"Preparing to standby" (Vista)

Symptom: When I press the ecobutton I receive the following message:

"Preparing to standby"

Cause: This is an issue that may be caused by a number of different reasons and is usually due to other programs/devices not allowing the computer to go to sleep or because of the specific the power configuration in the computers BIOS.

This problem may occur for any of the following reasons:

  • The Computers BIOS has the power management mode set to S1
  • Incompatible third-party software (Net Nanny, Adobe Type Manager and Nero Burning software are known to affect the standby process)
  • Outdated or incompatible device drivers
  • Outdated peripheral firmware
  • Outdated system firmware
  • Outdated computer hardware

Remedies:

BIOS Settings:

As all PC manufacturers use differing default settings for power management it may be necessary to make a minor adjustment within the BIOS settings.

You won't need to make any detailed adjustments to your BIOS settings and you can make the following without difficulty:

From a cold start go into the BIOS (very first prompt you will see when starting up, you will need to tap a key to do this normally F12, F2 or DELETE. your PC will tell you which key on startup).

Once in BIOS, go to INTERGRATED PERIPHERALS (or similar) tab

 
 
Then go to the POWER MANAGMENT tab and toggle from S1 to S3, in the 'Suspend Type' category, then SAVE changes, and reboot.
 
 
 

Programs/Drivers:

If Net Nanny, Adobe Type Manager or Nero Burning software is installed on your computer then this can affect the sleep mode of windows and is described by Microsoft here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;331506

Try uninstalling these programs to see if this cures the problem.

 
 
 

Try updating Windows to the latest service pack (via Window update)

 
 

Make sure all device drivers are up to date as outdated drivers can cause problems with the sleep process.

To achieve this you can update drivers manually or there are programs available that will scan your current setup to determine if any are outdated that have available updates.

If you have other devices plugged into the computer, unplug them one at a time, shutting down and restarting the PC between each device to eliminate them

More information on this fault can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907477