Knowledge Base

The System Cannot Go to Standby Mode Because the...

Article ID: 197477

Article Last Modified on 2/19/2007

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition

This article was previously published under Q197477

SYMPTOMS

When you attempt to put your computer into Hibernate or Standby mode, you may receive the following error message:

The system cannot go to standby mode because the driver <drive>\<device driver name> failed the request to standby.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur for either of the following reasons:

This behavior can occur if the driver for the device is not Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) compliant.
The device driver does not support a sleep level sufficient for hibernation. This can be caused by a number of factors, including out-of-date device drivers or the presence of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 device drivers in Windows 2000.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this behavior, use the appropriate method:

If your device is not ACPI compliant, contact your hardware manufacturer to inquire about the availability of a fix for this issue.
Verify that you are using a device driver written for Windows 2000.
Verify the device supports hibernation and that you are using the latest device driver.

MORE INFORMATION

Hibernation is a special form of sleep in which the entire system context is paged to a reserved area on the hard disk and is restored when a wakeup event occurs. Not all Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) computers support Hibernate mode. On ACPI computers that support hibernation, the following steps occur before the computer hibernates:

The ACPI driver checks each device to determine the lowest sleep state supported by that device.
The ACPI driver determines each device's lowest sleep state that responds to a wake event. If a wake level is unsupported by a device, the ACPI driver expects the device to send an "undefined" response for that state.

If not every device supports hibernation, the computer cannot go into Hibernate mode. Device drivers that are poorly written or devices that do not properly respond to ACPI queries may still attempt to hibernate. When a device does not respond to ACPI's mode transition request, the error message described earlier occurs.

For additional information about ACPI, please click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

216573 How Windows 2000 Determines ACPI Compatibility

Additional query words: Sleep legacy winapm

Keywords: kberrmsg kbprb KB197477