Windows doesn't like waking up anymore

Ok, on the old Windows 7. Lately it's taking a VERY long time to wake up. I've been poking around in the settings and think I've disabled hibernation until after like 12 hours.  But that doesn't seem to matter. I did a hard restart (unplugged from power) and it "resumed windows" and then went on to work normally. Except for waking from sleep. 

This has only been happening for the last week or so. It eventually does wake up, but it takes forever. Like five minutes, instead of about 30 seconds. Ran some diagnostics and it is telling me that the usb keyboard driver is interfering.

Ok, so I did a system restore to several weeks ago. Then saw the system going out and updating the usb driver. The problem persists.  Hmmm. I'm not sure why it was updating the keyboard driver as it had been working fine previously. I wonder if the new driver is the problem?

I tried, earlier on, moving the keyboard to another USB port (don't know why, but why not?). No change.

It can't be due to a Windows update because I haven't done one in quite some time.

Changed the power settings to "sleep" and not hybrid. No apparent change in the wakey up problem.

This is annoying. Have just set the computer disable "selective suspend" to the USB ports. Hope that works. (Waiting to see in a few.)

Not sure what else to try. Help?

I would start by getting the computer caught up on all the updates.  Then I would try a different keyboard , possibly one that uses PS/2 rather than USB.  I'd also make sure that there aren't any funny programs in the windows startup routine , run an anti virus check and anti malware check because you may as well be up to date on those as well. 
Another option would be to check in the device manager what driver is being used for your keyboard and try to alter it there. 

Hi - thanks. Malware scan and Antivirus scans were the first thing I did.  Hmmmm. Looking at the drivers, it looks like Avast has had it's little fingers in there. Will have to see if I can get rid of that.

There are no PS/2 ports on the machine that I can find, so this is the option (USB). I've tried uninstalling and re-installing the keyboard, will see if that helps. The system is now doing a proper sleep, instead of doing a hibernation all the time. So I imagine I'll find out in the morning if it'll come up ok when it has hibernated overnight.

I would also look into the settings that determine if a USB device can wake the computer from sleep.  I think that's most likely a Boot option.  Might make a difference. 

Well, it's been doing it for years, so....

I'll check anyway. I did notice that after I restored the system to a few weeks earlier's checkpoint that avast "updated" my driver (without asking permission) so I suspect that's kinda the problem. I guess I can see if there's a setting in Avast where I can turn that option to "off" and then restore the system back to that point again.

Nan, I am impressed at how PC savvy you seem to be. 

I always liked MalwareBytes to scan for malware when I had PCs. It's free and that may be what you are using. Malware is usually the prime suspect when a PC suddenly starts running slow, although sometimes a fragmented or full disc drive can be a problem.  How much disc space do you have?

Yeah, I have MalwareBytes and Avast, and both say it's clean.  It is only running slow when coming back up out of hibernation. It boots up normally from turned off (it's never been fast) and it's managing ok out of "sleep" - I changed the settings to not allow "hybrid" - just sleep. We'll see how it works in the morning, I guess. It will have hibernated overnight, I think.

I did get that new hard drive - it arrived tonight (!) instead of next week. I did a  system image to it, just to be sure. Unfortunately I did that before I saw your other message about loading windows to it and seeing if that changed anything.

I am still thinking I'm going to see about going back to that early October restore point again, and doing so while not connected to the internet so if Avast is loading a driver from there it won't be able to. Then if when I connect back to the internet and I see it loading one, I'll have a smoking gun.

I also took everything off the machine (all the cords and wires) and opened it up and vacuumed it out - there was some dust in the fans, but overall it was pretty clean. (Considering the amount of dust I vacuum up from the rugs every couple of days, that was surprising!) I'm sure I did not plug all the USB things back in the same USB ports they were in before - in fact, the keyboard is now connected at the front of the machine.  Just in case there was something wonky about that particular USB port.

