Vista: goes to sleep and doesn’t wake up

Symptom: Vista goes to sleep, and won't wake up. The mouse or keyboard are unresponsive, the screen is black. The only way to get your computer to wake up is to "hard shut down" - hold the power button for 10 seconds until it turns off. Then restart the machine. Because you shut down "abnormally", when Vista restarts, you get the black startup screen that says "Start Windows Normally...". Explanation: Normally to wake up a PC, you press the Power button. Vista has "wake up" feature, which gives the keyboard and mouse the privilege of waking up the computer from a sleep. This means your machine is still listening to the keyboard and mouse while it's sleeping. When you see the sleeping PC, wiggle the mouse or press a key and it'll wake up (in theory). Sadly, this feature is molto buggissimo. The keyboard and mouse do not wake up the computer, and neither does the Power button. According to other narratives, this doesn't happen with all pointer devices, and it doesn't happen all the time. I have noticed that sometimes the PC will wake up with a mouse wiggle, and sometimes it won't - I suspect there is a difference between "sleep" and "hibernate" which is eluding my flaccid grasp of Microsoft logic. Solution:

1. Go to Vista Start and type "Device Manager" in the search box.
2. Open the Device Manager
3. Expand the "Mice and other pointing devices" node
4. Select the mouse you have
5. Double click it to open its Properties
6. Open the "Power Management" tab.
7. UNCHECK the checkbox labeled "Allow this device to wake the computer".
8. Click OK
9. go back to the Device Manager. Repeat the process to disable "wake up" privileges for your keyboard.

When you're finished this, your computer's sleeping disorder will be gone... it won't respond to the mouse or keyboard anymore, but it will respond properly to the Power button. WARNING ! DO NOT DO WHAT I DESCRIBE ABOVE A FEW DAYS AFTER THIS POST MY COMPUTER WENT TO SLEEP AND WOULDN'T WAKE UP, EVEN WITH A HARD REBOOT. I HAD TO BRING IT TO A TECHNICIAN TO HAVE VISTA HIBERNATION SETTINGS RESET