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Why is 'Communications Port … preventing the machine from entering standby'?

Why is ‘Communications Port … preventing the machine from entering standby’?

The full message is typically “The device driver for the Communications
Port COM1 device is preventing the machine from entering standby”.

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Apparently there’s an interaction with Quicken 2000. This article out on the Dell support forums has more
details.

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9 comments on “Why is 'Communications Port … preventing the machine from entering standby'?”

  1. I also currently run Quicken 2004, but have had earlier versions of Quicken and when I uninststalled, I did not fully uninstall all “shared” software components.

    When I learned how to disable the mrtrate.sys device driver, I was finally able to use the Windows standby feature again!

    The steps for disabling mrtrate.sys can be found near the bottom of this page:

    http://faq.quickensoftware.ca/detail.php?&qbid=QK517&product=311&buid=QK&cat=Windows/System%20Related%20Issues

    Good luck!

    Reply
  2. I have only Quicken 2006. I did not find any reference to Quicken 2000 although I have had earlier editions of Quicken in the past. I did not have this problem with Quicken 2004. This is the message however I do get when I want to go to standby

    Reply
  3. Thank you very much. It worked. I am using Quicken 2000. You know I even tried to look for which driver is associated with which COM port number under Device Manager….I always thought that it could be a hardware like a modem or infrared which gets assigned a COM port and maybe there is a conflict between two devices.

    Reply
  4. i get the message:

    the device driver for the ‘communications port (com1)’ device is preventing the machine form entering standby. please close all applications and try again. if the problem persisists you may need to update this driver.

    i remember using quicken on this computer, but i thought i deleted it. and i can’t find quicken in any of the files on my computer.

    i installed a program called lightsource, which is a series of geometrical graphics/colours/designs.

    then i noticed problems with this computer using windows xp home edition service pack three, version 2002.

    any suggestions to fix this problem? i like the computer to go into standby when i’m not using it for 30 minutes or so.

    thanks,

    jw

    Reply
  5. I had the same problem even after following the instructions for Quicken 2000. I do not use the download function of quicken so as a test I renamed the driver files that quicken uses. These files are called “mrtRate” and found under the subdirectories system32 and system32/drivers. Bingo, fixed the problem.

    Reply

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