Connectivity After "Sleeping"

[Bigaldoc]

I think this is a Windows question but it could be hardware... not sure...

My laptop: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Yesterday afternoon I was using my laptop as usual, surfing and other things. It came time to leave for Christmas Eve dinner at my son's home, so I just shut the lid to put the system to sleep (NOT hibernate).

It stayed that way all night until a short time ago when I woke it up. The machine is connected to the web via my wired router and I have no problems normally. However, when I woke the machine up, Fx or IE could not connect to any pages. I looked at the Network Connection icon and it said I was connected (even showed a couple of my neighbors' wireless). I even tried opening the "setup a connection" window and got a message that I'm already connected.

Bottom line is I rebooted (the usual "trick," huh?) and the connection problem went away. All's well now. I've no experience with this sleeping business. Is this a typical problem? If so, there's isn't much sense in leaving a machine in sleep mode if you're gonna have to reboot anyway.

[HansV]

Instead of rebooting, right-click the Network Connection icon in the system tray, and select Troubleshoot from the context menu. Hopefully that will put things right.

You may also try this:
Start Device Manager (the easiest way is to type the first letters in the Search box in the Start Menu, until Device Manager appears in the list).
Expand Network Adapters.
Right-click your Ethernet adapter and select Properties from the context menu.
Activate the Power Management tab.
Clear the check box "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".
Click OK.

[Bigaldoc]

Thanks Hans. I never thought about "power" since it said I was connected.

I just made the Device Manager adjustments you suggest, so I'm gonna put 'er back to sleep for a few hours and see...

(I have two entries in there. One says "WiFi" and the other "Family Controller." So I guess that's wireless and wired. Made the change in both.)

[Bigaldoc]

Step one - OK. I've had 'er sleeping for four hours and didn't lose connectivity.

I'm gonna do it again now for overnight and see how it does in the morning.

[Bigaldoc]

It seems the problem WAS the power switches. Woke it up this morning and accessed the web immediately. Thanks again, Hans!

[HansV]

Good to hear that! Thanks for the feedback.

[Bigaldoc]

Just a little parallel to this thread. My laptop hasn't been turned on since Christmas Day. When I turned it on this morning to run a backup, I saw that MSE was showing yellow in the tray instead of green. I don't know when it would have updated itself, I suspect later in the day or this evening. So I updated it manually. So far, so good.

Next, prior to starting a backup, I checked Windows update since I didn't want that to get in the way of a backup, although I don't know that it would. There were only two updates, both of which were for .NET so I did those two. There was no mention at the end (they take a long time) that a reboot was necessary. So, I continued on.

Prior to starting my backup, I opened Firefox and boy, was it ever SLOW in loading anything, even my web page which doesn't have much on it. After trying a few bookmarks with the same result, I did the usual: REBOOT !!!

All is well again so I don't know if those .NET updates required a reboot and MS just didn't tell me or what. One thing for sure, I did have connectivity, it was just horrible. FWIW...

[John Gray]

The MSE tray icon will show yellow for one or both of two reasons:
a) it needs an update
b) it hasn't done a scan for at least a week (unless you've set it to run Daily)

[Bigaldoc]

Thanks John. It did need an update. When I looked in the GUI, the last update was 25 December. But, it could also have been the scan. I have it set to do a quick scan but on Sunday morning at 2 am. It wasn't turned on then, so I suppose the scan would have run had I left the machine idle, as I think is required by the settings.

I just checked and the scan was also last run on Christmas. I'm headed out, so I think I'll leave the machine idle to see if the scan runs whilst I'm gone.

[Bigaldoc]

I know I've changed the complexion of this thread, but I've got some work to do with my Windows 7 POWER settings, in addition to those suggested by Hans.

I'm not "losing" connectivity any more since I changed the "...do not power off..." settings in the network adapters.

But, I just went out for an hour or two to run some errands and visit the grocery. I left the laptop ON and running - NOT sleeping. It was on AC power as well.

When I just got home and logged back in, my internet connectivity was there but so slow I couldn't get any page to resolve. I tried here in The Lounge, my web page and Facebook. The pages would come up with the status bar saying "transferring" and the throbber in the tab rolling, but the pages wouldn't finish loading.

I had to reboot AGAIN to get back to a fully functioning internet connection. I'm tempted to turn "sleep" completely off and maybe even try hibernate instead. Very frustrating and I'm still so new with Windows 7 I have no ideas.

PS It wasn't my ISP or the router (I don't think) because the desktop was just fine.

[John Gray]

It takes a fair bit longer to restart the computer from the hibernation state than from standby - tens of seconds rather than seconds, in my experience. But if it gives you satisfactory results...

[DaveA]

When using power, I turn OFF both the sleep and hibernation.

[Claude]

I got slow connections at times, not just after the computer sleeping. Tried all sorts of things, finally gave up, logged into the modem and rebooted that, then the same with the router, back to what it should be, )normal speed), after that.

[Bigaldoc]

Thanks Claude, but rebooting is probably quicker than dealing with the modem & router, etc.

[Claude]

Certainly, if rebooting helps. In my case, it is the modem and router that are getting old and senile, both probably need replacing in the near future as it seems to be happening more and more

[Bigaldoc]

I also just changed my settings to NEVER sleep when on AC power, so I'll keep watching this thing...