Laptop won't come out of sleep mode while RDC connection is active

Hello,

I have a bizarre problem that I've never seen before and wanted to post here to see if anyone has any resolutions. My current setup is as follows:

I am running and HP XW440 Tower workstation (WinXP) connected to dual monitors. I also have an HP6710b Laptop (WinXP) that I run headless. When I first login the morning, I physically login in to both machines. I then connect to my laptop via and RDC connection from my tower. I drag the RDC window to the left monitor (of the dual setup) and run my tower on the right monitor.

Everything works great, except for when I close the RDC connection from the tower. It exits fine, but when I open the lid of my laptop (or undock it and open it), it is completely black. I can move around on the touchpad and press all the keyboard keys, but nothing brings the laptop out of this "sleep mode". I've disabled hibernation and all the standby settings. I ran the laptop headless all day yesterday without connecting the RDC connection and it never went into this bizarre sleep mode.

Does anyone have any ideas why my RDC connections seems to freeze my laptop? The only resolution I have for when it locks up is to pull the battery pack or hold the power button down until it shuts down. I can then reboot it and it works fine (until I connect RDC again).

Any help or suggestions you have is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jamie

 

It might have something to do with the screen resolutions. If you initiate a remote login and the resolutions are mismatched (higher on the client than the server is capable of) and later you physically go to the server it'll be black and stay black because it can't display at that resolution.

However if you first sign into the server and load at its native resolution it should work fine going back and forth between physical and RDC. Your's apparently is not so I would suspect the server is losing its "resolution identity" somewhere along the way.

That's my best guess anyway. You can try playing with the RDC resolutions and see if that helps, update graphics drivers and control software. If you window the RDC differently on the second monitor or switch the tower display to the second monitor instead of the RDC window it may have an effect.

good luck.