Unlock/Log in delay

ge0rge · 17 Dec 2009

I had the same problem. It was a full 22 seconds delay to come out of lock or screen saver. I tried fiddling around with power options, no password, no screen saver, etc. with no improvement. I finally found an updated driver for my video card, but it didn't help either. (Interesting that I have the save nVidia 6150 card that others with this same problem use.) I ultimately went back to the old driver, just because the certificate for the new one could not be validated.

Groping for ideas, I tried changing the desktop theme, and that fixed it!!! Any of the Aero themes causes the huge delay. I switched to the Windows 7 Basic theme, and the delay went away totally. Also, my boot time improved by about 1/2 minute.

The question now is, which is the lesser of two undesirable situations, the problem or the fix? Aero is definitely a nice interface, but it seems that we have to sacrifice Aero to get rid of the delay. For now, I'll stick with the non-delay and use the basic theme. But I might change my mind later.

Hope this resolves the issue for everyone else also.

george

Jonathan_King · 17 Dec 2009

Certainly, it is helpful. Nice first post. Welcome, George!

benpalm · 19 Dec 2009

you're right, ge0rge. how annoying! i love the speed i get, but i hate what i lose in a non-aero theme (thumbnails, full page previews, etc.). you'd think this is something windows could have forseen and taken care of!

Wii Master 64 · 19 Dec 2009

I'd rather have Aero than Basic anyday. Besides, if you don't put your laptop to sleep very often, there's really no point in changing to Basic. Mine does that every now and then, but most of the time, I log in instantaneously from waking up.

ge0rge · 20 Dec 2009

Wii Master 64 said:

I'd rather have Aero than Basic anyday. Besides, if you don't put your laptop to sleep very often, there's really no point in changing to Basic. Mine does that every now and then, but most of the time, I log in instantaneously from waking up.

Well, it really comes down to how you use your PC. Personally, I never put mine to sleep. But at least a dozen times each day, I do lock it. I do that because when I step away, I want it to be secure from unauthorized users. Also, if I get distracted by a phone call for several minutes, my screen saver kicks in (password protected). So I experience the delay very fequently throughout the entire day. And having to wait for over 20 seconds to be productive again is very noticeable.

The Windows 7 Basic theme is not as nice as the Aero ones, but it's good enough for me. Rather than flying over an icon and getting mini screen shots of the open windows, I get a list. Not quite as nice, but much better than Vista. The Basic theme doesn't have the see-through feature that lets me see a portion of an underlying window, but that isn't very useful to me anyway. I do miss the full-screen preview, and not having that will cost a few extra mouse clicks now and then.

So for the way I use my PC, eliminating the small advantage of Aero in favor of being more productive is the right choice. But other people will certainly make the opposite decision. That's what's fun about Windows..... Often, there is no right or wrong, simply different preferences.

Regards,

geo

Wii Master 64 · 21 Dec 2009

Oh, ok, that makes sense.

benpalm · 24 Dec 2009

i logged on to chat support with microsoft and had the issue resolved! he had me uninstall the display driver, and when it automatically reinstalled, the long black screens were gone! the trick is to NOT update the driver! the "newer" driver causes the issue. i'm running aero on windows 7 and it's working fine!

ge0rge · 26 Dec 2009

"i logged on to chat support with microsoft and had the issue resolved! he had me uninstall the display driver, and when it automatically reinstalled, the long black screens were gone! the trick is to NOT update the driver! the "newer" driver causes the issue. i'm running aero on windows 7 and it's working fine!"

I tried uninstalling the driver, but it didn't help. Maybe I'll chat with Microsoft and see if they have any more ideas.

geo

Brian the King · 02 Jan 2010

george, you're right! Disabling Aero effects takes my unlock time from 15 seconds to 1 second. I would also like to mention that using an external monitor eliminates this issue; My laptop is currently plugged into a ViewSonic display, and even with Aero effects enabled there is no delay after entering my password.

I'm not sure where to go with this, though... my ViewSonic doesn't come to school with me (current desk is too small) but I really dig the Aero stuff in Windows 7. At the same time, the number of times I wake my computer from sleep in a day can be in the double digits.

Benpalm I think I'll give your suggestion a shot later tonight, although like george I have tried to reinstall the display drivers more than once.

ge0rge · 03 Jan 2010

Hmmm...... I hadn't thought about an external monitor. I guess it makes sense because a different driver would be used. Unfortunately, I don't have room on my work surface for one. Interesting, however.

I did call Microsoft Support last week. they spent about 30 minutes chatting with me, and then a specialist called me back the next day. I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with him. We tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling various versions. We also tried running the driver in compatibility mode. Nothing worked. We went to the NVidia web site and downloaded their latest driver, but Windows wouldn't install it because of a run-time error in the driver. I didn't take the time to send email to NVidia, but perhaps that would be a good thing to do. The driver description definitely said it was compaitble with Win 7.

Anyway, I'm left with the problem. Microsoft was very apologetic, and they really did try to resolve this. But their final word was that my laptop is not compatible with Aero.

I still am undecided about whether to turn Aero off or not. I do like the features, but they actually don't add much to my productivitiy. Even with Aero off, I can still drag windows to half screen (which is a GREAT feature), and I can still hover over the icon to get a list (not mini-views) of the open programs or tabs. I don't get the full-screen preview, but I personally don't need that much. I suggested a new laptop to my wife, but she nixed that because it would take $$$ away from that new pair of shoes she wants.

If anybody has any further ideas, please share. I will od the same.

geo

Unlock/Log in delay

I fixed it, but......

Still no luck

External monitor