I have seen many posts recently regarding S3 sleep mode for X58 boards on the forum so I decided to make this guide. I made one some time ago on the old forum but cannot find it any more.
 
I am not going to talk about what EVGA X58 board works correct with S3 and which one does not. We can save that for other posts. This is just a guide to help people with setting up and understanding S3 and other sleep modes.
 
This guide is based on Windows 7. If you use XP and did not enable S3 before OS install you might have to reinstall the OS to get the feature working.
 
Various sleep modes are aveliable for your use that will save power and prolong the life of your PC components. The folowing table shows ACPI sleep states that determen how deep your sleep is.
 
S0/Working System is on. The CPU is fully up and running; power conservation is on a per-device basis.
S1 Sleep System appears off. The CPU is stopped; RAM is refreshed; the system is running in a low power mode.
S2 Sleep System appears off. The CPU has no power; RAM is refreshed; the system is in a lower power mode than S1.
S3 Sleep (Standby) System appears off. The CPU has no power; RAM is in slow refresh; the power supply is in a reduced power mode. This mode is also referred to as 'Save To RAM'.
S4 Hibernate System appears off. The hardware is completely off, but system memory has been saved as a temporary file onto the harddisk. This mode is also referred to as 'Save To Disk'.
S5/Off System is off. The hardware is completely off, the operating system has shut down; nothing has been saved. Requires a complete reboot to return to the Working state.
 
We will start with BIOS settings. These are my settings while OC'ed and it works good. First off Power Configuration Menu. HPET is disabled at this time as it crashes my PC after prolonged sleep.
 

 
Than Frequency/Voltage Control menu.
 

 
Memory.
 

 
CPU.
 

 
Voltage.
 

 
Your individual over clock may very and as long as your OC is stable than your S3 sleep mode will/should work.
 
And now for the OS setup. There is couple of things that need to be setup in OS in  order for S3 to work. So lets start.
 
Time out menu/plan settings menu. Decides after what period of inactivity will send your PC into desired sleep mode.
 

 
Next up is Advanced Power Configuration Menu. Settings in pictures are important to S3. There are other setting for battery if you have UPS connected and others such as USB and CPU settings. Two important setting are there. Allow
wake timers and Hybrid sleep. Allow wake timers is usefull if you are using your rig as HTPC and need to have to wake up and record TV show or fold for 4 hours during the night. If not than leave it off so it does not wake up in the middle of the night and wakes you with it if your PC is with you in your room. Hybrid sleep writes hibernation file to your HDD before entering sleep. So if your power fails or resume borks on you than your settings such as open programs  will be restored after power cycle.
 

 
Go into Device Manager and disable wake on LAN setting. Some members here on the forums say that increases their sleep reliabillity. For me it is the same with or without.
 

 
You can change what your sleep and power buttons do.
 

 
 
And now for the final picture we have my uptime stats. 10 days with out restart with only 1 day and 14 hours of run time. Now that is some serious power saving and you are able to resume with what ever you were doing.
 

 
Why is this so important to me. Well the biggiest reason is tha I use my PC as HTPC/Gaming rig. I do not do anything else on it other than those two activities. So my PC wakes up records a TV program and goes back to sleep. Resume again quickly to whatch TV or listen some music or game. Wife resumes it again to watch some K dramas (our Hangul friends will understand this). When you set it up it works great and it saves power with out long wait times.
 
I hope this guide helps some of you for better understanding and setup of S3 sleep.
 
If you need help diagnosing S3 issues please post bellow. 
 
Lot of people are experiencing same issues as I do. Just go to X58 part of the forum and you will see. Also if you visit technet forums you will see it also.
 
Now regarding EVGA's X58 Micro board I can confirm these things.
 
1. X58 Micro + i7 950 + W7 Ultimate = S3 sleep mode working
2. X58 Micro + i7 950 + W7 Ultimate SP1 = S3 Sleep mode working
3. X58 Micro + i7 980x + W7 Ultimate = S3 sleep mode working
4. X58 Micro + i7 980x + W7 Ultimate SP1 = S3 Sleep mode fails while resuming.
 
Above 4 mentioned steps I have tested twice on each processor with same results. Clean installs with only drivers installed for each device. Other forum members report failure with W7 SP1 sleep mode on other processors but this is what I can confirm with what I have. I have other boards with socket 775 CPUs and Intel one with SB CPU and S3 sleep mode is working fine with W7 SP1.
 
General consensus so far across technet forums, MS W7 forums and EVGA forums that this can happen on any platform. Issue is (what they think) that OS issues shutdown command for it self while it tells mother board to go to S3 in some scenarios. Failure is instant upon resume. Some report that disabling hybrid sleep solves the problem for them however it does not for me. We have to wait for MS to fix this.
 
Edit:
 
Fixed with Bios 81.




    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
 

i have had no success with S3, with each trial putting my system into an undefined state where only a power off/reboot would get it out.

so i tried setting my bios EXACTLY the way you have it, and it worked!

now im in the process of changing my bios back to the way i had it, a few changes at a time, to see what was preventing it from going into S3.  at this point the only menu that i havent tested fully yet is the cpu feature;  when i get that done i will post again, but in the meantime, the changes i had to make to mine were:

power management setup menu 
power button = instant off (i had it at 4 second delay)
HPET support - works both on and off, i set it to 64bit

cpu feature menu
speedstep enabled - i had it disabled but dont see what this has to do with S3
CxE function auto (i had it set to the default: not sure what it was set at but it wasnt auto, will check later)
virtualization technology - i had it enabled, but have tested it both ways and it works either way now

who knows if it is stable, but it went into S3 a few times (and came out), which is a few more than before!
thanks for the guide, i will let you know if i find the setting that breaks it again.

mark

S5 is a term for power or software button complete shutdown.

Is that daily/24/7 OC in your signiture? If so have you tried on stock settings?

compddd

It's my daily OC. I have HPET on and set to 64bit. Could that cause it? It only happens after a long prolonged sleep.

That is exactly what happens to me with HPET on. Short term wake up works but long term hangs it. I cannot resume at all. Relaxing your timming a bit will help also.

compddd 
 
I will try disabling HPET, it's what solved your long term resume issues right?

 
Yes. However memory settings play a big role in how S3 works.

DMIINC

compddd 
 
I will try disabling HPET, it's what solved your long term resume issues right?

 
Yes. However memory settings play a big role in how S3 works.

I'm running the kit at spec though? I shouldn't have to loosen my timings for S3 to work if I'm running my memory at spec.

Can SSDs not be used with S3?

moncho

DMIINC,

Althought I don't use S3 because of my SSD's this is certainly a great write up on getting S3 to work.  Definately a great reference to keep & worthy of a BR.

Cheers..

S3 works fine with SSD's. I have been doing it now for 9 months. See my sig.
 

Nice work on the thread Dom.

Thanks guys.

Hail DMIINC, king of sleep!

I have problem too. After I try to awake my PC by pressing any keys or Power button, my Monitor, my Keyboard are not on. My Computer is running but I cannot see anything on the screen unless I turn it off then turn it on again :(

hale88

I have problem too. After I try to awake my PC by pressing any keys or Power button, my Monitor, my Keyboard are not on. My Computer is running but I cannot see anything on the screen unless I turn it off then turn it on again :(

When this hang happens what do you see on LED read out? FF, CF or numbers?
 

is there a way to just disable the s3 sleep issue? i only have my pc on for a few hours at a time, really no need for it to sleep.