Laptop doesn't respond after screen turns off

[archeologist]

Hello,

I have been having this issue for a few months now and can't resolve it on my own.  I'm hoping to resolve it without having to completely reinstall my operating system.

The issue is that once the computer screen turns off I can't wake it up again.  Touching the keyboard, touchpad, screen or power button does nothing.  The only way to wake it up again is to hold the power button for 5 seconds to shut down the computer, then start it up again.

If I put it to sleep before walking away it wakes up properly.

This can't be doing good things for the hard drives.  And I'm tired of losing my work if I forget to save something.  I regularly get interrupted these days while working and sometimes don't get back to my PC for hours.  And that point it's locked up and my work is often gone.  Autorecover often doesn't work.  And I don't want to save everything in the cloud as sometimes I work without a network connection.

I have run as many troubleshooting programs as I can.  Nothing has worked.

I have checked the device manager and I can't see the power management tab the instructions say to check.

I have updated as many drivers as I can find.  The only one that was giving me issues was the audio driver, but it's been stable the past few weeks but the problem is still there.

I just now set the screen to turn off after 1 minutes while plugged in.  Once the screen turned off I saw the hard drive light flash away for a few seconds then go dark.  Then nothing, it won't wake up again.

Any ideas what to check?  I must have screwed up a setting somewhere, but the troubleshooters aren't helping.

Thanks!
Ian

[KrazyToad]

@archeologist

I have gone through your post and I understand your concerns

I suggest you download and run the HP Support Assistant from this Link: https://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/hpsupportassistant/hpsupport.html?jumpid=va_r602_us/en/any/psg/p...

HPSA will automatically search for all the latest drivers for your Notebook

1. Click My devices in the top menu, and then click Updates in the My PC or My notebook pane.

   

2. Click Check for updates and messages to scan for new updates.

   

3. Review the list of updates. Updates with a yellow information icon are recommended. Updates with a blue information icon are optional.

4. Click the update name for a description, version number, and file size.

5. Select the box next to any updates you want to install, and then click Download and install.

Also ensure Windows is up to date.

Select the Start  button, and then go to Settings  > Update & security  > Windows Update , and select Check for updates. If Windows Update says your device is up to date, you have all the updates that are currently available

Keep me posted how it goes

Thank you and have a wonderful day 😊

If the information I've provided was helpful, give us some reinforcement by clicking the "Solution Accepted" on this Post and it will also help other community members with similar issue.

[archeologist]

Thanks for the help.  I previously tried the support assistant with no luck.

Based on a previous thread I read I tried using the Intel driver update tool here:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html

That found two drivers that were out of date, and that seems to have solved the issue.

Thanks,

Ian

[archeologist]

Scratch that, it just did it again.

Back to square 1.

[KrazyToad]

@archeologist

Thanks for keeping me posted

At this point I suggest you perform a Reset and check if that helps.

Please follow the instructions in this Link: https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c04742289

[archeologist]

I performed a reset, but the problem still exists.

But tonight as I was playing with it some more I realized I wasn't describing the problem correctly.

I set the sleep timer to 2 minutes so I could see if I could wake it from sleep after updating a few drivers.  I realized in the process that the PC is never actually going to sleep.  It's somehow hanging up once the screen goes dark, but it never fully goes to sleep.

I'm not sure if there are any other fixes for that, but I'm ready to call in the experts at this point as I'm afraid doing shutdowns every day will eventually damage the hard drive.

Thanks,

Ian