I have a Sony Vaio S2VP laptop, unmodified except for an additional
1GB of RAM (total 2GB) and a USB Logitech mouse. I am running Windows
XP with SP2, and "Windows Update" shows no relevant updates available.
I have a wide variety of 3rd party applications installed.

I am sometimes (approx. 50% of the time) unable to enter Standby mode.
I reach the "Please wait... preparing to standby" message but then the
PC hangs; the only possible step from here is to switch off the PC.
The other 50% of the time, the laptop enters suspend mode without any
problem, in 1-3 seconds.

I am looking for a solution which will allow me to determine which
application, driver, etc. is causing the problem (e.g. by examining
logfiles) and then fixing that (update, reinstall, remove, etc).
Please don't reply with answers such as "reinstall Windows",
"reinstall drivers", or "remove all installed 3rd party applications
until the problem is fixed" as I already know how to do this, but will
only do it as a last resort. Such answers will not be accepted.
Additionally, I am unable to give information about which applications
I do have installed, or give out certain other information regarding
my laptop's setup (e.g. to post snippets of logfiles). Please do not
request this. However, if any applications are known to cause problems
with suspend mode, please feel free to give details.

Note that Hibernation mode is also not available since upgrading to
2GB, due to a bug that is recognised by Microsoft but that which they
are unwilling or unable to fix.

Having a wide variety of 3rd party applications could be your problem
no doubt, just because you might not use over half of them. As for
"log" files, you should check the "Event Viewer" to check to see what
could be conflicting with your system.

To get to this point:
>> right click "My Computer" go down and click "Manage"
>> next go to the left pane and expand the "System Tools" (if needed)
>> next click on "Event Viewer" (expand it)
>> More thank likely it will be in "Application" or "System" that will
tell you what is wrong.

Another option that might help is making your paging file bigger, even
though you do have quite a great amount of RAM installed, so I'm not
really sure that this would fix your problem.  If you would like to
experiment with this though, here are the steps to make changes to
your Paging File. One note: your system defaults your paging file at
1.5 times the ammount of RAM currently installed on your system.

>> Right click "My Computer" and go down and click "Properties"
>> Click the "Advanced" tab
>> In the "Performance" area, click the "settings" button
>> Click the "advanced" tab
>> At the bottom in the "Virtual Memory" section, click "Change"
>> Select the biggest drive on your system (if applicable) and enter a
bigger number, such as something about 3 times the ammount of RAM
installed on your computer (make sure you have enough disk space), you
will select the drive first and then in the "Custom Size" options, put
the initial size (MB) in the text box and the MAX size, in which it
will not exceed this amount of space. you must click the "Set" button,
or your options will not be saved.
>> make sure that if you have selected a different drive that you
select the old drive that still has the old paging file and delete the
paging file for that drive.  to do this just select the old drive and
click the radio option button called "No Paging File". and then again,
click "Set" to make sure the changes are applied.
>> click ok until you are done.

Hope this helps, or at least gives insight in what you could possibly
accomplish.  Good luck.

Hi ddecker - many thanks for your comment, I've just increased the
size of the paging file (to 4GB) and once I've rebooted I'll give it a
try; and if it happens again I'll look in the event viewer.

Cheers

Let me know how it works out for you please. if you need any more
information, let me know also.

The paging file is now 4GB (after a reboot); but the problem still occurs :(

I did see the following in the Event Viewer when the problem last occured though:

--
Timeout (30000 milliseconds) waiting for a transaction response from
the Dnscache service.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
--

That might be promising. A Google search showed up a potential problem
with "Spybot - Search & Destroy", but I'm not running this. I
regularly use Checkpoint SecuRemote to check email and, when connected
to this site, my DNS resolution is through this VPN. That might be
relevant?

yes, the DNS through the VPN is probably it.  if you are getting this
error, then it has something to do with the DNS problems, and your dns
runs through your VPN, its something from that. gotta love the good ol
event viewer.