Windows 7 Desktop freezes when idle

[RockyFord]

I am running win7rc 64 on a home build, asus m2a-vm mb, ati hd4670, 4 gig OCZ ram. All drivers are current win 7 or latest Vista64 drivers. Away device is disabled.

Symptoms: when my computer is in use it performs as advertised, no problems with booting lockups or anything.
after my machine sits idle for approx. 20 minutes the desktop stops responding to mouse and keyboard inputs, the monitor will turn back on. Sometimes the desktop will recover functionality in 3 to 5 minutes and sometimesit does not recover at all.
The power options are set to turn off monitor at 20 mins, sleep: never, Hibernate: never.
I have looked in all the usual places on the internet for suggestions and came up blank.

P.S. I have checked and adjust the usb and lan settings for wake settings. I have turned off all the bios settings I can related to APM and AMD Live and Cool n Quiet and the C1E setting.

I'm at a total wall Please help.

 

[reghakr]

So there are no yellow flags under Control Panel > Device Manager?

Try this command-line diagnostic utility for problems with power problems.

Go to Start > Run, type cmd, then type powercfg -energy.

This will output an HTML file and look over this file for problems problems

 

[RockyFord]

no go so far

No device manager flags.
Energy report and belarc attached

 

[reghakr]

From the energy report.....

Platform Power Management Capabilities:System firmware (BIOS) does not support S3.
The hardware in this computer does not support the S3 sleep state.

I'm really not sure what S3 mode is.

Try setting your machine in Control Panel > Power Management and change the put my computer to sleep after 25 minutes.

 

[moh.sakhaii]

From the energy report.....

Platform Power Management Capabilities:System firmware (BIOS) does not support S3.
The hardware in this computer does not support the S3 sleep state.

I'm really not sure what S3 mode is.

Try setting your machine in Control Panel > Power Management and change the put my computer to sleep after 25 minutes.

S3 is a power suspend method. It can be set in the BIOS. Maybe it is now set to S1. Nevertheless I have my own issues with windows 7 and resuming from sleep mode I have a thread open for it right here :
http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-support/6101-drivers-might-not-work-resume-sleep-win7-rc.html
Microsoft should really sort this power mess out

 

[RockyFord]

S3 is the default sleep setting for windows, I have it disabled in the bios.
Attempting troubleshooting 101: disable everything till it works then add back.
Unfortunately the problem will not resolve under any conditions.
Currently there are absolutely no sleep or hibernate options turned on and everything in the bios I can turn off has been turned off. I'm wondering if it might not be the way windows 7 interacts with the and 690 chipset I have or one of my device drivers.

I have the next 3 days off so I'll try some troubleshooting.

 

[tsunami2311]

Yes I have noticed this too If I let Win 7 x64 Idle for to long and then come back this happens, My mouse will work, but If i double click icon or try to unhide the Taskbar the computer will sit there, Some times it will comeback work right other times it will just lock up and force me to restart,

I have All THe power save options Disable in windows short of just letting Windows put Monitor in power save mode, and it still does it,

DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Asus P5Q Pro (P45)
OCZ XTC Vista Upgrade Edition OCZ2VU8002G 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM x2
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (512 MB) 185.85

 

[RockyFord]

it seems that my machine was fixed by a full clean reinstall of windows 7. Everything seems to work now.

 

[blizz26]

I figure out whats going on and it is an easy fix. The reason this is doing this is because you need to go and change your power plan. Go to >control panel>power options>select power plan>change plan setting>(I have created >My Custom Plan)>Change Plan settings>Change everything to> never>Change advance power setting>go to each setting and change them to never>hit apply>OK.>Problem solved should be solved. I will post this in the right catagory. I just see alot of people reading this first so I figured to relieve frustration from searching. Heres the fix to the problem. I just joined this site to help fix this problem seeing this is a comon problem with no immediate fix so here it is.....blizz26 (10 yearTechnet Beta Tester)

 

[enriquein]

I'm also experiencing these issues on 64-bit build 7100.

