is basically what the page above shows you. How to and how not to. The only thing that the directions above would not tell you is that you need to make a special effort to clean the rollers from all sides. And that can be tricky when they can not move, so you can only see one side. You catch them when they are rolling during printing. You need to be careful about that because the printer of course must be on at the time. When the rollers roll, you will see if there are any dirty segments. Clean them while they are rolling ;). Again, be careful!

MY PROBLEM SOLVED

Following the directions on the site above and making sure the rollers are completely wiped, even wiping them "on the fly", my annoyance was gone!  Problem solved! At least for now! Until the next fire!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Let me know if this helped solve your printer paper jam annoyance, and if other brands of printers have similar problems and solutions. Just leave me a comment, especially if this helped you solve the printer jam. Thanks!

SOLVED: Laptop won't boot and shows blank screen

VEGAS BABY VEGAS 

If you traveled much you know traveling is stressful both for you and for your laptop. What if computer stops working suddenly? Read the whole story with the happy ending below...

If you traveled much you know traveling is stressful both for you and for your laptop. I was just waiting on my plane at the Las Vegas airport. I used the laptop on and off in Vegas. There are very few locations on the Strip with reasonably priced or free WiFi. More on that some other time. I was able to play around with the laptop sleep again and had problems booting the laptop with the DVD inserted. That's even though my DVD writer/player device is disabled. And the DVD lights keep coming up... Trying to boot from the disabled DVD? Oh well. Back to the main story...

CHECK DISK INTERRUPTED BY PLANE LEAVING VEGAS

I decided to do a "quick" check disk as I had over an hour left before the plane was leaving. As I mentioned I had some problems booting with a DVD inserted so I wanted to make sure the hard disk was in good shape. So I fire up the check disk to be scheduled on reboot. I reboot the laptop. Check disk starts and... takes forever. My group was called for boarding. How to interrupt checkdisk? I knew of no other way but to turn the laptop off, pack it and rush to the plane.

BACK IN LA - LAPTOP REFUSING TO BOOT

How would you feel if on boot, the hard drive light doesn't even come up and you end up with blank screen? At first I thought I crashed the hard disk when I pulled the plug on check disk. Hard disks are sensitive to this kind of abuse, right? At least when I still had the problem with laptop not booting from sleep mentioned earlier, the hard disk light came up. I'm talking about my Acer Aspire 5770z by the way. Now watch this.

WHAT I TRIED, UNSUCCESSFULLY

I tried a number of things. Tried resetting the computer by plugging out the battery and plugging out the power cord and pressing the on/off button for 60 seconds. 4o seconds is a long time. No help. I tried turning the laptop on and off numerous times, to no avail. So I just gave up, and went on to read a book I got in Vegas.

SURPRISE - A SIGN OF LIFE FROM THE LAPTOP

Imagine my surprise when, still reading the book, I suddenly heard the laptop's fan starting to blow. A sign of life! Just waiting patiently. Did the temperature rise? Oh well, I turned the laptop off, back on, and, voila, the hard disk came up and the vista booting proceeded. Not 100% though. But after a few attempts, the laptop came up completely and is now fully functional.

BOTTOM LINE - TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS AND ESPECIALLY THE NON-BOOTING VISTA

Don't give up on your laptop when it's not booting. It could be that the system needs a high temperature kick. Maybe the disk self-heals after starting. Who knows?  But my solution for this case of laptop not booting was to wait with a laptop turned on. Maybe about 1/2 hour. Something like that.

DID THIS SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM? 

What about you? Were you able to resolve your booting problem by just waiting for the system to heat up enough and start properly? I wonder how common this solution could be. Definitely better than sending the laptop for a repair. Out of warranty, I'm sure the cost would be at least a couple hundred and who knows, they may need to wipe out your disk with all your data and settings! What a prospect.

LEAVE ME A COMMENT, BUDDY

Regardless, let me know in a comment below what kind of a problem you had that brought you to read this page. And let me know if you were able to fix your problem with your laptop or not. Either way, ok!?

4 Fashionable Ways to Protect Your Laptop in Style

BEING MOBILE

Today's business professionals, students, even work-at-home professionals do not like to be tied to a single location. They need and want to be mobile. They like to enjoy working from the airports, Starbucks locations, libraries, or hotels. Laptops, and more recently, netbooks are a preferred way for them to be able to accomplish serious amount of work anywhere, anytime.

