Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

I've searched high and low around the net for a re-occouring problem with my ageing laptop:

I had a similar problem last year which I traced back to Avast antivirus software, so I unintalled it and installed AVG instead, and that cured the problem straight away. Until last week!

The problem is when you put the computer into standby mode. Before anyone says not to bother with standby mode, please don't! I want a computer that sits next to my sofa and is online within seconds, so that's why I have this PC in that mode!

As soon as the PC goes into standby, it immidiately starts up again most times. Sometimes it will go for a couple of hours, sometimes 30 mins before restarting, but it will restart without anyone touching it.

It's a Vaio laptop, 256mb RAM, Windows XP SP2. AVG Free A/V, all the usual Sony crappy software like jogdial malarky. Office 2003. That's about it...it's really just a convenient internet PC, nothing else is on it. Running a Linksys wireless G PCMCIA card. No other harware connected.

Some people have mentioned power management, but I've tried disabling all that, and even with the wireless card removed it still restarts itself.

It really does seem to be down to the antivirus software - only removing it stops the problem, which isn't ideal.

I would rather not format the beasty, it took three days of loading up the ruddy Sony software last time!

So...any ideas? All help greatly appreciated.

Re: Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

I had this problem on a Vaio laptop a while back.

The only way I found to solve it was use the Hibernation mode in XP Pro instead of standby.

I never did get to the bottom of why it was doing it.

Re: Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

Could AVG be waking the system up to check for updates?

Re: Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

Do you have Automatically Restart checked in System Properties --> Advanced --> system failure (or wherever)? Because it seems to me like the PC's crashing, but instead of displaying the BSD (which you can use for debug) it's restarting because that's how it's been set up.

Re: Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

Could it be the little button that gets pressed when you shut the lid that tells it to go into standby mode is fubared?

I don't know if vaio laptops have them, but dell do, it is above the keyboard, near the screen, this was sticking on my dell recently and caused all sorts of problems, this component that probably costs pennies meant dell replaced the screen (twice) the graphics card (one) and then realised it was this button.

If the button is a bit broken then when the laptop is moved it may make it think the lid has been opened and it should wake up.

Re: Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

As another thought.....

Is there an option in the Power Management settings (or possibly in the BIOS) that says something like "Wake On LAN"? If there is you may want to set this to "No" or "Disabled".

You might find that it is the signal from the wireless card that is causing the machine to come out of StandBy mode, or it could be that something else is sending information across the LAN at the point where your machine goes into StandBy and that is what is causing it to wake up again.

Re: Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

Probably the Wake On LAN setting (most likely in the BIOS) that's doing it. My computer does the same thing. :)

Re: Problem with XP Standby Mode
 

Thanks for all your replies so far.....

Having said that uninstalling AVG stops it happening, I uninstalled again last night....and it's restarting again. Very confused now!!

Tried that, as I didn't think of that one before. Restart is not checked though.

Like your lateral thinking SMH! Not the case this time though, it even does it with lid open. Good idea though.

and

This shouldn't be the case as it does it even when the wireless card has been removed, but I'll check it out later anyway. I seem to remember checking this last year when it first started and disabling WOL then, but I'll make sure this evening!

Thanks again folks....any other suggestions? :)