Prescription Meds For Vista Sleep Disorder

Arnold O'Connor writes "NeoSmart Technologies has compiled a list of hotfixes and patches provided by Microsoft for Windows Vista that address a large number of issues related to waking/resuming a Vista PC (both x86 and x64) from sleep or hibernation. Sleep-related disorders have plagued Vista since its release, though they were not present in earlier betas. Most of these fixes are due to be included in Windows Vista SP1 — codenamed Fiji."

Ah!

And you thought saying "Windoze" was a stale joke...

Problems?

I've been using Vista on 3 very different pcs for quite some time now, a desktop, a new laptop and an 18 month old laptop, and I've yet to have any problems with putting any of them into sleep mode and then waking them up again. Now I may have been exceptionally lucky, but I doubt it. Vista FUD is already getting old.

How widespread?

I'd be interested to know how widespread these sleeping disorders are.

Our next generation of software is being tested under Vista and we have a number of dedicated test machines and dual boot development machines of different vintages. None of them have any problems at all with suspend or hibernate.

Just because there is a cure it doesn't mean that the problem affects everybody ... although I have had hypochondriac computers in the past ;)

When will they learn.

When will they learn that Microsoft has a very bad Beta Testing Routine.

First they have people pay them to be Beta Testers (for the privilege of being able to use the OS before the general public, and being those jerks who put 3 years of MS Vista experience on their resume). This doesn't attract people who want to thoroughly test the product, this only attracts people who think it is still the 1990s and wants to inflate their resume. So if they did report any bugs or problems it was probably for more minor things or the most major things. Sleep Problems are kinda in the middle annoying but not enough to put a bug report on.

Second poor response from my when bug testers do report a bug. Either they state that it isn't important or the conditions to get it are to off. In contrast I remember putting a bug in for Mozilla years back for an obscure problem on sizing the app across multiple displays of different resolutions. They weren't able to fix it quickly but they kept track of it until it was fixed.

Third Beta Testing is not used as much for Bug Testing but for product evaluation. It is used to see if the product is liked by the general population not as a method of fixing problems. This creates the problem 2 ways because Microsoft Beta Testers are of the following.
1. Love MS so much that they like everything that it does no matter how crappy it is, or make excuses for it problems (Don't get me wrong there are these type of people for every OS)

2. Wants to keep their Resume up to spec to keep in demand of stupid employers so they can have 3 years of Vista Experience. They don't want to report bugs or difficult to use problems because it gives them the advantage over people who just started using production Vista.

3. College Students/Professors mostly because they have extra time during the day to research these things. This group is most likely to report problems and give feedback. But that is only one segment of of the user base. And most college students and professors don't use the sleep options as much because they are on Campus which pays their electricity bills.

Vista And The Hype

Frankly speaking I still can't understand the hype behind Vista. I mean its OK. Nothing out of this world and definitely not WOW.

Vista...

I was planning on updating once stories on major vista issues had subsided to an "XP" level. Any time soon?

They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already

Maybe it's just me, but I'd think that I didn't do enough testing on a product that already has a codename for it's SP1 within a few months of its release.

Windows XP wasn't perfect either.

While I can't say for sure how bad Windows Vista's sleep mode resuming is, I can say that standby issues aren't new [microsoft.com].

How can it be FUD....

...If Microsoft has issued patches for these issues? I mean, dozens of knowledgebase entries, several hotfixes, and a SP1 on the way. Think about it, if it was FUD, would MS further engage in spreading the propaganda? It's real and MS obviously knows it - and hopefully they will fully address the issue too, because it's an important one, esp. with all the "green talk" that's going around.

1995 called

... and they want their PNP problems back

Fiji is Vista SP1?

"Most of these fixes are due to be included in Windows Vista SP1 -- codenamed Fiji."

What are your sources that Fiji is the codename of Vista SP1 anyway? For what we know, Microsoft confirmed neither of those.

When will they fix the DRM bug?

ie - create the new DRM free Vista - they could call it the "Vista PUDRMFE" - Vista Penultimate Digital Rights Management Free Edition

Of course, they'll probably claim they can't take out the DRM because it's a crucial part of the operating system.