YOUR LAPTOP UNDER STRESS

The movements, shifts, vibrations, even accidental drops are expected to cause substantial stress on laptops and netbooks. The part most exposed to such stress is the hard disk. Hard disks are virtually the only moving part in netbooks and laptops. Hard disks are very sensitive to shocks, vibration, even loud shouting!

HIGH TEMPERATURE?

High operating temperature is another major reason for laptop and netbook hardware troubles. Especially when the computer is exposed to direct sunshine and when operating at high processor  utilization. Such as having many programs running at the same time.

FOUR WAYS TO STAY MOBILE AND PROTECTED IN STYLE

As a mobile professional you do not want to compromise your mobility. You can, however, minimize the risk of computer damage. Here are three ways to do that:

Laptop skin. These are thin and are attached to the back of your laptop cover. They can be very stylish. Go all out and let them show your personality. At the same time they protect the most ding and dent-sensitive part of your laptop.
 
Laptop sleeve. These are relatively thin enclosures and should tightly fit your laptop or netbook. They are made of leather or neoprene. Some netbooks these days come with a sleeve. If not, that is a worthy extra expense. You do want to be stylish here. Depending on your style, you can pick up a single color skin, like black, or you can go with an artsy, colorful skin. Go all out, protect your computer in style!

Laptop bag or case. These are larger and will house your computer accessories such as the charger, the USB  or bluetooth external mouse, the chill pad, perhaps a headset and a microphone. For extra padding I recommend using a laptop bag big enough to fit in your laptop already snuggly stored in a skin or sleeve.





Laptop chill pad. A chill pad will protect your laptop or netbook from high temperature. High operating temperature can damage both your hard disk, the CPU, and the motherboard. Computer problems caused by overheating are difficult to diagnose and expensive to fix.






RELATED LINKS

A gallery of laptop and netbook skins

A gallery of laptop and netbook sleeves

Laptop bags and cases

Top three laptop chill pads

Is Windows 7 a worthy upgrade for your laptop?

Windows 7 Solution to Vista Annoyances?

Windows 7 promises to end scores of annoyances with Windows Vista. One of the annoyances I discussed in my earlier post about Vista unable to wake up from suspend or hibernate.

Microsoft understands that Vista was a major step forward from Windows XP. However, it was also a much more complex and demanding operating system than the XP. Microsoft realized that what they need now is a smaller step forward, more polished, and more user friendly. Sounds like there will be fewer annoyances with Windows 7! Microsoft says:

"When we asked what you wanted in a PC, you told us to make it simpler and easier to use. We listened. And we built Windows 7 to make your PC simpler and the things you do every day easier. Now, it's nearly ready. Windows 7 is on its way to manufacturers, and will be available on October 22"

IMPROVEMENTS IN USER EXPERIENCE WITH WINDOWS 7

Improved Taskbar and fullscreen previews:

Get the picture: See what's open

Jump Lists:

 

A leap in efficiency: Jump Lists provide quick access to common tasks. Programs can prepopulate jumplists for easy navigation.

Desktop enhancements. Wouldn't you like more ways to move, resize windows, and sometimes just get them out of your way? Example: You can make all windows, or all but your current window invisible by "shaking". Invisible windows:

Now you see them...

Now you don't.

There are a lot more enhancements and simplifications in Windows 7. See One Minute Microsoft Windows 7 Video at Amazon.com Media
What are your biggest annoyances with Vista? Or Windows XP? What would you like to see resolved or improved in Windows 7?  Post a comment below.

Windows Vista Annoyance: Sluggish Cursor

Windows Vista: Sluggish Cursor

I woke up this morning, and saw my laptop was on. The Mozilla Firefox browser had crashed. Weird. I sure didn't leave it crashed when I went to bed. Another weird thing was that since I solved my problem of windows vista not waking up from sleep or hibernate I rarely leave my laptop on all night. Strange happens.

PROBLEM

Oh well. Firefox does crash sometimes. It's the newest version 3.5 after all. What really surprised me was that the windows vista cursor (or pointer) was sluggish. It was moving 3-5 times slower than normal. I tried changing pointer sped through Start/Control Panel/Mouse/Settings. No change in speed. I started the Windows Task Manager and noticed that Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) was page faulting quite a bit (300-400 pagefaults a second) when moving the mouse which is unusual.

Googled

• vista sluggish cursor
• vista sluggish pointer

I came up with a lot of people having this problem but no solutions. Even came across some respectable sounding windows vista forums. Came across windows games sites reporting the same problem. Windows news sites. No answers. Weird. Either this is a really tough problem or really simple.

