Seven locks up after an hour or so idle

[hattrik21]

I had this issue and it seemed to come down to the hiding of the task bar. For those that have fixed this lock up by disabling the hiding of the task bar, did you have the task bar in the default location (bottom) or was it moved to the top or the side? I personally have mine on the left side.

 

[withaspine]

Computer Hangs after Idle

I did not try any of ths solutions suggested.
I do need the have autohide taskbar on. I am not going to go through some stupid routine every time I leave my computer to avoid this annoyance. It will be just replacing a stupid thing with another.
I render overnight ( 3D) , or just leave the computer on for a while and, when I wake up my computer ( does not enter sleep mode because it's disabled, it's just the monitor that goes on stand by ) I can see the mouse pointer moving for a few seconds and then it freezes.
I was able to shake it off by opening and closing the DVD tray, can't remember if it had a disc inside or not. An annoyance non the less. But now I don't have a optical drive anymore so I have to shut it down.

Other than this, that I am sure will be fixed, win7 is a great experience, way faster more faster and more stable than my old crammed XP. ( I haven't touched Vista at all ). There are some other settings that I need to fix to customize it to my on liking but I am lazy. I don't like the reflection effect on windows top bars.

Good luck, post any other solutions please.

 

[Frostmourne]

Use the guide in my sig to update your drivers.

 

[rfink]

Windows 7 lockup

I have the same lockup problem on my new Dell XPS studio. I rebuilt the machine from scratch using Windows 7 64 bit and installed all of the drivers. My graphics card it from ATI and am suspecting that the ATI drivers may be causing the random freezes. I have all power options disabled (i.e. it does not sleep). Even after turning off the sleep options, the machine locks up randomly after 24 - 36 hours of idle time. Has anyone seen this behavior?

 

[Frostmourne]

I have the same lockup problem on my new Dell XPS studio. I rebuilt the machine from scratch using Windows 7 64 bit and installed all of the drivers. My graphics card it from ATI and am suspecting that the ATI drivers may be causing the random freezes. I have all power options disabled (i.e. it does not sleep). Even after turning off the sleep options, the machine locks up randomly after 24 - 36 hours of idle time. Has anyone seen this behavior?

Dell XPS? You probably should have used Dell parts.

 

[gmtp72]

I have the same lockup problem on my new Dell XPS studio. I rebuilt the machine from scratch using Windows 7 64 bit and installed all of the drivers. My graphics card it from ATI and am suspecting that the ATI drivers may be causing the random freezes. I have all power options disabled (i.e. it does not sleep). Even after turning off the sleep options, the machine locks up randomly after 24 - 36 hours of idle time. Has anyone seen this behavior?

I Have the EXACT same proble with a new Dell Studio XPS 1645 with Win7 Ultimate 64. Looks like I'm not alone...

 

[Qualm]

Same problem not just windows 7

Hi saw this thread and it prompted me to join the forums, since this seems a pretty common problem.

First had this problem with XP 64bit, when i left it idle it froze and had no choice but to use the reset button on my case. Looked everywhere and tried everything that has been mentioned here; updated drivers, power management etc. XP 32bit never had such a problem.

Now ive recently installed windows 7 ultimate 64bit and the same freeze happens, XP 32bit still stable no problems.

Now this is probably a hardware problem related to the extra strain 64bit OS is putting on my system but i cant pinpoint what it is, also ive run memtest86 for 2 complete passes and no errors, so my RAM isnt faulty...im all out of ideas

 

[Andrew86]

Hi saw this thread and it prompted me to join the forums, since this seems a pretty common problem.

First had this problem with XP 64bit, when i left it idle it froze and had no choice but to use the reset button on my case. Looked everywhere and tried everything that has been mentioned here; updated drivers, power management etc. XP 32bit never had such a problem.

Now ive recently installed windows 7 ultimate 64bit and the same freeze happens, XP 32bit still stable no problems.

