I’d been having problems getting my Dell Inspiron 8500 to go into suspend and hibernation modes lately, and attributed it to yet more glitches in Microsoft software. I had been installing and uninstalling various software, and I figured the OS had gotten out of whack, although things were functioning just fine otherwise.

It wasn’t until I decided to unplug my Apple MightyMouse from the USB port that I discovered the problem was with Apple hardware, not Microsoft software… I had to smile… Here I am, an avid Apple fan, and the hardware’s failing me. Granted, I am using it with PC hardware… But it is funny nonetheless, and I wanted to share this in case any of you out there are having the same problem. What I do now is very simple: every time I need to put the laptop into hibernation, I unplug the mouse, and things work just fine.

Updated 5/9/2006: I’ve found out since that just about any external mouse plugged into this thing will cause it to stay awake. Unless the mouse is unplugged, it’ll stay on through the night. Not very good design…