Desktop "Freezes" After Being idle.

Happening on 2 machines pretty much at same time. One is Asus Notebook with a Mobile Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of ram, other is Desktop Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of ram. Notebook has nvidia 8600 mobile, desktop has 2 ATi Radeon X1900s.

After the computers sit idle for a while, I will come back and the desktop will be unresponsive except the mouse will still move. I cant click on any icons and the task bar wont move. I found that I could unfreeze it by hitting ctrl-alt-del and bringing up the task manager, that seemed to bring things back to normal. The displays did turn off after 10min, which I've changed to never now, and the computers never go to sleep.

We have about the same setup and problem.

My wife has an HP laptop running Windows 7 RC1. It is a Intel chipset, nVidia Go 7600, Conextant Audio, 2GB memory and a Core 2 Duo T5600. It is connect by the onboard Intel Wireless Adapter. It freezes when you leave the keybord for a while. Not sure how long..

I have a home built PC with an AMD Athlon X2, ATI Graphics Adapter, Realtek Audio, 4GB memory and Highpoint rr3120 raid card. It's connection to the router is a cable via the onboard Realtek Ethernet Controller. It too freezes when left idle.

As you can see from my hardware there is nothing in common between the two so it is not hardware drivers from a vendor.

Common software/utilities/applications:

Windows 7 x64 RC1 from Microsoft Site
Trend Micro Internet Security Beta III for Windows 7
Firefox 3.5 (also froze with previous version)
Thunderbird 2.0
Curse Client

I suspect a Windows 7 bug or the Virus Software is the problem. I think Firefox is always open when it freezes and my usual fist indication of a freeze is typing in the search pane does not echo the characters until it starts responding again. I don't think it's Firefox because I can't open the Windows Start Menu, change windows focus. All I can do is is the mouse cursor move and even that freezes after a while.

The freeze is an inconvenience but I still prefer Windows 7 over Vista

Hello and welcome,

I don't mean to brush you off, but there are already threads directly related to this subject.

Please click on the thread links a t the bottom of this page,

Hopefully, there is a resolution in one of them.

Sorry for bumping this, but I have the same problem (seems like its started after a BSOD) and I have looked at the other threads, no solutions in them short of reinstalling windows completely. Now, its not a major problem really, but it is a huge annoyance and I am not sure what this sorta bug does to the whole stability of the OS so I'd like it resolved.

I am willing to reinstall windows, though obviously if possible I'd rather avoid doing that. More important, I would love to know what is causing this, specially if it happens again in the future. Does anyone know what is going on? I have poured over the event logs of two machines (the one with the bug and one that is working, they have the exact same hardware) the only thing that seems to be happening is that on the affected machine there is a Special Logon Audit log whenever the computer is set back from idle. To me it seems some sort of problem with security settings, though both machines have the exact same admin security policies.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any luck?

Originally Posted by quaren

Sorry for bumping this, but I have the same problem (seems like its started after a BSOD) and I have looked at the other threads, no solutions in them short of reinstalling windows completely. Now, its not a major problem really, but it is a huge annoyance and I am not sure what this sorta bug does to the whole stability of the OS so I'd like it resolved.

I am willing to reinstall windows, though obviously if possible I'd rather avoid doing that. More important, I would love to know what is causing this, specially if it happens again in the future. Does anyone know what is going on? I have poured over the event logs of two machines (the one with the bug and one that is working, they have the exact same hardware) the only thing that seems to be happening is that on the affected machine there is a Special Logon Audit log whenever the computer is set back from idle. To me it seems some sort of problem with security settings, though both machines have the exact same admin security policies.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any luck?

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)

Check out the workaround I posted in a similar thread. Let us know if it works for you.

Desktop freezes when idle

I had the same problem with a HP DV2500.........The problem was the ALPS touchpad driver located on the HP support page.

Strangely the touchpad worked properly, but after being idle for a few minutes the puter locked up. I'm waiting for an updated driver from HP or ALPS

Hope this helps!

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).