Using Windows Vista to fry eggs

This morning I had to run an errand and after that I was going to drop by the coffee house and have some caffeine.  I threw the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 into my bag and headed out the door.  The U110 was in Sleep mode when I threw it in the bag which is important so remember that.  I ran the errand and less than an hour later I hit the coffee shop like I do many times a week.  I got my beverage of choice and sat down at the community work table with 3 other people.  One of the other shop regulars was there and asked if I had the "new Lenovo" with me to show the others.  It was their lucky day since it was sitting quietly in my bag.

I knew when I opened the zipper compartment that something was wrong as it was HOT!  I pulled the U110 out of the bag and it was hot enough to fry an egg on the lid, something that is just not good.  I opened the lid to let it cool off and it was already on and waiting for me to log in.  Not good at all.  Once I got logged in and the desktop appeared I get the Vista dialog box that tells me the computer had unexpectedly restarted.  That's why it had turned itself on in my bag, while sitting there asleep Vista crashed and restarted and it sat there waiting for me to log in for a very long time.  The metal casing was incredibly hot because the computer was on with the lid closed and it was in a thermal sack called my gadget bag.  The battery was at 50% so it ate through it in a hurry as it was on with no power management.  How can Vista crash while a PC is asleep?  And if it crashes while closed why does it restart automatically, and unsafely in this case?  Come on, the OS should protect the equipment, not the other way around.

Comments

[Toby]

I've had this ridiculous occurrence on my X61T - put it in my bag asleep, and pull it out later on to find it warm and awake! The only safe solution seems to be hibernate...

[Paolo]

I had this happen twice on my HP this week. Both times taking it out of the bag on the plane and discovering that it has been on for sometime.

Not sure why this has started happening recently.

Btw, 1st time it was asleep, 2nd time it was in hibernate.

[nomad416]

Twice I've found my OQO 02 (running Vista Business) being on when I know I had put it to sleep mode. I heard of other OQO-Vista users noticing the same thing. I thought it was an OQO-specific problem, but now it sounds like a Vista issue.

[Filip Norrgård]

That is weird, I've never experienced this except sometimes when waking my notebook up, that's when the ATI driver BSODs Vista and I have to wait forever for Vista to do a reboot.

[Borgel]

Ive had this with my x40 running XP when I dont sit down and watch to make sure that the computer completely goes to sleep before I close the lid.. If I don't wait, half the time it fails and wakes back up in my bag.

[kevin white]

My testing laptop at work has done that several times. It wouldn't properly sleep because of some missing driver, but it would try, except it would sometimes pop out of sleep and turn on. Or, it would wake up to do something and then 'crash' with a black screen and a blinking cursor and get very, very hot.

I try to use hibernate as much as possible, since when your device is hibernated, it's *OFF*.

[Jenniffer]

My dv6000 has done it before. Usually at 4am and I get woken up by its fan running crazy loud. I swear sometimes my laptop could spark a fire... it was that hot... but at 4am, the only thing I think of is sleep, so I set it to hibernate and curse at it in my sleep. Thankfully Word and Firefox can recover the stuff I was working on previously (for school)..

[Marco]

Could be an automatic intall of precedently downloaded uptdates? if you set vista to automatically download updates and set a time to perform the update maybe vista could exit from sleep to perform that operation.
Or if set to do so , after a time in sleep mode vista could enter automatically in ibernate mode my samsung Q1 U do this...if the ibernation fail maybe the pc could restart...no other ideas ^^

[Sting Investigations]

I have had the issue with my UX390N. To counter it, I set the side switch to put the device into hibernate.

I have had the issue also with my P1610, though much less often.

Both devices run Vista Business.

[Taxman]

I used to have that same problem on my Q1 but I can't remember what OS I was running when it was doing that, but it happened quite often. So much so, that I stopped sleeping it and started hibernating when I put it in the bag for more than a short period of time.

[Jon Dee]

I have had this happen numerous times with Vista. It's usually when Windows restarts itself (without my permission) after it has automatically downloaded an update.

It has also happened in the early hours of the morning leaving me with no power for the train ride to work...

VERY annoying!

All the best,

Jon

[M Freitas]

I never use sleep because Windows Vista alkays wakes up.

I never use hibernation because with 4GB it takes longer to hibernate/restore than it takes to shutdown/boot up.

This doesn't seem to ever going to be fixed...

[Dan]

I used to have this problem with my laptop running Vista Business x86. What happens is the laptop sometimes wakes up from sleep mode by itself. The system does not actually crash and restart. The message you get when this happens for the first time is a little ambiguous.

The problem is due to a power saving option which makes the computer hibernate after being in sleep mode for so long. Perhaps the motherboard doesn't support it or something, which causes it to spontaneously wake up sometimes...