Now this is probably a hardware problem related to the extra strain 64bit OS is putting on my system but i cant pinpoint what it is, also ive run memtest86 for 2 complete passes and no errors, so my RAM isnt faulty...im all out of ideas

I also have the same problem as you guys. I have a Dell Studio XPS 1645, 64 bit Windows 7 pro with the i7 processor and the ATi 4670 gfx card. I also use the hiding taskbar feature. This freezing stuff is so random and I cannot figure it out. It happened on the first day that I got the computer in November back when it had no software on it other than the preinstalled stuff. It just happens whenever and under no particular operating conditions. Sometimes it happens at the login screen before I am able to type in my loggin at boot up. Sometimes it happens when I'm surfing the web, sometimes when I'm looking at my email in outlook. I can load the processor down, or I can barely load it down at all and it will lock up. Sometimes it will lock up if I just leave the computer alone for a few minutes. The worst is if I'm dowloading a file and it locks up. These lockups for me are spontaneous and there is no indication that the computer has locked up at all. No error messages or screen changes at all. The computer just freezes. The mouse doesn't respond and I can't even toggle the light on the cap locks key. Today I've had to restart it 3 times over a period of 4 hours of use. Other days I can use it for 10 hours and it will be fine. I really don't understand what's going on but I really want to solve this baddly! I've updated every driver that I can think of. Windows is completely up to date as well as the Dell provided BIOS. If anyone can help me out I'd greatly appreciate it!

 

[Andrew86]

So I've been reading in this thread that the auto-hiding taskbar seems to be the big culprit for causing the lockups. So I turned it off and left my taskbar positioned at the bottom of the screen and it locked up again about 15 min later. So I guess that's not the issue!

 

[gman2k4]

WOW - same problems i am having. I thought maybe it was a overheating issue but when you hard power it down it comes right back up no problem. It locked up on me twice today. It usually happens at least once a day. The "freeze" is you can do nothing not even ctrl+alt+del. I have to hard power it down. I just updated the bios to A19 (today) I will test it some more. This issue been happening since I loaded this OS. I switched back to my older D620 with Windows 7 no problem at all.

The weird thing is I cannot recreate this problem on-demand & it can never come at a worse time (right in the middle of me doing work-related work) If this continues I may have it reimaged and go back to XP - this is painful

Windows 7
32bit
Ultimate

 

[DRagonfyire]

after running a flawlessly runnig "bootleg" i bought the real macoy for 300 bucks and now the dang thing dosnt run as well as the downloaded version i had. it is constantly locking up on me no mater what i am doing i can be playing a game,downloading, or even sitting idle i do not use the task bar hide option i have disabled all the power managment options and yet it still locks up i feel like such a beginer and i am mcse trained i am starting to miss my xp but i dumped alot of cash into this new os and really enjoy it other than the locking up issue. the only way i can get it unlocked is a hard reeboot i just want to know if anyone else is having similar issues the only error i got was one time and it told me that curse client(im a gamer) and avg werent working together so i uninstalled curse client. and yet im still having same lock up issues.any help or ideas beyond what is listed thus far would be greatly apreciated.

 

[rfink]

Windows 7 Lockups

hi everyone,

I reported in an earlier thread that my new Dell XPS Studio was locking up running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Well, I was able to finally get it to a stable state. The long story short is that I narrowed my issue down to two potential issues: 1) ATI video card driver; 2) screensaver. I disabled the screensaver and enabled the native windows 7 video card driver about 3 weeks ago and have not had a single incidence of a lockup. I also switched to a more conservative power balance setting as well. My advice for anyone using windows 7 ultimate 64 bit is to use native video card drivers and to disable the screensaver. The system seems to be able to handle turning off my dual monitors after 30 minutes of inactivity without any problems. I hope this helps someone.
Cheers, -Robert

 

[SpecOps]

Desktop goes blank and other issues

If I stop doing anything on my computer for over 5 minutes, I come back to a dark screen. When I activate the screen with my mouse, the screen either stays darkened or goes to my wallpaper. No icons on the desktop. Unable to access any features. I have to manually shut down the computer.
Any suggestions?

