Question: I have a 4GB RAM 500GB 7200 rpm HDD laptop and when I hibernate the laptop it takes in the region of 3 or 4 minutes(\*) to hibernate. not the 24 seconds it used to take.

It takes this long whether or not my external USB drives are plugged in.

When I got it it was pre-installed with Vista Home Premium, I have since restored the OS from the backup DVD's I created, and also upgraded to Vista Ultimate.

What should I be checking in order to track down the source of this rather sloth-like hibernate process.

I'm looking to tips, techniques and tools please peeps.

Thanks in advance.

I will be back to update / answer this question as I investigate, and also if I find a solution.

(\*) Timed it - it took 4 minutes 38 seconds.
31 seconds after enabling disk write caching

Answer: 
Some advice for speeding hibernation:

1. See if there are any suspicious events in the Event Log.
2. Disable Readyboost and Superfetch (if enabled).
3. Run Windows Update, paying attention to optional driver updates.
4. Check new versions for non-Microsoft drivers and especially for display, bluetooth, USB.
5. Download [TweakVista](http://www.stardock.com/products/tweakvista/) - it may tell you which parts of the system are affecting sleep/hibernation performance
6. Remove the hibernation file by switching the feature off and defrag your primary drive (ensure you have at least 20% disk space free), then re-enable hibernation.
Slow hibernation can be caused by services taking too long to shutdown. Your use case seems to indicate this:

Under regedit, check the following key:

> 
> HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
> 
> 
> 

Open it and locate *WaitToKillServiceTimeout*. You should see a big number in milliseconds. I do not know what is the default Vista sets it at. But you want to reduce this to 5000. That's 5 seconds of waiting before forcefully shutting down a service.