Windows 7 Windows7 freezes when idle

graybeard1948 · May 8, 2011

I am experiencing a problem with Windows 7. When the system is not heavily loaded it seems to freeze after 10 minutes to an hour, primarily observed with the Up Time clock in Task Manager stopping. Other symptoms include no response to keyboard or mouse clicks and having the cursor lock to a particular shape such as the window size adjustment shape. The only way I have found to get the system going again is to shutdown and reboot. Usually a hardware reset or forcing shutdown is required to get applications such as Task Manager to stop. When the system is heavily loaded i.e. running Prime95, these symptoms do not seem to occur.
I have been unable to determine conclusively whether the problem is hardware or software. The system(s) are new with the following configuration:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5
CPU: Intel Core i7-960
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900 NT
Memory: Kingston KHX1600C9D3K3/12GX
Video Card: Gigabyte GV-N460OC-768I GeForce GTX 460
Disks: 2 x Western Digital WD5003ABYX SATA 3.0 in RAID 1
& 2 x Western Digital WD5003ABYX SATA 3.0 in RAID 1
Power Supply: Thermaltake TPX-875M 875W
Optical: Pioneer DVR-219BK
O/S: Windows 7 64bit Professional

I have performed multiple clean installations of Windows 7 Pro from two different Microsoft DVDs (purchased from Newegg), used two different sets of hardware (including CPUs, memory, video cards, Power supplies, disks, etc.) changed from Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 motherboards to GA-X58A-UD5 motherboards, run memory tests for ten hours or more, run in Safe mode, run with absolutely no additional software other that the virgin operating system. Tested multiple BIOS settings, including optimized defaults, with changes only to allow RAID disks. Power Options are set to High Performance with turn off monitor ‘never’ and sleep ‘never’. The problem persists.

I have contacted Gigabyte and Kingston tech support. While they have made suggestions (Which I have tried.) nothing seems to help isolate the problem. Any assistance or suggestions will be gratefully appreciated.

graybeard1948 · May 11, 2011

Reply to kaos and Saltgrass:
The video driver is version 270.61 downloaded from NVIDIA and running on other systems I am using, I doubt that is a culprit. Because I have at least achieved a workable system with the changes I made listed above:

After reading your message I delved a little deeper into the Power Plan settings. The settings already had “Turn off the display:” set to never, and “Put the computer to sleep:” set to never. Looking through the advanced settings, I modified the “Turnoff hard disk after Setting:” to never from 20 minutes. I changed the “Allow hybrid sleep Setting:” to Off, I changed the “USB selective suspend Setting:” to Disabled, and I changed the “Sleep button action Setting:” to Do nothing. I...

graybeard1948 · May 23, 2011

I suspect that something different is going on since I really never got a BSOD when I tried to wake up the system. I could do directory listings via the command line even though the system was otherwise partially frozen. The knowledge base article was interesting, but I am not convinced enough about the similarities to apply the referenced patch without some input from someone that knows the internals of Win 7 at a much deeper level than I.

Saltgrass · May 23, 2011

I can't really think of anything more, but I do go back to the original supposition, that it freezed when idle. Windows 7 does a lot of things for housekeeping purposes during idle times. I don't know all of them, but defragging, drive checking, Self-healing, and other such tasks might be causing some violation in your system.

If you felt like trying, Process Monitor might help if you could let it run for the period during the freezes. Maybe it would be able to catch the situation before the freeze. You can download it from SysInternals. Set up a backing file on the hard drive so it won't try to use your memory.

Beyond that, I thought I would let you know about my new RAID system (2x640G WD Black) that seems to give an error message whenever I let it go to sleep. Messages like this would make me think the system could be corrupted if it happened often enough. My problem is more than likely an older motherboard, but I might try to track it down anyway. I don't suppose you have seen anything like this in your event viewer?

The platform firmware has corrupted memory across the previous system power transition. Please check for updated firmware for your system.

It does not do this when I put it to sleep.

Windows 7 Windows7 freezes when idle

graybeard1948

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