Has your Windows 7 computer ever gone (or been put into) Sleep Mode and you’ve been unable to wake it up no matter what you did?
From all the posts I see on this subject it’s a common problem amongst Windows 7 users.
99% of the posts I read tell you how to “avoid” this problem happening but very few talked about How to Fix the problem.
Firstly, how do we know that the PC is stuck in sleep mode?
If your computer is stuck in Sleep-Mode you should be able to hear the computer fan, see the power light on or blink but your computer monitor will remain blank. If you do not hear any fan noise or see any buttons light up or your computer produces 1 or more beeps, you may have a hardware issue (something internally has broken) such as a faulty power supply, faulty memory or faulty motherboard.
So having determined that the PC is stuck in sleep mode, here are a number of things to try… plus the FIX that finally worked for us.
1) Move you mouse or hit the “spacebar”. If this does not work try each of the following in order.
2) Press the power button in for at least 30 seconds until the PC powers off. Wait 30 seconds and power up again.
3) Switch the PC off at the mains or pull the power cord out and wait at least 3 minutes before powering up.
4) Try another mouse and/or keyboard and repeat step 1.
5) When the PC starts to power up, try and get into the BIOS by holding down the “del”, “Esc” or “F1″ button (the specific button for entering the BIOS differs between PC’s …. check your PC manual if you still have it.
6) Put an original Windows 7 CD/DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD ROM) and boot up the PC (this will only work if your BIOS has been setup to try and boot on the optical disk first before trying the HDD) if you do not have a windows 7 CD/DVD, you can create a Ubuntu boot disk by following the instructions on this You Tube video.
Once you manage to start the PC using a bootable disk, there are a number of things you can do at a BIOS level (see step 5) to make sure your PC does not go into sleep mode (see the Power settings).
If all these things fail, try the following which worked for us.
A) Leaving the power switched on, carefully take the side or back off the PC to expose the motherboard and RAM memory chips (seen here as long blue blades) making sure you do not touch any of the internals.

B) Look for a light on the motherboard and for fan activity to make sure there is power reaching the mother board and RAM chips. If we see activity, we can assume the PC is in sleep mode.

C) Remove the power cord and wait until all activity stops

D) Remove one of the RAM memory chips (coloured blue in this example, but often just bare and uncovered). Apply pressure as shown on the white toggle on both sides of the chips and they will ease out. Do not use excessive force.


E) Carefully remove the RAM memory set from the case.
F) Re-apply the power cord and switch on the PC.
G) If the computer has woken up you should start windows or at least show the BIOS screen. If you manage to get into windows goto “control panel” from the start menu and find the “Power” settings

H) Change the power setting and choose “Never” in the sleep options.
This solution worked for us but is not guaranteed to work in every case, so only use this as a LAST option if all else fails. The only side-effect we found was that we had to reset the Date and time.
Please add your comments below and let us know how you went or if you have any other suggestions.
Written by John Kirkby



have used “hard start” before. will that hurt my computer.
Once in a while wont hurt.
Can i put the chip back in after it powers up?
Not advisable. You can get electrocuted or you can fry the memory chips
Thank you. This website has helped me
hi guys
my computer is desk top i use windows xp
i can’t to enter in to login page it starts and then it says window xp and then transfer to option
those are safemode
windows start normally and so on
if i click or hit enter on the windows start normally it is not jump to next page
so please help me with sending video or powerpoint solution for me and re use my computer,
i thanks for your helps
thankyou
You should not still be using Windows XP. Support expired in April 2014, you are at serious risk of viruses and virus infection if you continue to use it on the Internet. Please purchase another PC using Windows 7 or 8 immediately.
what a big help. thanks!
Ive tried all of these and none have worked. At first I thought this was a motherboard issue so I switched it out.
What happened when you replaced the motherboard? Same problem? Did you re-install windows or update the motherboard drivers?
Second choice worked at my notebook.
Thanks ^_^
I had just got windows7 installed the other leaving Vista behind. Not wanting to burn the screen/not remembering how to put a screen saver on yet, placed it in sleep mode. Couldn’t get out, your #3 tip was Bingo, worked like a charm. With tks frm a Canuck.
Hi, i wanna ask sum ques, i m nt able to login my windows7, let me tell u frm start, i logged on frm hibernation , a msg of busy script shown as i was browsing, and system stopped responding, i took out the battery n thn inserted it again, then i on the laptop by pressing the power button , windows started but user name not appearing on welcome screen of windows
plz help me, i m nt able to log on