Windows XP - Standby Button Grayed Out

To start off, let's go over what system standby is and what it does. After all, it never hurts to learn something new or refresh your memory, right?

When you are away from you computer for long periods of time, the default mantra is to turn it off. This works well, however when you want to go back onto the computer, you will have to boot up, log in and wait those everlasting five minutes for the computer to even become responsive to your barrage of demands. To solve this unending pain in the neck, we look to system standby to help us out.

In a nutshell, system standby puts the computer to sleep. It is still alive, but not doing very much. Electricity usage slows to a trickle, monitors and other hardware gets turned off or switched to a standby mode, and anything you were doing gets saved to short term memory. Then, when you need to get back into the computer, the system will wake up and be up and running in a fraction of the time it took to turn back on from a shut down. However, this great ability does come with some unexpected downfalls.

When system standby is used on a laptop, you must be sure that you will have enough energy to keep it sleeping; if it were to run out of electricity, any data that was being saved in memory will be lost since the data is saved in volatile memory. Volatile memory only holds onto data when there is energy keeping it running. Take away the juice and you can say goodbye to your data. However, if used correctly, that is for shorter period of non use, system standby is a great tool.

 

Your Computer is Not Broken

You go to put your computer into standby mode and the button is grayed out and not click-able. What do you do? What happened? How do I fix it? All valid questions but the first step is to not panic. This does not necessarily mean you have a virus or that your computer is broken.

Is it Enabled?

First you should check that you have system standby enabled. Simple problem, but one that is seen often. To do this, right click on your desktop and click "Properties," then click on the "Screen Saver" tab. Now click the "Power" button near the bottom and when the new window opens, make sure that the drop-down boxes next to "System Standby" do not say "Never." If they don't say "Never" and it is in fact turned on, we do what we know to be tried and true. Update.

Either find the Windows Update shortcut in your Control Panel window or point Internet Explorer to http://update.microsoft.com. From there, Windows Update will make sure that your Operating system and other Windows components are up to date and not all messed up. Though this may not solve the problem 100% you will at least have an updated computer which will solve and prevent problems in the future.

When going to Windows update, make sure you are using Internet Explorer. If you use any other browser the site will yell at you for not using IE (Internet Explorer) and make you feel bad. Although, you can always install the IE tab add-on to FireFox. Some people just hate IE.

Those Darn Drivers...

This problem does seem to have a common solution: drivers, specifically graphic drivers. The best thing to do is to like we did before with Windows, update your drivers. This can be a non enjoyable process but one that needs to be done. However, with many PCs, your drivers are also updated when you run Windows Update. Amazing right? However, if it is not, head on over to the manufacturer's website to obtain the updated versions of your drivers.

If updating them does not work or there are no updates, you should try rolling back. This process just downgrades the version of your drivers which my return the computer to a state where standby is usable again. When doing this, you should keep track of what is going on so that you can pinpoint the culprit of this whole situation. Once you know what is causing all the problems you are then able to go and find a better solution to not only be able to use standby, but also have updated drivers.

Furthermore, make sure you have standard VGA drivers installed on your system. Far too many people who do a clean install of XP have their standby unusable because of this. Either install the standard VGA drivers that Microsoft offers or the ones from your motherboard CD.

One problem that was rampant when XP first came out, was that the computers people had troubles with was just too old! The problem lied in the motherboard chip set. The motherboard has to have Advanced Configuration and Power Interface [ACPI] / Power Management features. If not, then you will not be able to utilize the standby feature. However, most computers these days have these features standard.

The previous tips should have fixed your problem but sometimes there is something else amiss with your computer. Another problem is your peripherals like the keyboard and mouse have mucked things up. If you believe that this is your problem, simply connect the original keyboard and mouse and see if the situation has been fixed.

If all else fails and you still are having this problem, you will need to contact some kind of support. Call your manufacturer, send them an e-mail; just get in contact with them. They will have more information and ideas that are specific to your computer that you should try.