how do I stop my laptop from constantly hibernating?

[bodiddly]

I know this is something really basic but can't find how to lengthen the time of inactivity before my laptop hibernates .. has anyone any idea? Thanks!

If it's running Windows XP, go to the Control Panel and choose Power Options. You should see something saying "Power Schemes", and then two lists of settings - one for when the laptop's plugged in, and one for when it's running on batteries (because you'll likely want it to shut itself down sooner when on batteries). The bottom option of these lists should be "System hibernates". Change the time to something more reasonable and that should do the trick.

If you're running Windows Visa, I dunno. If it's Linux, let me know and I'll post instructions for that, too.

thank you thank you thank you ... I will wait and see whether I have done it correctly .. it was saying that it was going to standby rather than hibernation.

You can change any of those settings. I set mine so that when it's plugged in, it goes to standby after an hour and hibernates after two. When it's on batteries, mine goes to standby after 30min and hibernates after an hour.

When it's in standby, it's very quick to get it to come back to life but its still using a bit of power (which is an issue when on batteries). When it's in hibernation, it takes longer to go to sleep and come back to life but it's using no power when hibernating.

my laptop is an old vaio .. about 3.5 years old so the batteries are totally useless anyway!