Win 2000 with sp2. The problem seems only to occur when I leave the computer running without using it for long periods of time (more than 1 hour). I often come back to find that it has rebooted itself and today, for the first time, I came back and found a blue screen of death. This surprised me because I´d never seen a blue screen with windows 2000, it always seems to just reboot if there is a fatal error (Microsoft giving us the illusion that there are no more fatal errors in win2000). Anyway, since I´m never present when this happens, I´m not sure exactly what happens. It has occurred when I´ve left P2P programs (Edonkey2000, Audio Galaxy) running and when they have been turned off. It has happened with those turned off and other programs running (Photoshop, IE, Netscape, all the normal progs). It has even happened when I have nothing but the sys tray items running which are the following: Tiny Personal Firewall, PC-Illin anti virus, IIS (present in sys tray but paused), and my dsl connection. I see there is a fix at Microsoft http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q311537 for devices that do not handle standby mode well, but I´m not exactly sure this is the problem. What do they mean by device? Is the OS considered a device? Since in the link above, Microsoft kind of insinuates that the fix is buggy and should not be installed if not absolutely necessary, I´m not sure if I should go ahead and install it. The problem is an inconvenience but it doesn´t really affect me when I´m actually at the machine working. I had instability problems earlier when i had Zone Alarm Pro and Messenger installed, but since I got rid of them I rarely have problems when I´m working, only when I leave the machine by itself. Maybe it gets lonely? any ideas? thanks _sic

I've never had any success with that annoying standbye mode. I just disable it and use the "put monitor/harddrive to sleep" settings. This accomplishes the same thing and I've never had a problem with it.

is the standby mode set by default? I´m only assuming that when left alone for long enough the computer automatically kicks into standby mode and thus is it is in this mode that I have problems. I haven´t confirmed this. Can you tell me where to check if I am in standby or sleep? thanks _sic

you can check this in your power options in control panel. Or also where you set your screen saver(Display options) there should be a button than says "power options". You can tell the computer how long to go into standby or hibernation or to never go into either of those modes. Unfortunately there is no escaping the blue screen of death. It's around in all of Microsoft's OS but does occur less frequently with windows 2000 or XP.

I must confirm Curt R's response: I also (run W2K SP2, and) have never been able to get standby mode to function properly (in fact, it never worked for me in 98 either). It's something that MS has never perfected and should be avoided. The "turn off monitor/hard drive" settings in "Power Options" is all that is needed.