[TheVoid]

Hi,

Having a bit of a problem with an Acer 5922G Laptop.

When I've finished using it, I'll just close the lid. However, when I come to use it again, I open the lid, hit the power button, and I get a black screen for about 90 seconds whilst it's waking up. It eventually gets to the login screen but why do I get a black screen for 90 seconds?

I'm using Windows Vista.

Thanks

[TheVoid]

Anyone?

[chrisjr]

Because it takes 90secs to get from a shutdown state to one where it is ready to be used presumably?

Or were you assuming that because it was running when you shut the lid it would be running instantaneously again when you open the lid? Because that is not how it works. It either shuts down completely as if you had clicked Start then Shut Down or it goes into a hibernation state.

In the Shut Down scenario the laptop has to boot up Windows from cold. That could very easily take 90secs depending on the specs of the machine and how much other stuff it has to load on start up.

If it goes into hibernation it saves whatever you are doing and what data is in memory at the time to the hard drive then shuts down. It then has to restore that state when you wake it up again. Which will also take time.

It is simply impractical to keep the machine running when not in use. The battery would not last that long for one thing. It's not like a smart phone for example, that doesn't really switch off when you hit the on-off button. With a laptop it really does switch off.

[TheVoid]

Originally Posted by chrisjr

Because it takes 90secs to get from a shutdown state to one where it is ready to be used presumably?

Or were you assuming that because it was running when you shut the lid it would be running instantaneously again when you open the lid? Because that is not how it works. It either shuts down completely as if you had clicked Start then Shut Down or it goes into a hibernation state.

In the Shut Down scenario the laptop has to boot up Windows from cold. That could very easily take 90secs depending on the specs of the machine and how much other stuff it has to load on start up.

If it goes into hibernation it saves whatever you are doing and what data is in memory at the time to the hard drive then shuts down. It then has to restore that state when you wake it up again. Which will also take time.

It is simply impractical to keep the machine running when not in use. The battery would not last that long for one thing. It's not like a smart phone for example, that doesn't really switch off when you hit the on-off button. With a laptop it really does switch off.

No that's not the case.

My laptop for example - when I open the lid and press the power button, the log on screen immediatly appears. I type my password and it loads up fine.

The other laptop however, when you open the lid, press the power button, it takes you immediatly to the log on screen, you type in your password, but then you get a black screen after logging in, with the tool bar along the bottom of the screen.

It's as though the system has crashed, but then 90 seconds later it all appears.

[chrisjr]

That is not what you described in the OP though. In that the blank screen came before the log in prompt not after it.

How long is it between closing the lid and re-opening it again? And what setting have you got for what action the laptop takes when you close the lid?

It is entirely possible that on one laptop you have it set to effectively go into "screen saver" mode and it just sits there semi dormant and if you open the lid soon enough after shutting it it wakes up quickly just as if the screen saver had kicked in normally.

The other laptop could be set to go into a much deeper Hibernate mode where it copies the current state onto the hard drive and shuts down almost to full close down mode. Then when you open the lid it has to restore that state again.

Not sure if it is the same in Vista as Win 7 but in Win 7 if you type Power Options into the Search box on the Start menu one of the options presented is what to do when shutting the laptop. If you compare both laptops you may find one is set to Sleep and one to Hibernate.

[plugs13amp]

I have an Acer 5920G which I assume is fairly close to your 5922G. 2GB ram and Vista. I have mine set to go into standby on closing the lid. Pressing the power button wakes it up in about 4 seconds. If I force it to hibernate, it takes around 31 seconds to wake up, however during that time (after the short BIOS splash screen, and an equally short couple of seconds of black screen) it displays "Resuming Windows". Task manager shows 82 processes running (all users). Resume time will be dependent on how much ram you have as this has to be reloaded from the hard disc (ram is kept alive during standby which is why its so much quicker).

If you are truly shutting down, and restarting Windows it will take longer, but unless you've killed the "Starting Windows" animation you should see that. The only other thing I can think of is that its completing an update, part of which has to be done before Windows starts, and for this you will see a prolonged black screen, but this should only happen the once (for any given update), not continouously - unless its got stuck.

How long has this been happening, did it start after a change - software, hardware, update, etc
How much ram is installed ?

[TheVoid]

4GB RAM in the Acer.

The black screen has the windows bar along the bottom though, so it's nothing to do with hibernating.

The Firefox browser is left on screen when the lid is closed, so maybe it's start.

It's been happening for the past few months.

[plugs13amp]

as a test, I would close down everything I could, leaving just Vista running, before closing the lid. If that eliminates the problem, try leaving applications running ONE-AT-A-TIME, and see which one causes the problem. If not, do you have a System Restore point from before the problem started that you could roll back to. Then introduce any changes in a controlled manner to try and identify whats causing the problem.

[spiney2]

puzzling. the backlighter is controlled by motherboard rom. not by windows (although that interacts with rom via "power settings").

otherwise may take a while to come out of sleep or hibernation if bios has been set up to look for usb boot for example .......

..... i also find waking from hibernation takes longer if more processes were left running ......

[spiney2]

..... i can understand nothing on the screen at all but not "black" ......