BEFORE YOU JUMP INTO THE SOLUTION HERE, CHECK THIS

[Update: Before you look into this solution, there is a simple one you may want to try instead. It is much faster! Go see Solved: Slow Mouse Pointer on Vista Laptop]

SOLUTION

Well it turns out this problem was one of the simple kind. Sometimes a computer just mysteriously loses the sense of time and the driving frequency. So it needs to be rebooted. Rebooting the laptop in fact solved the problem of sluggish cursor. That was easy!

COMMENTS?

Did you experience a sluggish cursor on your computer, vista or otherwise? How did you solve it? Find a comment button below and let me know! Got any other computer-related problem you'd like to see solved? Just hit the comment button.


UPCOMING RELATED ISSUES

Other issues: As I was working on the sleep and hibernate problems with Windows Vista, I got a glimpse of a possible solution to another related problem some people were reporting in the help forums. They found their Vista laptop woke up during sleep repeatedly and they lost all data and batery power. If you would like to find a solution to that problem let me know and I will investigate further. If the problem is happening with your laptop, please leave me as much information as you can in the comment below. Or, hit "Follow through Google Friend Connect" on the side. Any other problem with your laptop? Let me know in the comment below!

Note: Infoaxe.com; How To Delete Browsing History

Doing research on infoaxe it dawned on me that great many people are interested in erasing, deleting, and getting rid of browsing history. Not so many are interested in searching it! That was a surprise to me. Considering what people are using internet for these days, maybe I shouldn't be that surprised!

Erasing browsing history is normally never needed with infoaxe. Sometimes, however, you may want to consider deleting your browsing history.

Why? You may realize you have data that you don't want to take a chance on. Infoaxe is still in its alpha version. The service is buggy so the information may not be 100% secure. For example, many links on the website do not work, and even though the FAQ promises you can delete any entry, the delete links currently do not exist.

From the FAQ:

How can I delete stuff from my Web Memory?

If you see something in your web memory that you want to delete, click on the delete link that appears next to the search result snippet. You have the option of deleting just that page or all pages from that site. It will take about 2 minutes for the changes to take effect i.e. for it to stop showing up in your search results.

The delete links currently do not exist and the only way I see to remove your browsing history from inforaxe is to delete your account. If that is what you want, login into infoaxe.com go to FAQ and hit the delete link, and then on the delete page, hit the delete button. This action can not be undone.

In conclusion, use infoaxe for your web browsing history search but proceed with caution. Use the Record On/Record Off buttons deliberately. Infoaxe is in the alpha stage and YOU are on the leading/bleeding edge of a bookmarking revolution. Worst comes to worse, you have an exit strategy.

SOLVED: Searching Browsing History. Viewing Recent Internet Browsing History

While I was preparing materials for my previous annoyance-resolved post, I needed to fetch websites I was on and view the pages to retrieve pertinent information. Looking into firefox browsing history I was quite shocked to just see the huge number of web pages I visited recently. Must be over 1000 pages just last week! Recent internet browsing history in firefox showed just the url of the page by default. Later I found one can see the date and number of visits, and that is it. I wanted to search my browsing history.

That proved out of reach of firefox. I looked at my firefox cache which showed just 10 Megs of Cache, which didn't reach very far, not even one day. Useless! I increased that to 100 Megs but that still seems inadequate.

I searched google for

find my browsing history
search browsing history
internet browsing history
view browsing history

I found Firefox plugins to help track browsing history and view or display browsing history, but not to search it. Not helpful.

Finally found a nice article by Ann Smarty from MakeUseOf.com at

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-extensions-to-search-and-organize-your-firefox-browsing-history/.

She presents a collection of 4 choices. Because I was specifically looking for a solution to help with searching my browsing history, the first choice made immediate sense: INFOAXE.

Even the visual layout of INFOAXE was immediately suggestive that searching browsing history is the main reason for its existence. Infoaxe results look like Google results. How can it be any easier?

Go to http://infoaxe.com to sign up. I suspect one day the service will become a paid service, but it is free for now, in its alpha version.

The benefits of infoaxe are:

• All browsing history is stored on infoaxe servers so you don't have to use your own disk
  
• Installation is simple
• You can install it on both Firefox and Internet Explorer browser so, if you routinely use both you don't need to remember which one did you use when you found certain information
• Compared with bookmarking, there is no additional annotation work required.
• Nice and unintrusive tool bar/status bar choices. You can search your browsing history straight from the tool bar or status bar.
  

However there are internet browsing privacy concerns and I will write about how to delete your browsing history when needed in the next post on infoaxe.