Gadgets & Technology
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Computer spontaneously going to sleep at random times
I have a Dell Inspiron that has suddenly started going to sleep at random times while I am actively using it. It is irregular and does not seem to be at even time periods. I checked my sleep mode settings and found nothing unusual there.
Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? I'm hoping this involves a simple solution. 
In case it's relevant, the laptop is about 20 months old.
Re: Computer spontaneously going to sleep at random times
Doubtful, since OP has already said she checked this.
Sounds more like a circuitry, heating issue. Does it happen both when the laptop is plugged into an outlet and when running off battery? What about plugged into an outlet with the battery removed?
Does the cooling fan appear to be running? Noisily?
I have a Mac, but maybe yours doing something similar.
When my mouse gets moved to the upper left corner of the screen, it makes it go in to sleep mode. So I'll be typing and hit the track pad and move it without even noticing until it goes to sleep. Maybe yours has a similar function? There's a way to turn it off on my computer.
HTH!
Last updated 4/06/11
Good thoughts, all. I initially thought that overheating might be an issue, but I just booted up my laptop after it was shut down for quite a while and it went to sleep shortly thereafter. The fan was not running at all, at least not that I could detect.
I have moved my mouse around and not found any position that puts it to sleep.
I've changed my sleep settings just to see if that makes a difference. I'm not sure what would have changed them to begin with, but computers can be incredibly wonky so perhaps simply making a change of any sort will make a difference. We shall see...
Thanks again for the ideas.
My work desktop computer does this and I still haven't figured out what the deal is. Some days it'll do it 5+ times, some days it doesn't do it at all.
Sometimes it happens if I touch my desk or something attached to the computer and get a shock but most of the time it doesn't. I have turned off all power save features except for the screen saver (which doesn't go on for 45 minutes) and it still happens.
Some sources online say improperly grounded motherboard, some say it's bad hardware (like the video card or the monitor, which kind of is on the fritz right now)... Really it could be anything but when DH tries to fix it he can never ever replicate the issue.
I've also tried to pull the error logs and nothing shows up that could be the cause.
If you ever figure it out please let me know! lol
If it is still under warranty, go to support.dell.com and they have a free tech support chat there.