Every once in a while I go to hibernate my laptop and get an “Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API” error.
Sorry the screen capture looks so huge, my laptop has a 130dpi display.
This error is wrong on so many levels. Nothing ties it to an action I performed — nowhere does it say there was a problem hibernating. The problem is not explained in any meaningful way (which resources, which API, and why the hell should I care about either?). And once the error occurs the Hibernate option is removed from the Shutdown options, so there’s no opportunity to try again.
The frequency of this error has been increasing for me over the past two months, especially since I upgraded from 1.25GB to 2GB of RAM. Some Googling found references to Q330909, which says that an XP computer may fail to hibernate if it has 1GB or more of RAM and “is running multiple processes that create a high-stress condition.” I have the RAM, and I’ve been using VMware heavily lately, but I always close out the system hogs before hibernating. Typically I’m using 350MB to 450MB RAM at hibernation time, tho the system cache is often sucking up all of the unused RAM.
According to the article this is fixed in XP SP2, so I upgraded my laptop a week or two before the RAM upgrade. It happened again just now, and yesterday, and twice last week.
I’m at my breaking point. I’ve been so gentle to this XP installation, installing only the bare minimum of software as it’s needed. No crap, no cruft, and no programs that might possibly include anything that resembles spyware or adware. Zero system crashes to date.
I need hibernate to work every time much more than I need Windows.
Every time this happens I wonder why I don’t eBay this 7lb beast and trade up to a 12″ Powerbook.
Update 11/20/2005: Q909095 lists a supported but unreleased hotfix. Early reports are that it works. To get the hotfix you must contact PSS and open a support incident. Once it is confirmed that you are experiencing the Q909095 issue, PSS should issue a refund or credit your support contract.
Don’t ask me for the patch.
Update 12/4/2005: What part of Don’t ask me for the patch do people not understand? To demonstrate how easy it is to get a hotfix for yourself, I called Microsoft at 3:30PM Eastern today (Sunday). According to my phone it took 12 minutes to complete the call, at which time the hotfix was already in my mailbox. Here it is in 13 easy steps:
- Dial 1-800-MICROSOFT.
- Press 2 for Technical Support.
- Press 1 for Personal Support.
- Press 2 for All Other Issues.
- Live person will ask for a name and phone number.
- Ask for the hotfix from KB article #909095.
- Live person will ask which version of Windows XP.
I claimed to have XP Home, as I figure that’s what most people use. - Live person will ask for your e-mail address.
- Live person will transfer you to a Real Support Rep.
- Real Support Rep will verify e-mail address.
- Real Support Rep will ask you to install SP2.
Unless you really need help installing SP2, claiming to have already installed it will keep this call short. - Real Support Rep will issue you a case number.
- Real Support Rep will e-mail the hotfix.
I usually get unreleased hotfixes by e-mailing my employer’s TAM or other contacts within Microsoft. Calling was much quicker. Just do it.
Update 12/8/2005: So far the patch is not working for my 2GB system, even after relatively light computing sessions. Comments are re-opened.
Hello,
Do you have activesync installed or similar application (for Palm)? if yes try to remove the sync app.
I suppose at this point I’ll try anything.
That hasn’t helped.
You could try Linux instead, if you’re serious about needing hibernate more than Windows. I think the Recovery Is Possible cd at http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/ has software suspend, though you may have to repartition just to try it out. As long as you have enough free swap (and are lucky with which drivers work), it should work fine. I don’t know if Apple has any sort of hibernate, though.
Wrong OS. Wrong Laptop. Wrong Time.
The same thing is happening to me on my Thinkpad; I’ve also installed XP SP 2, and nothing has changed with regards to this bug. I’m still searching for a solution…
yeah, i’m post-SP2 and see this too. i also run vmware. that does seem to tickle the bug, but it happens when i haven’t run vmware as well.
I have the same. It started happening after upgrading the laptop from 1 Gb to 1.5 Gb RAM. SP2 doesn’t help. Also, it seems to be unrelated to what software I’m running.
New installation. XP SP2. Very lean development system. 2GB ECC. Fails hibernate anytime system has experienced so-called “heavy” load during session. Can reproduce 100% of the time. No reference at MS when subject is related to XP-SP2 installations. Nice to know that I am not the only one ANGRY about this issue. Will be contacting MS support and will provide feedback.
I’ve reinstalled XP on my Thinkpad. If it starts happening again, I’m going to have to turn off hibernation, which will really suck if I leave the machine asleep for a long time.
Do you know the best place to send a complaint to Microsoft? The more flak they get, the faster they’ll fix it…
I get the same prob, but I started with SP2, and don’t use VMware. I haven’t upgraded memory. The problem is getting worse, however. It used to be I could get one hibernate per powerup, but now I can never get hibernate to complete. The system jumps back right before I would normally see the hibernation progress bar.
Same problem here on a Toshiba M200 Tablet (1.5GB RAM). For me this issue didn’t start until after I loaded XP SP2. I’ve nearly melted the machine a couple of times, not realising it hadn’t hibernated and placing it in a tight fitting bag.
Same problem for me. Using an IBM Thinkpad T40. Started seeing it after installing XP SP2.
3 of us at work had the same problem using IBM Thinkpad T41 after having upgraded to 768Mb only on XP SP1. Using the following MS supplied patch solved the problem.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=4cbc68d2-09e1-4511-af14-03f357180135
Let me know how you get on!
Peter- Dude, like, that patch goes with the KB article I linked to.
That’s right - the patch that Peter pointed us to will not install on XP SP2. Has anyone come up with a fix that does work for XP SP2?