 

[Frostmourne]

If I stop doing anything on my computer for over 5 minutes, I come back to a dark screen. When I activate the screen with my mouse, the screen either stays darkened or goes to my wallpaper. No icons on the desktop. Unable to access any features. I have to manually shut down the computer.
Any suggestions?

Can you fill in your system specs?

 

[SpecOps]

I have a Dell XPS 630i
The OS was Vista but I recently changed to Windows 7 Home Premium
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz 3.01 GHz
Installed memory (Ram): 8.00 GB
System type: 64 bit OS

 

[Frostmourne]

I have a Dell XPS 630i
The OS was Vista but I recently changed to Windows 7 Home Premium
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz 3.01 GHz
Installed memory (Ram): 8.00 GB
System type: 64 bit OS

Did you upgrade or clean install? If you clean installed, install all your drivers with the guide in my sig, and flash the BIOS. Get the chipset from your motherboard manufacturer first. If you upgraded, clean install, then as above. What antivirus are you using? PSU? Clean case and PSU?

 

[Andrew86]

hi everyone,

I reported in an earlier thread that my new Dell XPS Studio was locking up running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Well, I was able to finally get it to a stable state. The long story short is that I narrowed my issue down to two potential issues: 1) ATI video card driver; 2) screensaver. I disabled the screensaver and enabled the native windows 7 video card driver about 3 weeks ago and have not had a single incidence of a lockup. I also switched to a more conservative power balance setting as well. My advice for anyone using windows 7 ultimate 64 bit is to use native video card drivers and to disable the screensaver. The system seems to be able to handle turning off my dual monitors after 30 minutes of inactivity without any problems. I hope this helps someone.
Cheers, -Robert

Rob, how did you revert to the native video card driver? I have never used a screen saver so this is definitely not the issue with my system locking up. I would have thought that moving to a more recent ATI driver would have helped the issue, but it has not helped for me so I would like to try your method. I have the ATI 4670 and currently use driver 8.634.0.0. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks, -Andrew.

 

[WindowsStar]

FYI: ATI and nVidia use driver services. I have had to disable these in the Computer Management | Services on all Vista and Windows 7 machines. This has resolved 90% of lockups and screen saver issues.

 

[Andrew86]

I called Dell Tech Support Last night in regards to my Dell Studio XPS 1645 laptop locking up. Long story short, they will be sending me a larger power supply which now supplies 130W as opposed to the 90W charger that it came with. Also, when I receive this, I should update the BIOS to revision A07. These should solve the locking up problems according to dell. I should be receiving the A/C power adapter on the 22nd of Feb 2010 and will update the BIOS then and report back. ...the only thing I find fault with this is that I've had my computer lock up while using the battery so we shall see if this is really a fix.
-Andrew

 

[WindowsStar]

I called Dell Tech Support Last night in regards to my Dell Studio XPS 1645 laptop locking up. Long story short, they will be sending me a larger power supply which now supplies 130W as opposed to the 90W charger that it came with. Also, when I receive this, I should update the BIOS to revision A07. These should solve the locking up problems according to dell. I should be receiving the A/C power adapter on the 22nd of Feb 2010 and will update the BIOS then and report back. ...the only thing I find fault with this is that I've had my computer lock up while using the battery so we shall see if this is really a fix.
-Andrew

BIOS updates can fix problems with Windows 7. I had a system that took 3 hours to load Windows 7, and then took 30 minutes to boot, when I was at the Desktop the machine was VERY slow. I flashed the BIOS and the machine worked perfectly. I did a clean reload of Windows 7 just in case there may have been issues with the extremely long first load. The machine loaded Windows 7 in about 20 minutes. Machine is still running correctly today! BIOS Update = Good.