Narcoleptic 390X

[aarontring]

OK, this time I did at least a rudimentary check before asking a dumb question. I have a 390X LOU (450 P3, 12GB HDD, etc, etc.) that I stuck a 128MB DIMM in from a Compaq lappy I'm refurbing for my kid. I don't really see the 192MB total being all that much better than the 128 total I had, so I was thinking about swapping back. The Compaq has better multimedia capability, for being otherwise comparable to the TP, so it needs the larger memory, anyway.

My point is, that's the only thing that's changed, and that was two weeks ago, and I was about to change it back, when yesterday or the day before it just starts hibernating. It's not random or at inconvenient times, but if I close the lid or walk away for too long (running my older boy to school: less than 30 minutes) I come back to a black screen. None of the usual taps seem to wake it up, either. I even tried the "Fn" keys. Sometimes, the little drive LED comes on, but, otherwise, nothing. I have to hard boot, which Windows is oh-so-fond of.

I've checked and rechecked my power management settings. I've changed them, then changed them back, because that has fixed other problems on other computers in the past. It happens whether on the adapter or on the battery, so THAT's not it. I'm at a loss. I flashed the most current BIOS available about a year ago, when I thought that my LCD issues were software related, so I should be good there.

All the entries I've seen for problems like this elsewhere on the MB relate to a new SP for XP or Vista, but I'm running a dual OS of 98 and 2K and have been since I got it, and my last update was a while ago. Granted, I haven't tried 98 to see if it happens there, too, but 2K has all of the drivers I need (like wireless) and actually runs at a fair speed, now that I have enough memory.

It's not a crucial issue. I'm knee-deep in drywall and a Franken-Gateway, anyway, but I just get this thing running comfortably and think I'm ready to move to the next step (internal wireless, DVD, new OS, what-have-you) when something like this happens...

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Aaron

[Bookworm]

Have you tried giving it some caffine?

If that doesn't work, try taking the battery out. I had similar problems with my 360CSE and 755CE, but my batteries were completely dead and probably rotten. I took them out, and the 360CSE works fine, and at least the 755CE doesn't have that problem anymore. (It's not dead, just rotten.)

If it's not that, where were the power management settings you changed? There are some in windows controll panel, and in the ROM Easy Setup/Bios Setup or whatever it's called on your computer.

Finaly, don't feel bad about asking dumb questions. I invented them, and I'm glad to see my invention is getting popular!

[aarontring]

I'll try the battery. I tried the BIOS settings and the Windows settings. As for the caffeine, I'm working on an iced tea cooling system. I just have to overcome the issue of the tea going stale; you know how finicky an old computer can be.

Thanks for the insight.

[aarontring]

OK, this kind of combines a couple of threads for this machine, but it solved this problem: I did a "clean" install of XP last night. I should say that I'm assuming that "clean" means deleting the existing partition, formatting the HDD, and installing Windows on the "blank" HDD.

Aside from a little trouble logging into the forum (so otherwise handy to tick that "log me in automatically" box...), everything works smoothly. Correction: I had to move my wireless card to the bottom PCMCIA slot, for some reason, and I now have my CD-ROM drive in the "Safely Remove Hardware" menu instead of the wireless card, but the sleep, stand by, and hibernate functions all revive smoothly, I don't experience the delays that the IBM/Lenovo support sight mention when people put XP on this, and webpages and most applications open up as fast as my wife's HP that runs, ostensibly, about 3 times faster.

All in all, I'm very happy, except, of course, I realized this morning, after doing all this until the wee hours, all of my copies of MS Office can't be installed on this, for one reason or another. I'll hit eBay for that, or something. I'm leary of OpenOffice.org because of the "bloated code." It actually ran slower on my old Gateway than MS Office 2000, and that machine has close to twice the resources this one does. That WAS a few years ago, but I still see that as a complaint in reviews. We'll see.