How to troubleshoot performance issues with standby, hibernate, and resume in Windows Vista

The steps to troubleshoot performance-related issues in Windows Vista vary depending on the point at which the issue occurs. This article is intended to describe the steps that are used to troubleshoot performance-related issues with standby, resume, or hibernation.

For more information about how to troubleshoot other performance issues in Windows Vista, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Overview

This article describes the steps that are used to start to troubleshoot standby-related performance issues in Windows Vista. This includes how to troubleshoot issues with the standby, resume, hibernate, and sleep features.

Performance issues that you may encounter with standby, hibernation, and resume on a Windows Vista-based computer may include but are not limited to the following issues:

• You cannot put the system into hibernation or into standby.
• You may encounter errors when the computer enters or resumes from hibernation or from standby.
• The system takes a long time to resume from hibernation or from standby.
• The system may not resume from hibernation or from standby.
• The system may not resume from hibernation or from standby in the same state as when the system entered hibernation or standby.

Note Before you start to troubleshoot any performance-related issue, it is important first to set correct expectations. If you installed Windows Vista on a computer that only meets the minimum hardware requirements, but the computer does not meet the recommended hardware requirements, you may be unable to make a noticeable improvement to the performance of Windows Vista unless you upgrade the hardware on the computer, or you disable some features of Windows Vista. These features might include the search indexer or some visual effects.

Computers that meet the minimum requirements are known as "Windows Vista Capable," and computers that meet the recommended requirements are known as "Windows Vista Premium Ready." For more information about Windows Vista Capable and Windows Vista Premium Ready computers, visit the following Microsoft Web site: For more information about system requirements for Windows Vista, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To start troubleshooting a standby-related performance issue in Windows Vista, follow these steps.

Step 1: Check Windows Update

If a driver or an operating system component causes the performance issue, there may be an update that is available on Windows Update that addresses the issue. Visit Windows Update, and install any driver or operating system updates that are available. To do this, visit the following Windows Update Web siteIf you install an updated driver or operating system components from Windows Update, and this does not resolve the performance issue, go to the next troubleshooting step.

Step 2: Check for performance warnings

Frequently, Windows Vista can automatically detect any issues that are related to performance and can make recommendations about how to troubleshoot these problems. When this happens, a warning is displayed in Control Panel. To access these warnings, follow these steps:

1. Click Start
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   , right-click Computer and then click Properties.
2. Click Windows Experience Index.
3. Click Advanced Tools.
4. In the Advanced Tools window, click the performance-related links to examine detailed information about the computer.

After you click the links in the Advanced Tools window, follow the recommendations that appear. When you have resolved all the issues that appear in this list, restart the computer. Then, test the computer's performance by putting the computer into standby and then into resume, and determine whether the performance issue is resolved. If the problem still occurs, go to the next troubleshooting step.

Step 3: Perform clean-boot troubleshooting

If you verify that the performance issue does not occur in safe mode, start Windows Vista in a clean-boot environment to determine the programs or the services that are causing the issue. This process will systematically eliminate any of the third-party services or applications that are running on Windows Vista that could potentially be the cause of the problem.

For more information about how to perform clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows Vista, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: If the performance problem continues after you perform clean-boot troubleshooting, go to the next troubleshooting step.

Step 4: Check the Reliability Monitor

When you troubleshoot a performance issue, it is important to determine whether the problem always occurred after you installed Windows Vista or if the problem began sometime after you installed Windows Vista. You must clarify this before you continue.

If Windows Vista was performing acceptably after it was installed, and the startup performance problem only began to occur sometime after Windows Vista was performing acceptably, you can use the Reliability Monitor tool that is included with Windows Vista. This tool lets you examine the events that occurred around the time that the problem began so that you can determine any relationship between the event and the issue. To do this, you must first determine approximately when the issue began to occur. When you determine the approximate time, you can examine the events that occurred around that time.

1. Click Start
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   , type reliability in the Start Search box, and then press Enter.
2. Click Reliability and Performance Monitor in the Programs list.
   
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   If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password, or provide confirmation.
3. Click Reliability Monitor.

In the line graph that appears, you will see a representation of the reliability of the computer. Each vertical bar represents a day, and the height of the line for that day is determined by the events that occurred on that day. If any errors or warnings occur, the line will go down. If no events or only informational events occur then the line will start to go up.

To use this tool to troubleshoot a performance issue that began sometime after Windows Vista was installed, follow these steps:

1. After you identify the approximate day that the problem began, select that day in the Reliability Monitor tool.
2. Read the Information, Warning, and Error events that occurred on the day that the problem began and on the two days before the problem began.
3. At this point, you must use the data that you have collected to start to troubleshoot why the problem may have occurred. Some possible examples of how to troubleshoot this problem are listed here. In the following examples, the most likely result is that you have to contact either the software or hardware vendor for more troubleshooting advice:
   • If you see that the problem started the day that a driver update was installed, you have to determine whether there is a newer driver than the currently installed driver. Then, you have to install the newer driver to see whether that driver resolves the problem. If no driver update is available, use Device Manager to roll back the driver that was installed.
   • If you see that the problem started after the installation of a new piece of hardware, disable or unplug that hardware, and then test to see whether the problem still occurs.
   • If you see that the problem started after you install a new program, check for any updates for that program on the software vendor’s Web site. If no updates are available, uninstall the program to test whether the problem continues to occur.

If the problem still occurs after you address any of the changes that you identified in the Reliability Monitor, you must contact the computer manufacturer or the hardware vendor to determine whether the computer or the hardware that is installed supports Windows Vista, or if there are any updates that must be installed to make the computer compatible.