Anyway, to fix it, go to Control Panel -> Classic View -> Power Options -> Change plan settings (you might want to do this for all three power plans if you use them all) -> Change advanced power settings. Expand Sleep, then expand Hibernate after. For my laptop, it was set to 1080 minutes by default for both 'On battery' and 'Plugged in'. Set them both to 'Never', and click on OK.

It's been a few months since I did that and I've never had that problem since. Hope this helps. :)

[Mike Cane]

After that suggested solution from Dan, I hope JK will follow up with another post and that everyone here who's had that problem will post to say if it was solved or not.

[gary]

I had the same problem. My issue was with Vista's automatic updates - they were set to wake up the computer at 2am every day. I disabled automatic updates and the problem went away.

[James Kendrick]

I don't use Hibernation for that very reason so not a factor here.

[svggarden]

I had the same problem with Windows XP. It was so hot, had I left it in my bag any longer, it may catch on fire or something. I now learned to shut down every single time.

[Joseph Kim, MD]

I've heard of this happening where the OQO melted some plastic in the bag...

Can't wait until a LiON battery explodes from the heat!

JK
http://mdjosephkim.blogspot.com/

[John Walker]

Amazing. During Vista's development, I remember watching a Channel 9 video where the devs indicated this was an area they were specifically fixing as Windows XP was known for this problem. They clearly didn't get it right.

[John in Norway]

I got so fed up with Windows and its annoying problems that I sat myself down and thought: 'What do I really need in my mobile device?'

1 Instant on AND instantly usable
2 Readable display anywhere (except under water)
3 Compatible with Office docs
4 Carried with me always
5 Doesn't get hot
6 Isn't noisy
7 QWERTY keyboard with backlight
8 Instant record button

I bought myself a Nokia E90 Communicator and it fulfills all my mobile needs.

Last night I took my OQO with Vista out of hibernate and turned on Wifi. After ten minutes of noisy, hot updating and disk thrashing I switched it off again and used my Nokia. For extended thumb typing you can't beat the OQO though so I'm looking forward to trying that Apple thingy on it.

[Badcam]

Have a look in device manager and go through the properties of every single device, no matter how innocuous. One of them may be set to wake windows automatically. I found one the other day and removed it. I can't recall what device it was and unfortunately don't have my Vista laptop with me,but I recall being incredulous about why on earth would this option be set for this device. Something to check anyway.

[Christopher]

I've had this happen a couple of times. The reason it happened was I either tossed or dropped the computer bag. The laptop noticed it and automatically turned the hard drive off which on my system sometimes causes a reboot. When it comes back up its in startup mode and waiting for login, but since it started with the case closed it doesn't understand that it should be asleep.

Since I learned this I've been much more careful with my laptop bag.

Chris

[cr0ft]

This is why I like hibernation. On my XP laptops that has always worked flawlessly, and when it's off it's really off.

Sure, it's a bit slower to start, but we're still talking seconds rather than minutes. On a normal closeable laptop, setting it to hibernate when you close the screen suits me perfectly. Just close the laptop, lift it off the table and gently slide it into the case and once you're done with that, you get the bee-beep as it shuts down.

Standby is great when getting up to go to a meeting in the building when you're not sure you're going to be needing the machine, but as soon as it goes into the case, it gets hibernated. That way, no nasty surprises like the one mentioned here.

[Benjamin Ries]

I've never had this happen to me, actually - with either my old Toshiba Tecra M7 Tablet (ran XP and then Vista Beta) or my current Lenovo X60 Tablet (ran XP and now Vista).

But anyway, it seems like you would want to disable the feature JK complains of - automatic reboot upon BSOD. That means that if your machine crashes while in Sleep mode, you'll just find it powered down.

In XP, open the "System" control panel, and then go to the "Advanced" tab. In Vista, you can go to the "System" control panel and then click "Advanced system settings".

Then click "Settings..." beside startup and recovery, and un-check "Automatically restart" under the system failure section.

[Marco]

have you controlled if vista restarted to install downloaded updates? it is in the logs

[Nate]

I don't know if Apple ever got around to fixing it, but this has also been a pretty big issue with Macbooks and Macbook Pros.

However, when I had this issue with my Macbook it was actually a hardware failure, not software.

[Marc Wickens]

I have had this problem.
I found it was because Media Centre was set to download TV show information automatically. Turned it to manual and solved my problem.
Windows Event Log is a good place to see what time your laptop turns on by its self, and if it's the same time every day (as mine was) you know it probably isn't a crash but a program turning it on.

[John]

Vista is a boat anchor. In order to keep all of us on the proper upgrade path (sending in our money) Microsoft must create products which have no respect for hardware or people. You will never see a solution until we (our government) breaks up Microsoft. XP is discontinued and the lies about Vista will keep being told until they become truth. We complain about the price of gas but for gosh sakes I have spent more for computers in the last 20 years than gas.