I have had the hibernate problems already on Windows 2000 (with 768 MB and 1 GB and a page file). The situation were only on very busy days (using a lot of programs or after virus scans)
A good experience was to call a memory defragmentation tool (e.g. freerampro) before hibernating. Requesting a huge amount of space (e.g. 300 MB were used and the tool requested another 400 MB) I could hibernate mostly.
Now I use XP with 2 GB and without page file. The fix pack doesn’t work and the freeRAM tool does not have an effect (no page file)
Has anyone found a solution to this problem?
I’ve also started experiencing it since upgrading to 1.5G from 1G RAM (using XP SP2 on a Dell Inspiron 8600)
Exactly same problem here :-((((
After upgrading my Athlon XP 2500+ from 1 GB to 1,5 GB, I have this hibernate problem, no matter which motherboard I do use (I do have a Nvidia nForce 2 and a Via KT400).
I can hibernate if I compat the memory before I try to hibernate, only if I do not use more than 1 GB memory of my whole memory, probably something less.
I can also hibernate if I put no more of 1,25 GB memory on board. With 1,5 GB and more the problem is ALWAYS present. :-(((
This problem really stink!!!
What can we do to convince Microsoft to fix it???
Anything new?
Same problem with a T-41 preinstalled w 2GB of RAM. As soon as I do any valuable work with the Java IDE it happens. The same software worked fine under a T-30 but that one had no more than 1GB. It happened before SP2 and after…
These days hibernate rarely works at all, even when I’ve only run Outlook for a few minutes after a reboot. I’ve just learned to live with it — I don’t have the patience to deal with technical support and their constant requests to reboot. If I didn’t mind rebooting frequently I wouldn’t care about Hibernate…
I’m closing the comments on this post. If you’ve found a post-SP2 solution, e-mail tby@yehl.us and I’ll update this page (and link to your ‘blog if you’d like).
-Bryce
I’m still frequently emailed about this issue, and recently I’ve been contacted by two people that have opened support requests. I’m turning comments back on in anticipation of getting some more attention on this problem.
-Bryce
I was having a very similar problem. It seemed to get worse after hibernation. Many of the symptoms described here were occurring.
I installed AVG, a virus scanner, and found the Java/ByteVerify virus. Since the virus was removed, all of these problems disappeared.
Installing AVG was quite difficult. I had to stop everything in the systray and all SQL Server databases and have no other process running. If I did not, the installation would fail.
http://solomonson.com
I have a brand new Dell Precision M70 with 2Gb RAM and I also have this problem. I’m not sure if it is a coincidence but my laptop seems to always hibernate OK once, but then throws this error and disables hibernation after that.
Is this problem confirmed to be caused simply by having a large amount of RAM? If there is anyone who knows of someone without this problem at all with say 2Gb RAM then obviously it must be influenced by another factor.
Perhaps we could all start posting system specifics and running processes to try and isolate a mitigating factor?
I have a ThinkPad R50p with 2GB RAM running XP-SP2 and am having the same issue, though I never actually see the insufficient resources error. It starts to hibernate, but the hibernation progress bar never appears and it pops back to the desktop. Sometimes if I close enough apps and stop enough services it will work… sometimes not. This is incredibly irritating. I thought it might be an IBM hardware issue, but on here it looks like other laptops are having the same problem. Anyone able to get any response out of MS support?
I have the same problem on a desktop with AMD 4200+ (dual core) with 2GB memory. According to AMD, in order to use their cool & quit options, I had to set the power options to portable/laptop. With my system the problem occurs often, but not consistently. I will try with normal powersettings and report back.
Unfortunately, the same thing happened today.
Some additional information: when this happens, the Hibernate tab is removed from power options. After hitting the hibernate button on my keyboard again, the system goes to Standby, not hibernate. After rebooting, the situation is as before.
I started having this problem with my Dell Latitude 810 after upgrading from 1GB to 2GB of RAM. Hibernate never worked again.
At the moment I have it working after upgrading the Dell Quickset software. We’ll see if it stays this way, but hibernate is working for the first time in weeks.
The Dell download I got for installing Quickset was named R89970.EXE. Before this I just had the factory-installed version (purchased a year ago).
I made a typo in my last post: My machine is a Latitude 800, not an 810.
I made a typo in my last post: My machine is a Latitude 800, not an 810.
Alas, my troubles are not over. After working a few times hibernate no longer works.
Add me to the list of people that are fighting this problem. I’m running a month old HP Pavilion zd8000 with 1.25 GB of RAM.
I would love it if somebody could give a recap of what people have tried and what they think might work.
Erik
I am now on Level 2 tech support (via email) with Microsoft and am now dealing with an Escalation Engineer. So hopefully they will find a fix that works for all of us who are in pain over this issue. I’ll keep everyone posted.
-Eric
I’m not even at level 0 support - Dell OEM WIN XP doesn’t allow direct touch. So it’s great to hear someone made it.
I have exactly the same problem as mentioned above - with my Dell Diemnsion 8400 / 1 GB
I’ll keep tracking this thread.
Thanks to Eric for your effort.
Cheers
Melanie
Exactly the same for me. After upgrading my ASUS M6800N from 512MB to 2GB, I keep getting the above message saying “insufficient resources exist…”. Usually, hibernation works fine just after reboot, but the message comes after some work with the PC.
Kirill
Add me to the list of those having this problem. I have a VAIO S460P running XP Pro SP2, 2GB of RAM. I use VMWare but have this problem even when I’ve not started VMWare since bootup.
Running a brand new zd8000, 100GB HD; 2GB RAM; Win XP MCE SP2; I was previously able to run hibernate, even though I had SP2 pre-installed, But for about 4 weeks, it has not worked.