I figure out whats going on and it is an easy fix. The reason this is doing this is because you need to go and change your power plan. Go to >control panel>power options>select power plan>change plan setting>(I have created >My Custom Plan)>Change Plan settings>Change everything to> never>Change advance power setting>go to each setting and change them to never>hit apply>OK.>Problem solved should be solved. I will post this in the right catagory. I just see alot of people reading this first so I figured to relieve frustration from searching. Heres the fix to the problem. I just joined this site to help fix this problem seeing this is a comon problem with no immediate fix so here it is.....blizz26 (10 yearTechnet Beta Tester)

Tried this already. As a matter of fact, it's the first thing I tried back when this all started a week or so after installing RC (a month or so ago). The only thing I've been able to determine is that it happens after I leave the computer unattended for exactly 2 hours. Sometimes the clock is visible and it's easy to spot that the time being displayed is exactly 2 hours after I went to bed.

System specs (hopefully we'll have something in common):
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
AMD Athlon 4050e (Dual Core, 64-bit)
ATI Radeon HD3200 (built-in to the mobo, but potentially could be the culprit)
6GB DDR800 RAM
CPU Frequency scaling is on.
Test Mode is on (otherwise PG2 can't run).

Edit: I managed to find a screenshot I took a couple of weeks ago. The window shown here has been edited out as to not look like a troll looking for free advertisement. Also the important part is the taskbar as it's the most noticeable thing (blanks out and icons that should be on the right side edge appear next to the start menu button).

Link Removed - Invalid URL

 

[blizz26]

I'm also experiencing these issues on 64-bit build 7100.



Tried this already. As a matter of fact, it's the first thing I tried back when this all started a week or so after installing RC (a month or so ago). The only thing I've been able to determine is that it happens after I leave the computer unattended for exactly 2 hours. Sometimes the clock is visible and it's easy to spot that the time being displayed is exactly 2 hours after I went to bed.

System specs (hopefully we'll have something in common):
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
AMD Athlon 4050e (Dual Core, 64-bit)
ATI Radeon HD3200 (built-in to the mobo, but potentially could be the culprit)
6GB DDR800 RAM
CPU Frequency scaling is on.
Test Mode is on (otherwise PG2 can't run).

Edit: I managed to find a screenshot I took a couple of weeks ago. The window shown here has been edited out as to not look like a troll looking for free advertisement. Also the important part is the taskbar as it's the most noticeable thing (blanks out and icons that should be on the right side edge appear next to the start menu button).

Link Removed - Invalid URL

Wow, I havent seen that before. Can you control alt delete to get to your Task Manager? This was the only thing I could do and as long as the Task Manager was open on the desktop it wouldnt freeze but as soon as I closed it it would freeze up again. Check and see if your sound schemes disappeared. This happened on my girlfriends Pc. I beta tested every version of 7 and never had this problem until the RTM. I have a Technet plus account and I am not using any patches for activation. I did have a bad drive in my raid array. I am using a single drive now but I dont believe this is the problem. The only hardware I see that is some what the same as your is 800 mhz memory. I have mine set at 800mhz. Im using Ballistics Tracer pc 8500.

Asus L1N64 Sli WS/B Socket 1207 Rev 2 Motherboard
Matching AMD 2218 Operons 2600mhz Cpu's water cooled
Nvidia 8800 Ultra's in Sli Water cooled
Blastix Tracer PC8500. 4 Gigs-1066mhz DDR2 Memory Water cooled
Two Seagate 320 gig Sata II Drives in Raid 0,
Samgung SyncMaster 216BW 21.5 Monitor
Asus DVDRW Burners
1000W Tuniq PSU
Titan Water Case w/Swiftek Apogee GTX Waterblocks. 1/2"
Windows Seven Ultimate X64(Legit)

 

[enriquein]

My workaround

So I just remembered that I had written an app some time ago to avoid my dev machines at work from going idle and locking me out every 5 minutes or so. What the app does is it sends a keypress (shift key) every X amount of minutes and thus avoids the computer from going idle.

Here's what I did. I found out that my Win7 machine locks up after exactly 2 hours. I've been trying for two nights in a row to leave my app running and sending a signal each 118 minutes. My computer hasn't locked up since. Of course, this means that the monitor gets turned on every 118 minutes. For me, it's a small price to pay in order to keep my desktop in check (and responsive).

