standby not working after reload

So I've had my Inspiron 8500 for close to a year now, and had no problems. I decided to upgrade office and put Maya on here, so I decided to go ahead and reload the machine. Well I've gotten everything back like I like it, all the windows settings, programs loaded, drivers, all the good stuff. So I flip the lid down with about 90% of my battery and I go to my neighbors house for a while and come back, open my laptop and it's off. I turn it on and the battery is dead. So I push the lid button down with my finger to see what's going on, and it says ....going into standby, and it never does anything, just sits there with that message on the screen.

anyone got any ideas? it worked fine before the reload, so dell had something that made it work.

Tim