Have same problem with Toshiba SPA40. Only had the problem after upgrading RAM from 1GB to 2GB. Using XP SP2 and only real mem hog is Oracle. Im too lazy to shut down! Grrr! Good Luck Eric!
Argh. Level 2 was pretty much useless. They want a clean boot — which is pretty retarded since they have a KB article on it after all. I received the following:
“I understand all the inconvenience you have experienced by this issue. Unfortunately, there is no such a post-SP2 hotfix refer to this issue.
I understand the hibernation function works fine if we test it after starting up the computer. However, after running some programs for some time, the hibernation function became unavailable. At this point, I still suggest we perform the Clean Boot and then run programs in Clean Boot mode to test the issue. Meanwhile, I have report this issue to our Development Group for further research. They will pay attention of this problem and do further research to determine whether this issue is caused by the known reason which described in KB article 330909 or there is new factors caused the similar issue. Thank you for your understanding.”
Which means we are screwed? I’ve thought about calling MSFT about this — it’s just amazing that they can get away with not having this work.
I’m frustrated right now!
-Eric
I have enquired a MOPS about this issue and they have the following response:
Thanks for your update.
Based on my further research which spent about half a day, I found that KB330909 which is included in SP2 was supposed to fix the issue and even though the Q article mentions that it does, the fix does not work in all cases.
This is a known issue with hibernation on systems with 1GB or more memory (2GB seems to be the pain threshold). The problem is caused by excessive memory fragmentation on the system. So, you would be less likely to see the problem shortly after booting up, but after starting up a few applications which use memory in a very fragmented manner, you might run into it. The kernel power manager’s hibernation code cannot get allocate enough resources to build its internal data structures to handle the high number of distinct memory allocations that occur when memory gets badly fragmented. Sadly, the only possible (just possible) work around is to try re-booting the system, closing any apps that are open, etc. There is no fix for XP SP2 right now.
We have sent to Author of this KB article and code to change the article to reflect the fact that the SP2 changes may not always fix the issue.
I do understand your feeling at this moment, but unfortunately, there is nothing we can do until a new fix coming.
Thanks for your understanding.
Have a nice day!
My workaround is to use sleep instead, this will degrade the battery faster, but better than clean boot every time.
The problem with sleep beyond using power is that it does generate heat, which, when in a padded (read: insulated) computer bag, is bad. In addition, I have sometimes found that my computer “wakes” up from sleep and really cooks in the bag - not to meantion really eats up the batteries as both fans struggle to cool of the computer.
I was digging into this and noticed that most hibernation errors are due to device drivers. I was using Deamon for virutal CDs and turned it off. Hibernate now is working at least for the past two days. How many people here have odd/virtual device drivers?
OK, I have a rather interim solution…
Everytime you go to hibernate, run one of those (largely dodgy) “Free RAM” programs. The one I’m using is “FreeRAM XP” which can be found at http://www.yourwaresolutions.com
If you do this before hibernating then I’ve found it largely eliminates the problem if you can free a majority of your RAM. In other words, close any memory hungry applications beforehand.
Another thing I’ve found is that MS Outlook 2003 is consistently causing me this problem. Most likely due to its large memory requirements. I just thought I’d point this out as its the sort of thing many people would just leave running in the background (especially if you have 2gig of RAM!).
So, I suggest closing memory hungry apps, freeing your RAM and then hibernating if you really need to hibernate.
Oh P.S. If you find hibernate has become disabled and really don’t want to restart, go and get the “Wizmo” utility from grc.com and use it to hibernate (run “wizmo hibernate”). Somehow it can convince windows to try and hibernate even after this error has occured.
Once very last thing (I promise!), I have contacted MS support over this problem with no result. The only thing that occured in the end was the error being passed on to the developers responsible for the relevent section. Although I woudn’t be surprised if indeed nothing happend.
So glad to read this. I have exactly the same problem. I upgraded my IBM T42 to 2 gb (used to be 1 gb) and this problem started occuring immediately afterwards. Which s*cks because the reason for the upgrade in the first place is that I tend to let a lot of memory hogs run simultaneously. Booting takes ages as a result (the system is fine when it’s up - eventually). I’ve tried using a memory optimizer, but it didn’t work. Will try FreeRAM now.
I think I’ve got a cure for the problem. Hibernation now works for me after I’ve set the size of the paging file to a value larger than my main memory. (I have 2 GB RAM, my paging file was only 1 GB with fixed size.) Allowing Windows to manage the paging file size might also help.
I suspect that Windows needs to write/reogranize some of its internal data structures before hibernation, and that this process is only possible with a suitably sized paging file.
At the first glance it seems to be a pointless waste of disk space, but if it solves the problem…
None of these suggestions (FreeRAM, Wizmo, nor enlarging the paging file size) works for me.
I still cannot hibernate.
I would like to show my support for this ever growing Windows problem. I recently upgraded my machine and really annoyed hibernation doesn’t work. My pc spec XP home SP2 - AMD 3500 and 1GB memory.
I think searching the web for an alternative fix may be the only way unless Microsoft listens.
If anyone finds a common contact at microsoft perhaps we can all foward our thoughts?
Helllooooooo Anybody thereeeeeeee Bill……..?
Another user afflicted with this pitiful Windows design. Hardware is a Sun Java Workstation W2100z with 2GB ECC RAM…they system is even certified compliant with Windows XP 32 and 64-bit.
After the current project is over, I’ll be VERY glad to go back to Solaris 10.
Who would have ever thought, 2 GB of RAM and not enough resources!!!
