Why does my Windows 7 system freeze after it sits inactive for a while?

I notice that my Win 7 box will go in to deep hibernation that requires a push on the power button to get it started up again but that is only just the beginning. The system takes a very long time, several minutes, to recover from the hibernation and put me back where I was previously. It could be as simple as adjusting your power saving settings; that is what I did, adding 15 minutes to the "deep sleep" settings. Good luck.

I too had the same problem I talked to a few people and they told me that my computer may be dirty causing it to overheat.I was told to buy a can of airduster remove the side of the stack and blow the dust out. After removing the side I couldn't believe how much dust there was inside the case. I blew all the dust out that I could see and put it back together. That was about three weeks ago and so far everything has been good

I have the same problem. I did 2 things to curtail the constant problem. Right click on computer icon on destop if there and click Manage.I clicked Event Viewer / Custom Views / Administor Events. This should show most of your errors. Mine was Bonjour from Apple. I uninstaled it and Windows does not crash nearly as much under idle conditions.I was also running a Back Up program WD Share and turned it off. Would love to hear others advice.

a few months ago i've got the same problem but with windows 7 ultimate x86 . In my case the solution was to clean all the parts in my pc and all was ok after . hope it work's for you . ( sorry about my english , i'm from romania .

Thanks CNET and community.
I thought I was alone with this same freezing problem with my custom build Win 7 pro computer.
Misery truly does love company.
Still not sure if I solved the problem but noticed Bonjour Service was causing a lot of Event Error's so I uninstalled it. Will track this Forum and cross my fingers.

Although I have never had this problem, it reminds me of a common XP problem, so I'd first wonder how you have your power settings set up.
In XP, if you had your HD(s) set to turn off after a certain amount of inactivity when you went back to your computer to do anything, you had the same problem. W7 has a lot of choices as to power settings. knowing about the problem with XP, when I installed W7, i set the power settings to keep everything running all the time. I think the default on W7 is to turn off the monitor, and Hard Drive off after a certain period of inactivity, and That was where XP had the problem/ Turning things off might be a energy saver, but it tends to be a big problem with Windows OSs.
Try just changing your power settings, it should help. I did , and I've never had the problem.

I've read your problem, and a lot of the answers to you from other people. The answers have been everything from sun spots to bad motherboards.
Ever since Windows XP, if the power settings were set for the computer to go into hibernation, or to go to sleep, or the hard drives to be turned off after a certain period of inactivity, for a good number of computers, the computer would freeze up when you tried to do something on them. After reading the posts on here and seeing the number of people who experience the same problem, it seems to me as though W7 has the same problem, When I installed W7 Pro on my computer, the first thing I did was to go to the power settings, and change everything from the default of turning off the HDs after x amount of minutes to NEVER, and also that for the sleep mode, and hibernate mode.
(all to NEVER), and I haven't had that problem. Actually I haven't had any problem with W7 at all.
It did take some time getting use to where MS put everything, but that's the same with every OS change.
Hope this helps.

Same problem happened on my PC a couple days ago. I could see on the CPU light that the hard drive was doing something sometimes but the monitor remained black except for the little progress/wait light (similar to the Windows hourglass, I guess) that showed on the screen. Mouse clicks and keyboard entries (including ctrl/alt/delete and escape) did not help. Had to reboot.

If you have any say in your way you set up Windows 7 [Administrator level] you can first shut off the folowing nuisances:

a] screen saver password ... keep the screen saver [you can change it to a slide show using your favourite photos]

b] Go into Control Panel and change the time of inactivity of certain things the last being the shut off of your system ... and request a password on restart ...you can even set each item separately.

I believe the problem is one of Windows 7 features that are designed for a business environment where they try to save on power and automatically shutdown and require a password to load up. it's possible the home user like yourself does not really appreciate the power saving features built into Windows 7 which combines the best features of Windows XP Pro and Vista editions.

Nevertheless one can Override some of the features manually through the screen saver and the Control Panel use of Power. It is advisable to set the screen saver password to off and at some power control area to require it...

In a business environment, the systems administrator's main concern is that unauthorized users not access the sensitive data.

Go into the settings for Windows 7
remove the tick from allow hard drive to sleep when the pc is inactive
it will restart ok then

When you shut down one of them the problem disappears (is not a perfect solution).

Hey Harry W. You need to respond to these people who are trying to help you. They need to know if any of the info that they have given you has helped or not. Also you people who are responding, if you are not going to read ALL of the other responses then don't bother replying at all! All you are doing is wasting space and other people's time by repeating the same info that has already been given. And you people that can't be bothered to check what you've written before you submit it, don't bother posting either. That's what the "Preview Post" button is for. Use it! And you other people who just spout useless drivel..., OMG. There should be a way we could block you.
Anyway, I have been building and working on computers for over 15 years and I have discovered that ever since Windows XP came out, Norton AntiVirus started conflicting with Windows. I used to swear by all things Norton and still use some things Norton. It is just the AntiVirus that causes a conflict AND it leads to hangups. All the time and in every version of Windows since they came out with XP. It worked fine in Win 98. I have tried it on every computer I have ever built or bought, using every version of Windows over the years as they came out up to and including Win 7 and have tried using Norton on every one of them and have had to remove it every time. Once I removed it (and believe me, completely removing it means manually going into the Registry), I no long had any hangups. I thought Win 7 was going to be different but no such luck. BUT, once you remove Norton AntiVirus or, more probably Norton Internet Security or 360 to be able to get rid of it (and you WILL need to get someone who knows what they are doing to go into the Registry to completely remove Norton!), your hangup woes should be over if changing the power settings does not solve the issue.
For those of you who can't find an answer here, you can go to one of Cnet's Tech site's and check them out. I just got a weekly e-mail from one about issue's that Firefox was having that was caused by another website! It just goes to show you can't always blame the program for the problems it's having.

harry youre not on youre own my new system w7 is doing the same and i think msoft need a patch cure asap. good luck .from lyall tasmania australia.

