system hangs when suspending or hibernating

[Umberger]

just what the title says. when i tell the computer to hibernate or suspend, it goes to the windows screen saying "preparing to stand by" or "preparing to hibernate" and stays there forever.

i know there are acpi settings in the BIOS, but i dont want to change any of them without knowing what they do.

does this sound like a BIOS issue or a windows issue?

LMK if you need any more information.
thanks for any words of wisdom!!!

BIOS settings now are:
ACPI suspend type: S1&S3
ACPI APIC Support: Enabled

 

[Looney]

Any chance you have Norton Ghost installed on your system? I had a similar problem when i had Norton Ghost, and it went away when i uninstalled it.

 

[Pirotech]

Do you have any desktop themes installed? If you disable any themes does the standby function work? What version of video driver are you currently using?
Do you have a screen saver enabled? Does the problem go away if the screen saver is disabled?

There are also a lot of Standby and Hibernate issues on this page:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_standby.htm

Look through this link, maybe you'll find your case here.