Acer Travelmate 8104wlmi + 2 gigs ram. Exactly the same, and as You mentioned, after the first hibernation the option disappears from the shutdown menu.
I found the culprit(s) on my system at least. If I turn off Oracle10g completely, shutdown Outlook, Mozilla, and Visual Studio I am able to actually hibernate. WooHoo!
Microsoft have been oh so helpful with me on this one..
Darren
Darren, I would like to inform you that according to the agreement between Microsoft and the manufacturers, support for Tablet PC with Windows software can be obtained solely from the computer manufacturer.
Therefore, I would request you to contact your computer manufacturer for assistance. If you would like to contact your computer manufacturer, you may find their contact information at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;en-us;oemphone
I hope your issue gets resolved at the earliest. If you have further queries, please do not hesitate to write to us again.
Thank you for using Microsoft products and services.
Microsoft have been oh so helpful with me on this one..
Darren
Darren, I would like to inform you that according to the agreement between Microsoft and the manufacturers, support for Tablet PC with Windows software can be obtained solely from the computer manufacturer.
Therefore, I would request you to contact your computer manufacturer for assistance. If you would like to contact your computer manufacturer, you may find their contact information at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;en-us;oemphone
I hope your issue gets resolved at the earliest. If you have further queries, please do not hesitate to write to us again.
Thank you for using Microsoft products and services.
Toshiba me upgrade to a later version of their power management software and I have so far not been able to reproduce the problem since the change with five or six hibernate attempts, so this might have fixed the problem for me at least. I’m running a Toshiba tablet M200 with 1.5Gb RAM, XP SP2 and have been having very chronic problems with hibernation.
I was having the same problems with my Toshiba A70 when going from 512MB to 1GB of RAM. I was also experiencing strange behaviour from my wireless and my browser.
The Key here is WAS. I found another thread (http://www.alegsa.com.ar/Visitas/index16/Hibernate%20fails%20in%20xp%20with%202gb%20ram%20upgrade.php) that mentioned the hiberfil.sys file.
So I went into the Toshiba power manager and disabled hibernation support and rebooted. This deleted hiberfil.sys from my c:\ drive. Then I re-enabled Hibernation support and hiberfil.sys was recreated but now it is the correct size, i.e. big enough to accomodate the larger amount of RAM when going into hibernate.
I just did this about an hour ago but I have not had any of the problems I had before: it looks very promising.
HTH,
Denis
Hi Guys,
I have an LG LW70 laptop which I purchased in June this year.
I just upgraded from 512MB of RAM to 1.5GB of RAM. And - I have started seeing the same problems with hibernate that are mentioned here (Insufficient Resources).
The system does not refuse to hibernate every time. Just once in a while especially if I have had alot of programs open (normal for me).
I have just increased the pagefile size to 2301MB and I have downloaded the FreeRAM XP program.
I will report back if I see any changes in behavior (increase or decrease in the frequency of refusal to hibernate).
Regards,
Joel.
Joel,
Try your hiberfil.sys, not your pagefile!
I swear this works. I have not had one problem since I made the changes I described.
Denis
I tried this hiberfil.sys trick on my Dell Lattitude D600 2GB ram, but it didn’t work. I can hibernate if I don’t have any large memory consuming processes running.
Forgot to mention that I also tried to upgrade the power management software from Dell — I’m guessing it’s the QuickSet utility, and that didn’t resolve the problem.
I’m on the verge of downgrading the memory back to 1GB, but that will slow down my machine too much for my work. It’s still very tempting though.
Managed to work around this by doing the following before attempting to hibernate:
3. Hibernate
1. Starting a very memory intensive application (such as VirtualPC or VMWare).
2. Close the memory intensive application
This somehow flushes a lot of memory to the swap file when the application is started, when the application is then closed, all the memory of the rest of the processes is still paged and hibernation usually succeeds afterwards. (you can retry with the cool Wizmo utility mentioned here at an earlier post).
I’ll try to maybe write a small utility that uses a lot of memory (so no need for any ‘commercial’ software). If it works I’ll post it to the forum.
Cheers,
- Dror
I have been watching this thread for months. Has anyone heard anything from MS Support on this? I am thinking maybe I should open a support call with them on the subject.
I just figure out that there are notebook computer out there with default 2GB RAM installed (e.g. HP nw8240). I just wanna see if anybody got these high ends notebooks scream at the manufacturer.
i also have been watching this space for a while now. i have a new fujitsu S7020 (a month or so old) with 2GB of RAM that i thought would be PC nirvana (wishful thinking!). i’ve about given up on the wintel platform with this one and ready to jump over to the mac world. just contemplating how to migrate my workflow over given that i have some programs that dont function on macs (been messign with virtual pc 7).
im surprised no one has found a resolution to this API/hibernate error! also having problems with standby to make things worse. now my only real option most times is total shutdown that i hate to do.
anyone who has contacted MS please keep us updated on this page.
Update - the fix toshiba suggested was good for a few days but that was random dumb luck - it’s back to its bad beahviour.
Update - the fix toshiba suggested was good for a few days but that was random dumb luck - it’s back to its bad beahviour.
Have an Acer tm3002 with 2 gb… cannot hibernate when running any more programs than just a browser. I am very much in need of a fix of this problem…
Before I had 512 mb… and had no problem hibernating whatever programs I had running… this is just a terribly annoying bug…
I spent about a month working with Microsoft on this and got nowhere - they accepted that it was probably a bug and would be pushed through to engineering - that was about 5-6 months ago now and I have heard nothing.
I’m resigned to the fact that Microsoft really don’t give a toss and if I want to hibernate I generally can if I close sufficient apps to bring the memory down to around 550Mb used.