Hmmm - wonder how ReactOS is doing lately....

Haha

I remember seeing a presentation about Vista and its benefits before its release and the guy stated "Vista no longer has the sleep/suspend problems that hit some XP machines"

More Disorders

But what about Windows' narcolopsy problems? What will fix those?

I'm so shocked

Deep sleep/hibernate problems? Oh wow I didn't see this coming except for the RC1 release I tried and reviewed months ago. http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=209542&cid= 17088628 [slashdot.org]

What's odd is that none of those patches or things mentioned going wrong is what I was dealing with. I was getting the click of death from my hard drives until I rebooted the computer.

I guess I can see this as very unfinished hardware drivers but for something as serious as this, Vista should have never been released in this pitiful state.

Problems with Nvidia

Some of the problem seems to be with some nvidia cards. The forums are full of people with 7900s (although not all seem to be affected) having issues returning from sleep.

Standy Issues

MS was supposed to have fixed Standby issues as of Windows XP. Nice to see where their priorities are, nothing like the Aero interface I suppose. In all honesty, I'm much more likely to move toward Ubuntu Beryl than Vista.

Probably not Microsofts fault

For once I'm not so sure we should blame Microsoft for all these sleep related problems. I would say hardware manufacturers is just as much to blame. They test their ACPI stuff and make sure it works in the current version of windows, and not that it follows the standard.

When Microsoft creates a new version of windows they most likely develop it to follow the ACPI standard. By doing so, the functionality may break on non compliant boxes, and Microsoft will have to go back to add quirks to make it work.

Being the dominant OS vender, Microsoft at usually manage to get full specs to the failing devices, and have a fair chance of compensate for the errors in the hardware and BIOS.
Developers of other less common OSes, such as Linux may not be that lucky. So I really wish Microsoft hadn't bothered to fix this, unless of course they really are the ones that are responsible for this screw up, and left it to the hardware vendors. That way it would be easier for all OS vendors, including Microsoft, in the long run.

Historical Perspective

Yeesh - has there ever been a version of Windows that handled this well? I can't recall one that didn't have off and on problems, especially on laptops.

Despite the many irritations that my Mac brought with it, this one thing that it does extremely well.

Comatose?

Maybe it's time to turn of the life support...

Confirmation

I'm running Vista Business on a laptop from leadcomp.com (MSI-1039; 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD, 256MB RAM), and I can confirm that when I leave the computer on overnight it often locks up 99% and is basically unusable without a hard reset. Ubuntu, on the other hand, works much better, and I can leave it on for days straight :) Hopefully one of these patches will solve the lockup problem with Vista.

When does the "Wow" start again?

Did they mean it like, "Wow, I can't believe they actually shipped this unfinished piece of shit!"

Mac and PC

Well, this situation sounds ripe for lampooning in a new one of Apple's "Mac & PC" ads:

Mac and PC in twin beds, an alarm goes off. Mac wakes up but PC was sitting up in bed twitching nervously.

"Good morning--"

"AH!"

"I'm a... Mac."

"And I'm a p-p-PC."

"Hey, PC, haven't you been sleeping?"

"No! No, I, uh, I-I can't sleep."

"Really, do you need something?"

"No, it's not that. I-I mustn't go to sleep because I'm afraid I won't wake up. There have been reports, you know, that since the release of Vista, PCs have had problems with not waking up from sleep."

"Gee, that's too bad. Me, I have no problems waking up from sleep. I mean, within two seconds, I'm up and fully alert. That isn't true for you?"

"..."

"Uh, PC? PC, hello? Hey, PC, wake up!"

"..."

"Oh my."

Vista WON'T Sleep

When i first installed Vista it all worked great, sleep worked perfectly and i could come out fine.

Now since i installed something (I believe my new GFX Drivers) it won't sleep. It'll turn the monitor off, but when i nudge the mouse or hit the keyboard it'll turn the monitor on and it'll be at the lock screen. According to powercfg it does support S3 sleep, strange.

Codenamed "Fiji"?

Jesus hopping Christ on a rusty pogo stick, are they seriously giving the *hotfixes* codenames?!

Microsoft is in its death throes. Vista isn't an OS, it's a work in progress.

