Before I begin with my problem, I'd like to add a little background info (it may help someone out). I recently downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP, because let's face it... Windows Vista is a let down. :)
And a little tip for those thinking of doing the same, really think about what you're doing and if it's worth it, because you'll have to re-install driver's and you'll run into many problem's that are caused from formatting your disk. In retrospect, I should have ran Vista side by side with XP before completely removing Vista. Believe me, it's a pain in the butt to get XP running like it should.
Anyway, the problem is (and I'm guessing this is caused by downgrading, because it never did this until after I installed XP)... The problem is that my laptop does not hibernate, period. When I close the lid, the power stays on. When I go to my start menu, the hibernate button is there, but it's grayed out so that I cannot press it. When I press the power button on my laptop it either shuts down completely or doesn't do anything at all (I can't remember which, but I did try it).
Do I need a driver to make it hibernate or something? I downloaded and installed all the XP compatible driver's from Acer's website. I looked through and it doesn't look like I'm missing any. Oh, and I have an Acer Aspire 5050 (incase anyone needs that info) and it's not a very well supported laptop.
So, anyone want to take a stab at solving my problem? I've seen some smart people on this forum (which is the reason I registered here).
The Problem: After performing a clean install of Windows XP, the hibernation/standby button's do not show up after clicking "turn off computer" from the start menu. Also, the "hibernation" tab does not show up in the battery options menu.
The Solution: The problem is either your graphic's or video driver's. If you failed to install your driver's after installing XP, make sure you do that before reading any further. If you still have a problem, then read on.
Some video driver's only support VGA. VGA does not support the built in standby/hibernation feature's in Window's XP. You'll want an ATI driver (that is saying that your graphic's and video card's support ATI). So, you'll want to get the latest "ATI Catalyst" driver's. Here's the link, http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
Final note: As soon as I began installing these driver's, I realized that the "ATI" system tray icon used to be on my laptop while it was running Window's Vista. However, I never really payed attention to it and I knew something was missing after I downloaded all the required driver's off of Acer's website.
You also often need to enable Hibernation in the control panel on some new installs. Thanks for the heads up though, I wouldn't even know you couldn't hibernate without a graphics driver installed.