I have the same problem on a RAID-5 server system running on an AMD dual Opteron with, yup, 2GB RAM. My complaint, however, seems distinct from the rest of you. For me, this is a mission critical failure.
This computer functions as both a file server and a workstation, and runs 24-7. This is a remote location and the power goes out from time to time. I have the computer on a fairly big UPS, but the computer draws so much power, that even with a monster UPS, it only lasts for about 10-15 minutes on the UPS if the power fails. It’s set to hibernate the computer before the UPS fails, then auto-restart when the power comes back on, thereby maintaining its running state when the power comes back up.
With no hibernate, the whole process fails.
In other words, this is not an inconvenience where I suffer the nuissance of having to shut down, this is a mission critical failure where I lose data if the power goes off when I’m not around. There is no way a person could shut it down, because there are often no people there when the power fails.
If anyone knows how to use this report to help elevate this problem with MS, please do so. I don’t have the time (or patience) to deal with them directly, but I’ll check back here if anyone needs any more information from me. I’ll do what I can to help.
Thanks,
Colin
Here is a solution to the hibernation problem (that I found in a Russian BB): Add /PAE into your boot.ini file. This turns on the Physical Address Extension (PAE) mode on 32-bit systems (PAE mode enables processors to address greater than 4 GB of memory). Why this is necessary to solve the problem - I have no clue.
I can confirm that this solves the problem on Windows XP SP2, IBM T40 laptop with 2GB of RAM and Pentium M processor, even when I am at the state of using the swap space heavily. Cheers, - Kari
With the pagefile turned off this did nothing to help the bug (would be suprised if id did).
But when I turned on the pagefile (fixed 2 gb pagefile), this actually seems to work, haven’t tested extensively yet, but now I can hibernate with eclipse and vstudio running, never could do that before…
I don’t want to use a pagefile cause xp seems to do a very poor job handling it, even if I have loads of memory free it starts paging out applications that have not been active for a while… oh well… it’s good to be able to hibernate again though
I tried adding /PAE to my boot.ini but that didn’t help. I may have tried the fixed size pagefile before, but have it variable right now with 3GB max. I’m going to wait for some more responses on the pagefile before trying.
Has anyone made progress with Microsoft? In my years of software experience, knowing how to reproduce a problem is usually half the battle when fixing bugs.
Nowadays, I have a 50% success rate of hibernating if I shut down some big processes (Oracle DB, Outlook, big Word docs).
Thanks and keep posting suggestions!
After doing some heavy work for a couple of hours I tried hibernating again… and didn’t work… so the /PAE doesn’t work for me either…
/PAE switch do not work on any of my machines too :-(((
One is a Centrino machine pretty much the same of the guy who posted the trick.
It’s a shame Microsoft wont look into the problem.
I still didn’t tryed, then I heard the problem is not present both in Windows 2000 and in Windows Vista beta 1.
I know this isn’t at all a fix, but I’ve given up on the hibernate feature all together now. I’ve come to realise that standby has matured and is a reliable solution to me. Naturally I don’t depend on it working, but I find these days it generally works fine (unlike my old laptop where there was a 50/50 chance it would crash when waking up).
So, if in the past you’ve used hibernate over standby and you have the >1Gb problem, I’d suggest you give standby a go. The other benefit of turning off hibernate is that I’ve freed 2gig of disk space!
Oh another thing, I find my new laptop uses very little power on standby, so I don’t find this much of a problem either. You just have to not be tempted to turn your PC back on if it goes into standby due to the critical battery level being reached!
Other than this, I’d just hope your PC will run Vista as it doesn’t look like MS will bother fixing this problem in XP.
One problem I’ve noticed with Standby is also described in this thread: it “wakes up” even while the lid is closed. I’ve had it happen a few times, and the laptop comes out burning hot.
I still have hibernate on. If it fails, I’ll go to standby if I know I’ll use the laptop again soon, otherwise, I have to shutdown.
doesn’t anyone have contacts with large mainstream media to publicize this problem and embarass microsoft publicly. that just might force them to do something about it.
The /PAE switch seemed to reduced the frequency of the problem, but did not eliminate it.
Using the /MAXMEM switch for boot.ini, I limited the amount of available memory to 1.25GB. That seemed to solve the problem. Apparently, different computers have different thresholds, but this amount works for the TC1100. Not ideal, but it gives me 250MB more RAM than I was using. (I was staying with 1GB of physical RAM so that hibernate would work.)
I am currently trying another suggestion — I’m back to 1.5GB RAM, have removed /PAE, but have also totally disabled the swap file. So far, that seems to be working as well, and with 1.5GB RAM, the swap file is not so vital.
As for standby — if the computer power settings are set to allow hibernate after so many minutes, the computer will turn itself on and attempt to hibernate. If hibernate fails, the computer just stays on. I’ve also found mine cooking in it’s bag a few times due to this problem, so I’m very careful about standby.
Also, if the battery power gets too low while on standby, the computer again turns on and attempts to hibernate. If this fails, the battery simply dies and any unsaved data is lost.
I agree that this is a serious problem that MS should be addressing. However, I would also venture to guess that the VAST majority of computers out there are running on 512MB or less, that the ratio of notebook users with more than 1GB of RAM is even smaller, and, that most people using hibernate are notebook users. As such, the ratio of users affected by this problem may be relatively small, so the problem is not receiving much attention by MS.
hello everyone. to follow up on the earlier post, you can prevent your system from going on hibernate by changing the power settings in control panel. i have done this to avoid the situation where after i put the device on standby the system automatically switched on a tries to hibernate and then is not able to causing a massive overheat situation. the problem though is you will have to choose system shutdown as the option for ‘critical battery’ situations and sometimes even that does not work correctly (i.e. you have to end some processes manually). i still can’t beleive how lame the windows OS family is. i find myself drifting to the mac site every so often dreaming of a powerbook.
