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I've got a Lenovo ThinkPad X220. Occasionally, when returning from sleep, the power management functions will cease to operate. I can't change the brightness of the display, the machine gets physically warm, and the battery life goes through the floor.

Restarting the machine (instead of from sleep) makes the problem go away.

Why might this be?

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The service might have issue with you going into standby. – soandos Sep 12 '11 at 17:23
@soandos: What service? – Billy ONeal Sep 12 '11 at 17:38
The one that is running in the background for power manager to work. in services.msc, look for services that have that kind of description, and are supposed to run at startup, but are now not running (if it crashed) – soandos Sep 12 '11 at 17:40
@soandos: Erm, a service that comes with Windows would be having issues going to sleep? Seems unlikely to me.. – Billy ONeal Sep 12 '11 at 17:41
You are talking about the lenovo power manager, or the windows one? – soandos Sep 12 '11 at 17:43
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Levono support has updated BIOS and power management drivers/software dated the beginning of November. If you haven't updated these, you may want to try them.

In the Levono support community, I did see some posts about erratic battery status and some other power issues, but not related to sleep. In my experience, some equipment/OS combinations just don't wakeup in a friendly mood.

It sounds like Windows 7 has some issues with Power Management, so you may find these helpful if you haven't already tried them. Hope this helps.

Charlie

How to troubleshoot power plans in Windows 7

Power Plans Frequently Asked Questions

Configure a Power Plan Item (Windows Vista and later)

Power Policy Settings

Troubleshoot Power Problems

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Hmm.. interesting. Will install the update and see if it happens again. – Billy ONeal Nov 15 '11 at 22:30
Knock on hypothetical wood -- hasn't happened since then. We'll see. – Billy ONeal Nov 17 '11 at 1:38
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Not positive it's fixed, but since installing the update the problem has evaporated. (Of course, with my luck, it'll happen tomorrow :P) Have a green bent thing and some points :P – Billy ONeal Nov 21 '11 at 21:34
Sounds good. Thanks for the green bent thing and the points. – CharlieRB Nov 22 '11 at 16:41
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Waking from hibernation in Windows 7 apparently does not work too well when on battery. It would be interesting to know if this is your case.

First, I would suggest to ensure that your computer is fully patched, including any optional updates that may relate to hardware.

Secondly, Windows 7 has a utility to analyze power-configuration problems. See the article below on how to use the utility, and add the problems it finds to your post (or even better just upload the entire report somewhere and add the link to your post):
Evaluate System Energy Usage and Get Power Management Report with PowerCfg -Energy Switch in Windows 7.

Thirdly, you could also try to Turn Off Hybrid Sleep in Windows 7, which is sometimes problematic.

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Hibernate is not the problem. Standby is. – Billy ONeal Nov 16 '11 at 18:40
Most of my answer relates to all power-related problems. – harrymc Nov 16 '11 at 19:28
I'm not having a power related problem. I have another issue that appears when coming out of standby. I can go into and come out of standby just fine; just something doesn't get reset correctly when that happens occasionally. – Billy ONeal Nov 17 '11 at 1:37
Standby is a power-related state, so it would help to have the "PowerCfg -Energy" report. I also suggest fully patching your computer with the optional Windows updates, as well as checking driver updates on manufacturer websites for devices that may be affected (such as video card). Check also Lenovo Support for BIOS and Chipset driver updates for your model (be very careful with BIOS updates). – harrymc Nov 17 '11 at 7:49
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