Only shows wallpaper after resuming from display/sleep

This problem seems ridiculously inconsistent, but it happens often enough to be extremely aggravating.

If I leave my computer (Dell XPS M1530 notebook) idle for anywhere from 5+ minutes (I have not timed it exactly) and the display turns off or the machine enters "sleep mode" I cannot resume it! Upon pressing enter, the computer wakes up and displays only my wallpaper. No icons, programs, anything!

The only keystroke the computer responds to is Ctrl+alt+del. At this point the only thing I can do is restart the computer and then quickly press "Cancel" when given the choice to do that or "force restart" (while it is trying to close down the various programs I have open). Unfortunately, by then it has already closed off at least a couple of programs.

I have tried to log off or hibernate, etc, but these do not work. Has anyone else experienced this? I am running Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit edition.

How long are you giving it to come back?

what are your power management settings,are they set to turn your hdd off when idle , i find whats best for me is to have mine all set to "never"

It was a clean install.

I do have the HDD set to turn off after 10/20 min, but I will try never. Also, most likely unrelated, but I have it set to hibernate when closing the lid, but it does not seem to detect a closed lid...

Saltgrass said:

How long are you giving it to come back?

I'll give it a couple of minutes or so...