Whenever I leave the PC unattended for a period of time, it goes into suspend mode and eventually shuts down (standby mode). When this happens, more often than not the PC hangs when I attempt to restart and I have no option but to turn off the power switch at the back of the PC. There is usually a message that the PC has failed to find the point at which to restart. If the PC succeeds in restarting, there is a message that the system has recovered from a serious error. Is this a problem that can be fixed by changing the system settings? The computer is running Windows XP.

My initial thoughts are that some program running on your computer could be causing problems when the computer attempts to restore from standby. Close all visible programs running in the background, then press CTRL-ALT-DEL and close all programs running under your username, except ‘explorer.exe’. If the user name column is not visible, go to the ‘View’ menu > ‘Select columns’ and tick ‘User Name’ then click OK. If the problem continues, try disconnecting any unnecessary devices which are connected to your computer (e.g. USB printer, USB external hard drive) before going into standby mode.

There is a Windows patch available to address the problem where Windows is not correctly powering-up when resuming from standby. The patch is available at www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=97a6d0a8-947b-43a9-b415-b551d7c9097a. If this URL seems like a mouthful, go to Google.com and search for ‘Windows XP Patch: Devices May Not Power Up Properly When Resuming From Standby’. The first match should be the download site for the patch. Ensure the site is the genuine Microsoft website (www.microsoft.com) and the patch is for Windows XP. Try downloading and installing this patch to see if the problem is solved. Please let me know how it goes and whether the patch fixes the problem.