If you're interested in trying this workaround, you can go to Link Removed - Invalid URL and download the app.

It's free, malware free, virus free, and best of all, it works.

 

[Symtrips]

Non-third party solution

Without wanting to have to rely on any third party anti-idle software, and trying everything else in the power settings, I decided I would try one last thing. Not surprisingly it worked, the issue seems to be in the idle>monitor shut off. Since everyone has theirs set to different times I assume time before turn off is unimportant. However, if you set the option to never, it should fix the issue. Turn off your monitor manually when you get up.

My theory is that Windows 7 shuts off the video card, and by proxy the PCI-E bus, or puts it into some sort of suspend state. At which point it's unable to resume normal functions. Not really sure what's going on, all I know is a couple days ago I set the monitor turn off to never, and haven't had a problem letting the computer idle for hours.

Hope this helps, and hope someone at MS can figure out an actual fix.

 

[Jrob]

I recently upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium. I experienced the same thing with my computer freezing after it sits idle after about five minutes. My fix was to simply turn set my computer to go into hibernation mode after 5 minutes. Next, I set my monitor to turn off "never". Just remember to manually turn off your monitor before you walk away from your computer. I don't know much about the technical aspects off computers but this resloved my issue with freezing. I currently running the following:

Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz
8.00 GB Ram
64-bit OS
Acer H233H 24" Monitor

 

[remilton]

I am experiencing the same problem. Wish I could say exactly when I first noticed it, but at least for several weeks. Hope MS fixes this soon as I don't want to set monitor to turn off "never".

Intel Q6600 @ 3.15GHZ
4 GB Ram
64 Bit Win7
5 SATA HD
2 DVDRW
ViewSonic A90f+ Monitor

 

[jbibbali]

I've been having this same problem on my Sony VGN-NS305D laptop.

I bought it with Vista Business installed. It worked fine for 2 months. I don't know what happened, perhaps Spybot installed? I don't know. I use a Logitech usb mouse and calculator. It doesn't matter if they're plugged in or not. I've set all the display and power options to never. No screen saver. Oh, and I've installed Win7 pro as the upgrade that came with my purchase and I still have the problem. The only way I've gotten the computer not to freeze after about 30-40 minutes is to run it in SAFE MODE. This tells me it's perhaps a non-windows driver issue. I thought this might help considering some people think it's the OS (XP, Vista, Win7).

 

[Grae]

Came across this thread while trying to fix a similar problem on a Toshiba laptop for a client.

Machine booted fine in safe mode but was sluggish then froze in normal mode.

Removed viruses etc but no luck.

Personally not a fan of fresh installing, would prefer to solve the problem. Started uninstalling her junk programs (P2P clients etc) and noticed a Trend Micro Systems expired installation, she was currently running AVG 2011.

Removed Trend MS and the machine booted into normal mode and test for about 3 hrs idling / updating etc and no crashes.

Hope this helps.

 

[Darren Chapman]

Thanks heaps for the help guys.
My Windows 7 laptop (Dell XPS M1530) has been doing this for the last week and driving me NUTS!
I tried the power management fix and it seems to have worked when I put the settings to 'never'.
Thanks again,
Darren

 

[Darren Chapman]

Thanks heaps for the help guys.
My Windows 7 laptop (Dell XPS M1530) has been doing this for the last week and driving me NUTS!
I tried the power management fix and it seems to have worked when I put the settings to 'never'.
Thanks again,
Darren

 

[Minayowitz]

Hello, guys, just a brief post to give some ideas as to the cause of this annoying problem. I've got a HP laptop which came preinstalled with windows 7 64. Never experienced the problem until I wipe out the OS to install a new SSD disk. It may be that the SSD disk itself is the source of but I also suspect some Windows updates. My desktop that it is also running windows 7 has also experienced similar symptons (BSO and lockups) when resuming from sleep mode again as a result of installing another sandforce based SSD. But again could it be just some windows 7 patches going bad. I definitely think it's a problem with the operating system and that the update hypothesis is a strong suspect.

I hope this help.