Hang/Freeze and then flash of BSOD after sleep

[ahhoss]

Hi guys,

I've been following similar posts on here trying to see if I could find a potential resolution to a problem I've been having coming out of sleep with a new computer my friend recently helped me build. Whenever it goes to sleep and I wake it up, my computer seems to crash. Normally, I am able to enter my password and login to the desktop, where the pointer can be seen and moved around, but no icons work and the computer seems to hang for a couple of minutes before it freezes up, the screen either blacks out or glitches up, an instantaneous BSOD flashes for a split second on the screen, and then the computer restarts.

I've taken videos of it before trying to replay it frame by frame to see if I can read the errors on the blue screen. It's really hard, but I'm pretty sure I saw a 0x000000F4 stop error. As a result, I tried the hotfix from Microsoft but it didn't work. I am also not able to get any minidump files in my minidump folder, even after I went into my system settings and changed the write debugging information from kernal memory dump to small memory dump (256 KB).

I posted a video of one of the most recent crash on youtube here to better demonstrate what exactly I'm talking about (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhYLL7dUOfA). The quality isn't great, but basically I've just entered my password to see the desktop, where my pointer is in the rotating circle (hourglass) mode. I try to click an icon pinned to the taskbar which won't open, then I right click on the desktop which leads the background to go white. After a couple of minutes, I get a prompt that tells me the program can't be found and asking if it should be removed, then the screen goes glitchy and then the crash as described before.

Please let me know what you guys think I can do in order to get more information about the nature of the crash. I can't seem to get the minidump files as requested.

Thanks.

 

[Lordbob75]

If you go to the minidump folder, can you copy a file to your desktop and post it here please (as a zip).

If not, lets try 2 things:
1) can you boot up and click start. Type msconfig and choose Diagnostic Start-up. Then reboot. What happens?

2) If 1 doesnt work, then open up the computer and remove ALL NON-ESSENTIAL parts from it, and try again.

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

I tried 1. The computer restarted as usual. However, still no minidump file. I tried to recreate the problem by putting it to sleep and waking it up to see if a file would be created, but the computer won't go to sleep, the monitor just suspends and the computer wouldn't respond so I had to force a shutdown. As far as 2 goes, could you please elaborate? As far as going in there physically and take stuff apart, I would need help with that as I am not too computer savvy (like I said, I had a friend help me build the computer). I have a moderate knowledge of what's going on.

 

[Lordbob75]

So the Diagnostic boot up messed it up? Odd. Go into power options, advanced power settings, and look at sleep. If hybrid sleep is enabled, disable it.

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

I couldn't get into the power options in diagnostic startup I had so I went back to normal startup to disable the hybrid sleep. As far as the oddness, should I go ahead and uninstall that windows hotfix since it didn't work? I heard that thing can cause problems.

Also, before I did all this diagnostic stuff, I went into the system, startup and recovery, and turned off automatically restart to see what the blue screen said. I uploaded the pic of it the next time I recreated the crash after sleep.

 

[Lordbob75]

Yes, please remove that hotfix, see if that helps.

~Lordbob

 

[Lordbob75]

I couldn't get into the power options in diagnostic startup I had so I went back to normal startup to disable the hybrid sleep. As far as the oddness, should I go ahead and uninstall that windows hotfix since it didn't work? I heard that thing can cause problems.

Also, before I did all this diagnostic stuff, I went into the system, startup and recovery, and turned off automatically restart to see what the blue screen said. I uploaded the pic of it the next time I recreated the crash after sleep.

That does seem to point to that being the cause.

I would also recommend memtest86+ anyways: http://www.sevenforums.com/crash-lockup-debug-how/53854-check-your-ram.html

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

I removed the hotfix...and something peculiar happened.

Before I removed the hotfix, I was going to let you know that once I went back to normal startup and turned off hybrid sleep, there hadn't been a problem waking it up for the last three times I had put it into sleep (the only thing was with the first wake up, my keyboard wasn't recognized but I just unplugged it and plugged it back in and logged on fine).

Then, after I uninstalled the hotfix and then put it back to sleep again, it messed up after I entered my password (didn't even make it to the desktop this time, just the loading symbol next to Welcome on the login screen), so I had to force a shutdown.

This combination of hotfix and removed hybrid sleep might work as a solution, but I'm not really sure what we just did. I am going to install the hotfix again and see if the problem goes away with the hybrid sleep turned off. What does hybrid sleep do instead of regular sleep anyway?

 

[Lordbob75]

Hybrid sleep does both hibernation and sleep at the same time. I am fuzzy on the details, but it seems to cause problems in some systems (like mine).

Actually, thanks for mentioning what you have done. I will try installing that hotfix to see if that will fix MY sleep issue (it would be nice to use sleep...). What hotfix was it? Just to check.

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

I've run into a little bit of a problem, once I uninstalled the hotfix, the hotfix program itself keeps telling me that I already have it installed on my computer (even though it no longer shows up as an installed update in the control panel). So, I am restoring and trying again. Let you know in a few min.

 

[ahhoss]

My computer is majorly messed up now. I can't get it out of diagnostic startup mode even when I change it, so I can't restore or anything...

 

[Lordbob75]

Can you boot normally? If so, go to command prompt (run as admin) and type this:

sfc /scannow

If not, can you boot into the Windows 7 installation cd?

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

Fortunately, I did a full system restore this morning, so I'm going to reformat from the windows disk and restore.

 

[ahhoss]

Fortunately, I did a full system backup this morning so I'm going to start all over from the disk and restore.

 

[Lordbob75]

Fortunately, I did a full system restore this morning, so I'm going to reformat from the windows disk and restore.

That works too.

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

I think I'm going to have the same problem once all of this is over. Don't know what I'm going to do about it. It's a shame, it was working at one point and then uninstalling that hotfix seemed to make everything go to hell in a handbasket after that.

 

[Lordbob75]

If you created the restore point before you removed the hotfix, then you should be ok.
Just disable Hybrid sleep.

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

I did the full system backup before I installed the hotfix. Maybe I'll try to disable the hybrid sleep after that, see what happens. Then if it doesn't improve install the hotfix and see what happens.

 

[Lordbob75]

I did the full system backup before I installed the hotfix. Maybe I'll try to disable the hybrid sleep after that, see what happens. Then if it doesn't improve install the hotfix and see what happens.

That is a good idea.

~Lordbob

 

[ahhoss]

Did a full system restore and then turned off the hybrid function on sleep mode. Seems to have resolved the issue, which leads me to believe that there is some sort of hard disk timing issue going on here. Not sure the hotfix did anything since it still messed up when the hybrid function was on, so I guess we'll just have to wait until Microsoft releases a complete service pack of some sort.