--
Toro

Couldn't be any worse than the Mac

The sleep problems that plague Macbooks take the cake. When you shut the lid, it's a crapshoot whether or not it will actually shut down at all. And you have to wait about a minute to find out, because it spends that long dumping RAM to disk for some twisted reason (I know the reason, so no flames. It's just that it's a lame reason.) I don't know how many times I've shut the lid and stuffed it in my pack, only to find that the damn thing has been running for an hour full tilt in a closed space. It's so hot it can't be touched without pain when this happens.

This is just about the lamest thing about Macs. And it's been this way a long time. I finally had to disable the safe sleep functionality, which means you can't swap batteries w/o losing state. And they don't make it easy to do this. A small price to pay for not frying your computer, though. Does Vista do anything this lame? Probably not.

3 years ago and still mad

I was using windows XP 3 years ago, and bought a Microsoft keyboard. It had a SLEEP button just above the "-" key on the numeric keypad. I tried to get it to work.. hours spent, and it always hung the system, requiring a re-boot. I then spent a couple hours seeing if it could be dissabled, not found. Microsoft out did themself, requiring only 1 button to crash their system. After accidently hitting that blue button for the 3'rd time.. I required another keyboard !

A very appropriate code-name

Uh... Microsoft.... Fiji had **yet another** coup a few months ago, and you want to name an OS after them??? Actually, it's very appropriate - Vista works about as well as Fiji does. In other words - not at all......

Vista Sleep problem?

I'm using windows vista ultimate and I have had no problems with sleep or hiber. WTF?! Must be lucky?!? 0_0

Re:x64?

x64 is Microsoft's term for the similar, and mostly compatible, 64-bit extensions in AMD and Intel processors. In this case, the usage is completely correct.

Re:x64?

Yes, that's a typo. It should be c64.

Re:x64?

It's a useful abbreviation for x86-64. Get over it.

Re:x64?

There is no such thing as "x64." Please quit butchering the use of computer terminology.

Are you retarded? x64 is the extremely important architecture from the early-mid sixties. It wasn't replaced until the x86 architecture in the mid to late 80s.

Turn on AHCI after installation

It seems you can enable msahci.sys after you've installed Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 [microsoft.com]

Re:Only one hotfix needed

My Macbook has sleep issues, if you plug the power in or unplug it while the lid is shut, it *sometimes* gets confused about wether the lid is open or shut; when you open the lid, the login prompt comes up and you can log in but you just get stuck at a black screen, to fix it you have to shut the lid until the power light pulsates and then open it and log in again. Its not a big thing, but unlike MS, Apple don't have the excuse of unknown configurations!

Re:x64?

There's no such thing as a lot of things, yet we still the word to describe it. I for one had absolutely no trouble understanding what the poster was referring to. To put it another way: if it didn't mean that before, it does now.

Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming

I'm not even considering jumping ship to Vista until the first SP is out (XP works beautifully for me).

Exactly the same. Especially since IE7 is more or less the same for me as a webdev, I can test all of my stuff on XP.

And we gotta realize: early adotpers always get stuffed with higher prices and lower quality. It's just the way things are, even if the product is developed under most stringent quality requirements, a bunch of undetected defects will be known soon after a wide launch.

The only thing that bothers me here is that on many consumer offers, companies FORCE you to get OEM Vista with a new PC. This early after launch, and with so many known flaws, how could you possibly require your customers to buy Vista PC when XP is much better right now?!

Do you have such experiences yourself? How easy it is to get a "downgrade" and in which hardware vendors it's easiest to do so?

Re:Another MS OS, Commence Stream of Patches

While you can try to pry my powerbook away from me, Apple releases a steady stream of patches as well. Linux is constantly being updated as well.

The advantage to those, if you just need to update say your web browser, or music app, or other random file tool you don't have to reboot.

Re:Only one hotfix needed

I wonder if Apple could push out as many orders as would be required for all the people buying new PC's with Vista installed or just buying Vista itself... And I also wonder if increasing your user base by 10 fold within 6 months would uncover any issues with OSX as those millions try to plug in all their devices and play their games they used to play. Probably not.