I would also look into the settings that determine if a USB device can wake the computer from sleep.  I think that's most likely a Boot option.  Might make a difference.

It always has in the past, but I'll double check to see what it's set for. 

Nan, I am impressed at how PC savvy you seem to be. 

I always liked MalwareBytes to scan for malware when I had PCs. It's free and that may be what you are using. Malware is usually the prime suspect when a PC suddenly starts running slow, although sometimes a fragmented or full disc drive can be a problem.  How much disc space do you have?

Plenty of space. Have the system set to defrag once a month, whether I need it or not, in the middle of the night.
I've got 725 gig free of 916, so I don't think space is an issue.

I went into the command prompt to see what devices were set to allow them to wake the system, and both the mouse and the keyboard were there. SO, it's not that....

And I wish I was. (Computer savvy.) Forty years ago I was well-entrenched in a career as a large-scale IBM mainframe systems operator running IBM 360, 370, and, I think, 4331.... Took time off to have a kid and ~bam~ too obsolete to go back. (Plus I couldn't find rotating shifts daycare. And those types of jobs are rare now. Which is too bad, as I'd go back and do one of those again in a heartbeat. I loved that job!) And now I have to get the Daughter to show me how to do things on the computer! (arrrgh!) 

EDIT:  Holy Frijoles Chrome is a memory hog! I've been using the Avast browser, on the Daughter's advice. It's a modified Chrome browser. That, apparently sets up a process for each open tab you've got and then holds it in memory, or some such. The Daughter is really bad about using my PC and leaving like 10 or 12 tabs open when she calls it quits for the night.  Just in case that's part of the problem, I'm going back to Firefox. I guess we'll see how it goes in the morning. 

Good luck Nan, I wish I could point you to the IT silver byte to fix your problem.

It woke up this morning from hibernation but not as well as it should. It did not respond to the keyboard or mouse. Pushing the on/off button changed it from amber to blue, but the system did not come up. Pushing the on/off button for a longer time seems to have shut the machine down, and another push brought it to "starting windows" again. Windows then came up much more quickly than it would if it had been shut down all the way normally. There were no browsers open to hog memory, so...

I dunno! 

It woke up this morning from hibernation but not as well as it should. It did not respond to the keyboard or mouse. Pushing the on/off button changed it from amber to blue, but the system did not come up. Pushing the on/off button for a longer time seems to have shut the machine down, and another push brought it to "starting windows" again. Windows then came up much more quickly than it would if it had been shut down all the way normally. There were no browsers open to hog memory, so...

I dunno! 

heh heh heh.   

I supposedly can have a free antivirus system for a year from Sky broadband (which is what we use). I may remove Avast and then use the Sky one and see if that makes any difference.

~later~

In checking it appears the Sky one is McAfee.  I think I'd prefer Norton, having used it before. In looking on Amazon, it's somewhat bewildering that it's cheaper to get a version for 5 machines than 3 machines. Will stagger along to Black Friday and see if I can get a better deal than I'm finding online now.

Also did a little reading on them all. Was unaware that Avast's been compromised twice this year by intruders. I think I won't mind paying a few pounds a month for something with a better record.  Right now I've also got Protonmail's VPN, which I'm paying for. If I switch to Norton it comes with a VPN included. Hmmmmm....

Admittedly I haven't done a lot of research, but I just use Windows Defender.  It comes with Windows, works seamlessly in the background and doesn't constantly try to extort money.  Made by Microsoft because they have an interest in Windows actually working, rather than Mcafee who are only happy if Windows is broken and you are paying them to fix it.

Defender only removes spyware from Windows 7 machines, unfortunately.

I think I'll watch for sales on Norton. Annoyingly, it's $19 in the USA and £25 in the UK (on Amazon - so $33) right now, and one has to wait for the Norton people to mail an activation code through the post....

We used McAffee in the past (distant past) and I seem to remember getting tech support was almost impossible.