I spent some time with MS on the phone over the last few days and was told that a fix is nearing completion. Supposedly it will just show up via Windows Update, but you can also download it directly once it becomes available in mid-December. It will be hotfix 909095. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909095 (not yet available).
Tell your friends!
You can add me to the list as well (IBM t43p - 2 gigs of ram). I just read this entire thread, praying that there was a resolution at the bottom, hopefully that fix really will come out mid decemeber.
2 totally seperate issues:
1. Looks like there are a fair amount of developers here. If you use the /PAE switch, this often can conflict with emulators for palm, windows CE, etc… just something to note if you are getting failures. the workaround is “turn it off”
2. On another note, there seems to be a lot of IBM Thinkpad users, and I am wondering if people are concerned about the quality of the products now coming form lenovo? I have ordered 4 different thinkpads for my startup this year, and have had the following issues:
March - t42p, 15 inch, shipped with bad cd-rom, has blue tooth issues.
May - t43 14 inch, no issues
October - t43p 15 inch, shipped with bad cd-rom, can’t hibernate (not ibm’s fault, but their staff should have known about this issue). My lid won’t close properly, I think it is actually warped somehow in the month that i have had it.
Nov - t43 14 inch, no issues yet.
Both times I called about the CD-rom, tech support didn’t even flinch and sent out another one right away, so obviously they are aware that some of their drives are bad (both were DVDRW).
This lid problem, however, is utterly ridiculous, there is actually something wrong with the frame and its only been 1 month. I’m hoping this is just bad luck, but am seriously concerned with their quality control.
I’m not sure if there has even been any difference in product yet as a result of the sale to lenovo (my products now come directly from hong kong, however, so i would think so), so I don’t even know if this question is valid.
that said, their screens, keyboard, and bodys (albeit mine is broken) are fantastic.
As another great aside, I just got this message from microsoft: “Search the Knowledge Base (KB) is currently not available. We are aware of this issue and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible. Please try one of the following options for assistance.”
How do you break a search engine this badly?
I feel like such a big geek because i am excited by hearing about an imminent fix for hibernate.
Maybe MS will deliver this as a xmas gift for us geeks
I have also been suffering from this problem with a New Fujitsu Siemens Celsius H230 with 2Gb ram.
Disabling, rebooting and re-enabling hibernation, as suggested by tdcrotty, has certainly helped a lot (so far I havn’t had any failures, whereas previously I could only hibernate rarely, but it is too early to say its completely cured).
It appears that FJS may use the same hard disk image for XP (and thus size of the hibernation file), no matter how much ram is installed and this could be at least one possible cause of this problem.
I have the same problem with an IBM T43p and a Dell Inspiron 9200, both with 2GB memory.
The problem always occurs when task manager reports that I’m using more than 512MB of memory (Commit Charge). If I manage to push commit charge below 512MB, hibernate works flawlessly.
My current workaround is to stop the most memory consuming programs (VMWare etc) and then run a small program that allocates 1550MB of memory and “steps” on the memory to bring the commit charge below the magic limit. So far this has worked, but it’s a bit annoying. The source code is at http://www.cs.uit.no/~johnm/code/tools/flushmem.c in case anybody wants to try it out (it’s a quick and dirty hack, so please excuse any dirty coding style).
Now, it’s interesting to see that others have had problems with the T43p and the lid. I got my first 15″ T43p replaced because it was bent enough that the lid wouldn’t close properly. To see this you can place a ruler along the front edge of the computer. A T42-43 should be slightly bent, but my notebook was more bent on its right side (where the latch is) than on its left hand side.
I may be hallusinating, but it appears that my replacement has started bending as well. Are you using ultrabay batteries in your computer?
Hi guys,
I managed to find out why hibernation failed on my Inspiron 9300 when I upgraded it from 1Gb Ram to 2Gb Ram. The problem is XPSP2 fails to enlarge the pagefile.sys file. Even when I set it to be 3Gb to 4Gb in the System applet, the file remained at 2Gb. In fact , it is even a few bytes smaller than the hibertfil.sys hibernation file.
I have written and compiled a small C program that is able to allocate 2Gb by chunks of 2Mb. I have run 4 copies of it in 4 cmd windows. XP eventually enlarged the pagefile.sys to almost 3Gb and didn’t shrink it. Seems that now I am able to enter hibernation whenever I request it.
So have a look at you hibertfil.sys and pagefile.sys files sizes.
Regards,
I didn’t quite understand that last post. I see the same ’symptom’ but I don’t understand the details behind how it would help to increase the pagefile size. In any case, I’m glad to hear it is working for you. Could you publish your program?
The fix has arrived!
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909095
You have to contact Microsoft for them to send you the download link for the hotfix. Unfortunately, I have yet to recieve it from them as the Tech support engineer I spoke with will have to confirm it with a 2nd level engineer. I expect to get an email from them with the day. +8 gmt
As of the moment I am able to hibernate by using /MAXMEM 1280
I have the hotfix already! Is it ok to share the file to save you guys the hassle of contacting MS? If I share, will this be against MS policy?
Hey, did the hotfix solve the problem? If yes, it would be great if you could share it with us. I don’t know anything about the redistribution of the hotfix but I see that a lot of people/companies are doing it, whereas they may have some kind of agreement with MS.
