This problem began about a week ago. Whenever I shutdown my laptop (Start orb > shut down button in start menu) it goes into sleep mode. (The main power button on the laptop begins blinking.) There are no open programs at shut down. At first I wasn’t sure if it was sleeping or hibernating so I turned hibernation off (elev cmd prompt > powercfg -h -off.) Main power button still blinks at shut down.
I followed the suggestions in this Microsoft article, specifically “How can I prevent my computer from automatically sleeping or hibernating?” Didn’t help. I used System Restore. Didn’t help. I used a System Image from well before the problem started. Didn’t help. I returned my laptop to original factory settings using built in Dell Backup and Recovery Manager. Didn’t help. I completely wiped my hard drive and did a clean install with nothing else added such as Windows Updates, etc. Didn’t help.
This problem occurs if I’m running on battery alone, a/c alone, or battery installed but plugged in to a/c outlet. I’ve run several diagnostic checks such as Memtest86+, built in Dell diagnostics, SeaTools, etc. No hardware, CPU, GPU, etc problems noted. I’ve checked Event logs, nothing stands out.
I feel like this should be a simple solution. What am I missing? TIA.
Dell Vostro 1520, Win 7 Pro 32-bit, CPU: Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T6670 @ 2.20GHz
(Penryn 45nm technology), RAM: 4Gb Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (6-6-6-18), Graphics: 256MB GeForce 9300M GS, HDD: 320Gb Seagate ST9320423ASG (SATA) 7200rpm w/free fall sensor.
