Power program problems?

[C LaBelle]

I think I have an issue with my Vivotab Smart but wanted to post here to make sure I'm not missing something. It seems like when I am done with it for the day I click the top left power button to turn the screen off. When I go to use it again after a few hours (overnight too) I push the button and it doesn't come on. I have to hold the power button to turn it back on and it boots up as if you did a shut down. I don't know if this is a problem or a setting? When I go to the Power options on the Windows control panel and go to the options I have it set the following: Dim display at 1 min on battery and 3 min plugged in. Put the computer to sleep: 2 min on battery and 5 min when plugged in. Does "Put the computer to sleep" mean it goes into a hibernate or something? I don't want to "boot" it up after it sits for a little bit.

Another problem I'm having is when the tablet screen is off and I go to wake it, I push the power button once and the screen flashes on, goes off, then back on again. Is this the way it is or maybe a glitch or problem with the button?

 

[Ray Adams]

Did you upgrade your Win8 core to Pro or other edition?

 

[C LaBelle]

According to my tablet I have just Windows 8. When I bought it and started using it for the first time it did a bunch of Windows updates but it didn't look like anything unusual.

 

[OzRob]

According to my tablet I have just Windows 8. When I bought it and started using it for the first time it did a bunch of Windows updates but it didn't look like anything unusual.

Have you run ASUS Update to update the BIOS and drivers? If not, I would do this and see if it makes a difference.

 

[MarkAllett]

These units sometimes crash during standby and need a hard reset (the holding down the power button), to bring it back again. There are other threads here discussing the issue. It apparently affects all atom-CPU based Windows 8 tablets and AFAIK we don't have a properly working solution, although some people have had success updating the BIOS and things. Mine certainly still does it occasionally (perhaps once a week), and I believe I'm on all the latest drivers and firmware.

 

[asus_usa]

I would do a factory restore on the tablet and reinstall all the drivers and updates. That is not normal behavior for the tablet.

 

[OzRob]

These units sometimes crash during standby and need a hard reset (the holding down the power button), to bring it back again.

This hasn't been my experience. I've been using mine pretty much daily for about two months now. I have had one occasion where the tablet had reset itself and required me to turn it on again, but I think this was related to installing Windows updates (I have since turned off automatic updates and only get alerted when an update is available so I can install manually when it suits me).

 

[damora01]

I had the same problem, mine was running fine and next day the tablet was off, so what I did was to uninstall the lasted apps installed and this fixed the problem.

 

[stephen_az]

I think I have an issue with my Vivotab Smart but wanted to post here to make sure I'm not missing something. It seems like when I am done with it for the day I click the top left power button to turn the screen off. When I go to use it again after a few hours (overnight too) I push the button and it doesn't come on. I have to hold the power button to turn it back on and it boots up as if you did a shut down. I don't know if this is a problem or a setting? When I go to the Power options on the Windows control panel and go to the options I have it set the following: Dim display at 1 min on battery and 3 min plugged in. Put the computer to sleep: 2 min on battery and 5 min when plugged in. Does "Put the computer to sleep" mean it goes into a hibernate or something? I don't want to "boot" it up after it sits for a little bit.

Another problem I'm having is when the tablet screen is off and I go to wake it, I push the power button once and the screen flashes on, goes off, then back on again. Is this the way it is or maybe a glitch or problem with the button?

Just a couple suggestions:

1) Check the Event Viewer (one of the administrative tools). Most errors listed are irrelevant but if there are any critical entries or error messages related to power, they should be pretty easy to spot.

2) Depending upon whether Event Viewer points to an obvious problem, you could also then try turning off hibernation. Open a command prompt with administrative privileges and then type: powercfg /h off or powercfg -h off. That will disable hibernate entirely. If the issue persists then it may be hardware related or something corrupted in the OS configuration since it is not hibernating but actually shutting down and restarting. BTW, this is not meant to be a solution since there are times you want the machine to hibernate (such as when the battery is critically low). You can turn hibernate back on by typing the same command but changing off to on.

 

[Narathan]

I thought I managed to solve this by reinstalling a fresh windows pro, but the problem came back. I narrowed it down and it has either to do something with Skype or the Mail cli?nt (after I added an Exchange account). Although I think its probably Skype that comes off of the Appstore, but haven't confirmed this yet. Installed the tablet without the two, see what happens.

 

[C LaBelle]

What exactly should I look for or see in the event log? There are quite a few errors listed.

Just a couple suggestions:

1) Check the Event Viewer (one of the administrative tools). Most errors listed are irrelevant but if there are any critical entries or error messages related to power, they should be pretty easy to spot.

2) Depending upon whether Event Viewer points to an obvious problem, you could also then try turning off hibernation. Open a command prompt with administrative privileges and then type: powercfg /h off or powercfg -h off. That will disable hibernate entirely. If the issue persists then it may be hardware related or something corrupted in the OS configuration since it is not hibernating but actually shutting down and restarting. BTW, this is not meant to be a solution since there are times you want the machine to hibernate (such as when the battery is critically low). You can turn hibernate back on by typing the same command but changing off to on.

 

[Narathan]

I took some time searching for other models suffering these symptoms, but it seems the Acer W510, Samsung ATIV and even the Surface Pro suffer these issues as well... Which makes me believe this can happen on every Windows 8 tablet.

It seems Microsoft is working on these fixes!
Source: Windows 8 freezes on black screen after the computer resumes from sleep mode

So for now I'll stop tinkering and looking for ghosts. I just hope Microsoft can fix it sooner then later.