Yes, it works with my hp nx5000 with 2 gig Kingston 333 ram! I can now hibernate even with a commit charge of 700000. Here is the download link
Just press free and wait for the countdown. Follow the instructions presented by the hotfix installer. Cheers!
Edit by Bryce: Removed link. See my comment at bottom of page.
Thank you very much. I’ll try it out as soon as I get home.
You’re welcome! Thanks to this forum most especially to emmby for the lead on hotfix 909095. If you search this at microsoft, it will not be found.
Thank you VERY much for your help. Why in the world won’t Microsoft post this update as an actual hotfix for download? Regardless, thanks to all for pushing this through and providing the hotfix!
I asked MS for the hotfix, but they wouldn’t give it to me! They said I had to wait until SP3. I said if they don’t give it to me, I’ll switch operating systems.
Thanks for posting it!!!
I’ve removed the link to the patch, as distributing Microsoft hotfixes violates their EULA. I am attempting to get permission to distribute the patch but this is unlikely.
The legal way to get the patch is to contact Microsoft Product Support Services. You will have to go through the process of opening a ticket and paying for it, however, the charges will be refunded once they establish that this hotfix resolves your issue.
Comments are closed until there is something new to add.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909095 says hibernation
needs “a block of contiguous memory”, but doesn’t say what
kind. Presumably it means on disk. The defragmenter says
there is about 3GB contiguous on myC partition, and my
RAM is 2 GB, but the problem still occurs. Defrag also
says my page file has one fragmentation and can’t get
rid of it.
Did fpopineau ever publish the program mentioned in
http://www.ntwizards.net/2004/10/13/hibernate#comment-468?
I can’t even find hibertfil.sys and pagefile.sys.
Bryce,
I notice that on 12/8 you still had the problem. I’ve had a new HP zv6000 pre-loaded XP ver SP2 with 2 GB for a few weeks and am experiencing the same hibertate problem. the machine came with hibernate disabled. It didn’t even appear on power options. Now, I’m beginning to understand why … HP support seems to be fairly in the dark over all this … they have told me I can just return the machine… that’s great but it doesn’t get me or anyone else over the hurdle … what’s your next step?
Conrad and Ski:
Have you guys contacted Microsoft about this? So with the patch applied, you guys still have the same api problem with hibernation?
Eversince applying the patch, I can hibernate as I used to before with just 1 gig of RAM. I can now use 2 gig on my hp nx5000 without having to worry about hibernation.
MFB,
You were lucky in getting the patch. MS refuses to provide it as of right now (they took it down the day after they posts the new KB update); they say they had and issue and are working on it. No ETA for re-release.
Do you have an off-site email / google search that would help me get the hotfix?
Thanks.
MFB,
Cancel that request…looks like MS is giving it out again.
Hope it fixes the issue…
Well, a day of testing reveals it will sometimes reboot when you try to hibernate….ug.
I got it from somewhere (not MS), but it doesn’t fix the problem for me. Mine is called (after unpacking) WindowsXP-KB909095-x86-ENU.exe and has Build Date 2005/10/12, version 1
Well, a couple days into it…with a ton of apps open…over 800MB in use. Hibernate working A-OK. The fix appears to be working. Thank goodness!
Why does the patch work for some 2 gig ram set ups while for some it doesn’t ? I use win xp pro sp2. I previously installed sp2 by slipstream. I don’t know if this has something to do with the failure on other 2 gig systems. I haven’t had any hibernation problem ever since applying the hotfix.
I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and it’s been working without a problem. And a friend who has had the problem also says it’s working perfectly. Thank you MSFT for fixing this, lol.
Thanks a lot. My BRAND NEW ibm was refusing to hibernate and beeping every minute or so in my living room ALL NIGHT and driving me nuts. this worked for me and I appreciate the concise instructions to getting the hotfix from microsoft. You made what could have been a really bad experience very easy.
It is working for me on my laptop without problems. My commit charge has been >1.1gigs throughout the day.
Just to let everyone know, that applying this hotfix for me doesn’t fix the problem.
When I select Hibernate on the shutdown dialog. The screen does flash and resume to the normal Windows operation. (no error message or sometime it show that Insufficient blah blah blah…)
Desperately, anyone has other solution for me to try??
(My memory is just 512KB with VGA share)
At last! I got the hibernation to work after trying all the ways I can thought of and found on Googles!
The last thing I did before getting the hibernation to work is to remove unnecessary services by using this guide http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/windows_xp_services.php. Try to do this if other ways can’t help you.
Good luck guys!
Thank you so much for the clear and concise instructions.
Acer Ferrari 3000 w/ 2 gig fixed yesterday courtesy MS Support Hotfix.
Multiple full load hibernate cycles w/o a hitch.
My New Year is starting fine now thanks to you!
Perfectly fixed on my three Centrino machines:
Dell Inspiron 9300
Asus A3N
Lenovo Thinkpad T42
All three machines were affected, all three machines do have 2 GB memory and all three machines, after apply Hotfix, Hibernate and Resume perfectly also under totally load.
Still got problem with my AMD XP desktop (1.5 GB memory): now it hibernate perfectly, then it fail to Resume.
I suspect a device driver problem more than an Hotfix problem!
Well done Microsoft, now everything is fixed.
PS: the official download happened from a Microsoft Support Person e-mail link and the file is slightly different from the one I’ve seen on a RapidShare share.
PPS: it is curious the download come from a SP3 directory on the Microsoft hotfix.microsoft.com official FTP site. So the SP3 is in the work, if not quietly done.
Update.
Also my AMD XP Desktop with 1.5 GB memory resume like a charm now.
