Windows 7: Freezes after a few hours of inactivity

I installed Windows 7 on 20th and all seemed OK. I left it on overnight and in the morning it was locked. The clock showed it had stopped at 02:21.
I could select icons on the desktop, but not activate them.
The task bar would not scroll up.
An open sticky note could be selected but when I clicked on the text, the text just disapeared.

So...
Not completely dead, but completely useless.

I powered off.

After reboot a number of items were missing from the desktop including Network, PC and a few other icons. Also the CD & DVD drives were no longer recognised.
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I got it all going again, performed an orderly shutdown and rebooted.
This morning, same again (clock frozen at 06:03 this time). Everything selectable but nothing actually works.
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Powered off, rebooted, all OK (as far as I can see )

Any ideas, suggestions (other than turn it off at night) would be most welcome.

Ta Tim

Have the same problem.
After 1 hour inactivity:no mouse cursor,win unresponsive...have to reboot

After I wrote to the thread found this:

Maybe worth trying
Everyone, I hereby conclude that:

my desktop freezes if i checked "auto-hide the taskbar " on taskbar properties and wake my
computer after sleeping at least 1 minute OR
if i put the "turn off display after " setting to 1 minute and wait for like 2 - 4 minutes
so, these are things that might happen:
1. i disabled "auto-hide the taskbar" and disabled "turn off display after" OR i disabled
"auto-hide the taskbar" but didnt put my computer to sleep
with / without any open programs
result: desktop fine
2. i enabled "auto-hide the taskbar" and disabled "turn off display after" OR i enabled
"auto-hide the taskbar" but didnt put my computer to sleep
with / without any open programs
result: desktop fine
3. i disabled "auto-hide the taskbar" and enabled "turn off display after" OR i disabled
"auto-hide the taskbar" and put my computer sleep
with / without any open programs
result: desktop fine
4. i enabled "auto-hide the taskbar" and enabled "turn off display after" OR i enabled
"auto-hide the taskbar" and put my computer sleep
with a/some open program(s)
result: desktop fine
5. i enabled "auto-hide the taskbar" and enabled "turn off display after" OR i enabled
"auto-hide the taskbar" and and put my computer sleep
without any open programs
result: desktop freezes
my pc spec:
OS: : win 7 ultimate 7600.16385.rtm.x64 (clean install)
CPU: : Intel® Core™2 T5200 @1.60 GHz
RAM: : 1Gb
Video Card: : Ati Mobility Radeon X1400
Windows Experience Index : 3.4 (basescore)

Welcome to Microsoft Answers Forum!
Methods I would recommend are:

Method 1:
Update the graphics driver. Steps to update graphics driver:
i. Click Start, type devmgmt.msc and press enter.
ii. Expand Display adapter and right click on the sub item and click update driver.

Method 2:
You can change the power settings and check if that helps
i. Right click on the desktop
ii. Select Personalize
iii. Click Screen saver
iv. Under Power management category select Change Power setting
v. Select Balanced and select Never under these two option: a)Turn off the display
b) Put the computer to sleep

If that does not help then try changing the screen saver on your computer and check if
that helps, steps to follow
i. Select Control Panel from Start menu
ii. Select Appearance and personalization
iii. Select Personalization
iv. And the choose Screen saver
v. Select None from the dropdown list

Method 3:
Boot in clean boot to check which third party is causing the problem. To help troubleshoot
error messages and other issues, you can start Windows 7 by using a minimal set of drivers and
startup programs. This kind of startup is known as a "clean boot." A clean boot helps eliminate
software conflicts.
Steps to perform clean boot and check if you have the issue.

i. Click Start, type msconfig in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
ii. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation,
type the password, or click Continue.
iii. On the General tab, click Selective Startup.
iv. Under Selective Startup, click to clear the Load Startup Items check box.
v. Click the Services tab, click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services
check box, and then click Disable All.
vi. Click OK.
vii. When you are prompted, click Restart.
viii. After the computer starts, check whether the problem is resolved.

If the issue is resolved check which third party is causing the problem, referring the link
given below: How to Troubleshoot a Problem by Performing a Clean Startup in Windows 7 or Vista

Reset the computer to start as usual
After you have finished troubleshooting, follow these steps to reset the computer to start as
usual:
i. Click Start, type msconfig.exe in the Start Search box, and then press
ENTER.
ii. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type
your password, or click Continue.
iii. On the General tab, click the Normal Startup option, and then click OK.

Wow, That was fast

It seems to match my symptoms very well.
I've modified the power settings and await with baited breath.

I'll let you know tomorrow...

Unfortunately no...

This morning the PC is virtually locked and the clock stopped at 01:05.
I last used it at midnight so it only managed an hour.
The strange thing is I left it for more than an hour a couple of times during the day and it didn't freeze.

Anyway, I've downloaded and purchased RegistryBooster which found & fixed 177 errors in a new machine

I'm sure that'll fix it

Hope it helps.Registry Booster and all similar programs find tons of errors.
People who have never heard of such programs have all those errors and operate hapily
BTW:I too use those programs regularly

Me too. I'm not sure how much good they actually do but I've never had a situation where they've messed something up

No !

That didn't work iether. This time the pc froze at 05:57.

I'll do some more research and let you know if I come up with anything that works.

This is getting a bit like Eastenders... 1 cock-up to the next

I noticed from the time that the clock stopped that the errors occured either early in the morning (between 00:30 and 02:30) or later in the morning (between 5 & 7) so I decided to look at the event log. Various things were happening around these times and I ended up uninstalling a number opp apps without fixing the problem.

To confirm the timing of the failures, I reset my timezone and discovered the freezes WERE related to clock time. This started me thinking about the Windows 7 feature of backing up windows onto another machine, which I had activated. This was set to run at 00:30. Yep, should have thought about that earlier.

Anyway, I disabled it and this morning everything's fine. Also, I deduced that it was failing early when the backup PC was turned off, and failing 4-5 hours later when the backup PC was turned on.

No error message. No activity log entry. Just frozen.

I'm a little dissapointed and wonder how many other freezes are due to Windows 7's inability to cope with a failed program.

http://img37.imageshack.us/i/captureum.png/][/

Try this