PC won't come out of Standby

Something went serious with my Windows XP system. It is updated with all recent drivers and latest patches from Windows Update. Since past couple of days, the computer is not able to come out of Stand by mode. The only left is too restarting by pressing the restart button on the cabinet. When I press any key when the system is in Standby Mode, I can see the power light starts blinking and Fan spinning but the monitor remains black. Even all connected USB drives remain silent.

I don’t know what to do to get rid of this problem. Somebody please help.

Well i have few confusion with your post.

First of all can you confirm if you are runing service pack 3 because as you said you have all recent Windows Updates installed, it might have installed SP3 as well. Secondly i would like to know whether you have problem with Standby Mode or Hybernate because as yous aid "Power lights starts blinking", power actually goes down in Hibernate not in Standby mode. Is the power light on or off when attempting to come out of standby?

Thanks for your reply JareD. Let me clear the confusions. Yes, i have Service Pack 3 installed on this system. Infact i installed the same recently but the said problem is occurring earlier than that.

As per the second question, i have already disabled Hibernation. Hence there is no chance of pc going into hybernate. SO it is surely the problem with Stand by.

What now? Please help.

Can you just check and let me know what are your settings in control panel---power options---power schemes and advanced tabs? Normally to exit standby, an operator either moves the mouse or depresses a key on the keyboard. Both keyboard and mouse are set to 'Allow this device to bring computer out of standby'. We are talking about a desk top aren't we? The power on key brings it out of hibernation. The power on key (if set) can be used to go into standby.

Wow, I found this thread while searching for an answer to this particular problem, except in regards to windows 7. After reading through the thread I have concluded that this "Unknown" poster is in fact the dumbest son of a b**** on the face of this planet.

Seriously, I work in tech support and I was browsing some forums at work while working with a standby issue with a customer and came across this. *clap*

Literally created an account just for that.