After apply the hibernate patch, the problem was resume and no more hibernate.
Now I found the culprit: an old, buggy driiver of my Creative WebCam Go Plus, apparently out of support by Creative (I hate discontinued products).
So just unpligging this cam solved any problem and Hibernate/Resume cycle is now sooo solid also with this Desktop pc.
Good job, Microsoft and case brilliantly closed.
PS: I’ve been really really well impressed about the quality of Microsoft support. They sent me the link for the patch, then the day after they even called me back to know if I solved my problem and everything was fine! GREAT.
Vorapoap, make sure the patch was actually installed (check c:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe file version 5.1.2600.2774). I had installed an update that had installed a later version of the kernel that prevented the hibernate patch from installing properly (with no error message). The newer update would not uninstall, but after a fresh OS install with the hibernate patch installed, I can now hibernate without error.
John. The file version is just what you said.
And the solution about turning off some services is not working for me anymore..
From I couldn’t hibernate is changed to I can hibernate for just a few times…
And.. I forgot to tell you, My memory is less than 512KB (Notebook /VGA Share)
The hotfix is working fine for me since I received and installed it on 31Dec05. HP nw8240 notebook, XP Pro SP2, 2GB RAM.
I’ve been having the same problem for awhile. removing VMware WS solved the issue for me instantly.
Haven’t tried the hotfix, but I’ve noticed, in the last week or so, a marked decrease in problems hibernating if I operate the laptop off of battery, rather than ac. Haven’t tested this very thoroughly, but it seems to be having some effect.
Has anyone used hotfix with Language: English United Kingdom? (I read fix works with English United States)
After applying the hotfix, I just notice that only 2 file out of 4 files listed on http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909095 exists on my System32 folder.
1. ntkrnlpa.exe version 5.1.2600.2774
2. ntoskrnl.exe version 5.1.2600.2774
But not
Ntkrpamp.exe and Ntkrnlmp.exe
Anyone know why? or did this mean that my hotfix not install successfully?
I used the Security Task Manager to quarantine many services especially many of Intel PROSet/Wireless services. I found that I can disable following services and still get the wireless to work using Windows Wireless Zero Configure (not the strange Intel App)
mEoU.msi
mCore
igfxTray Module
I also disabled all RealTek Audio utility services..
well.. I can now begin to hibernate for at least 3 times now continuously..
If this can really solve the problem, I suggest everyone who already apply the hotfix and didn’t get the problem solved to start looking at your services and disable all unnecessary memory hungers.
I will continue to report if this is one of the solution..
The other files are for other processor configurations (multiprocessor).
The patch worked flawlessly for me for hibernation, but interferred with S3 standby. I began having problems with iTunes with the patch installed. On resume, and intermitantly, iTunes would hang on a CreateThread and could not be killed with task manager. I’d have to end up resetting the system. Root cause may be an interaction with the hibernate patch and my audio drivers (SoundMax), as Windows Media Play could not start after iTunes was in a hung state. I remove the hibernate patch, and iTunes does not hang.
So for me, it’s a tradeoff between reliable hibernation or reliable system after standby. I’ve got my S3 standby down to using 3 watts of power so that’s what I’ll stick with.
Nevermind, I finally got the hotfix from MS.
I think my next computer will be an Apple cause I’m tired of these type of issues.
I’ve read this, as just upgrading my Inspiron 8500 to 2Gbs ram.
I have used standby for years without it EVER turning on in the bag, and perhaps the reason is I use a boot password to protect my data if I lose the laptop. If you turn it on and don’t enter the password, it turns itself back off after about 1 minute. I’m not a power user, but This could be a way to make standby more attractive than hibernation.
I applied the hotfix for the kb 909095 problem and I’m still seeing insufficient resources message! Looks like it doesn’t fix the problem after all. I have a gateway with 1.5GB ram XP SP2.
The hotfix resolved the issue on an Inspiron 9300 with 2GB. Thanks for the page, Bryce–this was hard to find on MS site, only found it from your link.
Another success story, with a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop and 1.5 GB RAM. Had the problem ever since upgrading RAM from 512 MB and tried the earlier hotfix for SP1, with no improvement whatsoever. Hibernation would not work after using memory intensive applications like the Eclipse IDE. If I closed the applications and then gave the computer a while to get its memory straight or whatever before attempting hibernation, sometimes it would work.
A clean install of Windows XP and Service Pack 2, and the problem was still there. However after applying the WindowsXP-KB909095-x86-ENU.exe patch (off the ‘Net, not directly from MS), hibernate has worked flawlessly for 5 days, even immediately after starting up said memory intensive applications.
Regarding Microsoft vs. Apple: as someone who has the products of both to fight with, I prefer Microsoft. At least there is usually lots of people publicly questioning the sanity and quality of their stuff, eventually leading to improvement. This sadly seems not to be the case with Apple… all the naive evangelists promoting them tend not to work in favor of evolution.
That said, no props to Microsoft for taking at least more than a whole year to come up with a real fix for a very real problem (actually, the only serious bug I’ve ever had the pleasure of noticing in Windows XP). Or for not being confident enough to take responsibility for the working fix by actually distributing it in the public. Sigh.
Hotfix 909095 works for me on my Dell Inspiron 6000 2gb RAM. After searching the net for a few weeks, I finally came across this page. I guess I’m more lucky than others in the sense that I never had this problem unless I got my new laptop, which was last month, after the hotfix had already been released.
I opened all my applications and hibernated like, 6 times in a row without a problem. It’s only been a day though so I hope I’m not just getting lucky…
Been using it for a good week now. Works like a charm.