Have u checked whether there's a power-scheme, without a wake-up-event? Check both bios & windows7.

I have that problem but it is my screen that goes to sleep and it won't wake up. Turning it off and on again seems to resolve the problem. Thus far I havent been able to resolve the problem of it going to sleep.

Hi...

When your screen or Windows is inactive for "a few minutes", and off hand I don't know your time out settings, it is SUPPOSED to go into a screen saver "standby mode"... At this point the screen will go black except for a Windows Logo that will move about the screen. It should time out and go into this mode by itself.

To get back into "full service mode", just move your mouse around a bit and Windows should "wake up"!!!

Check your Windows settings menues for this mode to activate or change it, or find it on your alphabetical menu.

IF thgis doesn't work, you MAY have to reload Windows. Software DOES wear out, gets mutulated, and needs to be refreshed occasionally.

Best wishes,

**** Warren
Board Certified Electronics Technician,
State of Oregon

This may not be just a Windows 7 problem. It has happened to me recently on my WindowsXP system. As with Harry W.'s Win7 system, it happens "every once in a while" - I can't put my finger on the conditons that are in effect when it occurs.

My Windows-7 quad-core AMD HP machine has the same problem, although in my case the screen would always be some solid color when the freeze occurred (even black). It used to happen every day or 2 - I suspected the video driver due to the odd behavior, and managed to find an updated driver for the ATI Radeon 3200 Graphics chip. It has only happened once since I installed the updated driver, and that was over a month ago.

Note that thousands of people have experienced this same behavior with Windows Vista due to graphics chip drivers that had issues.

I recommend going into device manages and finding your video device (click on "display adapters") and then right click on your adapter and select "Properties". In the Properties dialog box, click on the "Drivers" tab and write down the date and version information on the driver. Then see if you can find a newer driver for your video chip. Note: if you are running the 64-bit version of Windows-7 then you will need to make sure that the any newer driver candidate supports 64-bit systems.

I have seen this type of problem many times before and more recently with Windows 7, especially in computers that have been upgraded from previous versions of Windows, although I have had the problem of several brand new computers as well. Unfortunitly, it can be caused by a large number of issues but in most cases it has been easily corrected by simply updating a driver or the BIOS and in some cases I found hardware that was incompatible with Windows 7 such as a network or video card that actually needed to be replaced. In a few rare circumstances it can also be caused by some kind of an overheating issue, but unlikely in this case. Based on your description of the problem, it sounds like your problem may be triggered by the computers attempt to go into standby mode rather than the waking up from standby. It could even be caused by a bad screen saver. You could test this theory by turning off any screen savers and then changing the setting for standby mode to something like 1 minute and then waiting and see if the problem comes back in approximately 1 minute. You could also experiment with setting Standby to never and see if this corrects the problem. All of these settings can be found in either the Power Options section of Control Panel or the Display > Personalize section. If setting the computer?s power settings to never go to sleep seems to correct the problem, then you have at least narrow it down and you can choose to either leave the power settings to never go into standby mode or better yet start investigating to find the actual cause of the problem.

In any case, with limited information about the specific computer and the exact problem, the best way to start is to:

1. CHECK THE WEB FOR KNOWN PROBLEMS ? Any troubleshooting process should always start with checking the manufacturer?s website for known problems with your specific model computer. If you don?t find anything there then perform a general Google Search using your specific model computer in the search string. EXAMPLE: ?HP Pavilion ????? Freezing going into Standby mode?. Sometimes you will luck out and find that someone else has already had and solved the exact same problem.

2. CHECK THE EVENT LOGS - Check the Event Log files for any errors or warnings that may give you a hint as to what is causing the problem. Open the event viewer by Clicking on the Start Ball > CONTROL PANEL (Click on View by: Small Icons) > ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS > EVENT VIEWER > Next Expand Windows Logs by clicking on the arrow next to it and then select each category and scroll through the list of events looking for a red exclamation errors or Yellow Warnings. It will be easier to narrow down your search if you have a rough idea of the date and time you last had the freezing up problem. If you find some errors that you don?t understand, simply search for there meanings on Google. If you can not find the cause of your problem in the event logs or the information there does not narrow it down for you, then your next step is to start the process of eliminating the most common causes.

3. CHECK ALL HARD DRIVES FOR ERRORS ? Run Windows error checking to detect and repair any hard drive errors. Note: Every time you force shut down your computer by pressing and holding the ON/OFF button or by simply unplugging the power, you run the risk of corrupting your hard drive, so it is important to check the drive for errors. Double Click on COMPUTER > RIGHT Click your C Drive > Select PROPERTIES > Click on the TOOLS Tab > Click on CHECK NOW in the Error-Checking Section > Place a check in the box next to ?Automatically fix file system errors? > Click on Start > You will then get an message saying that it can not be run now but do you want to schedule it to run the next time you reboot your computer? CLICK on YES > Restart your computer and you should see a light blue screen that says that it is checking the drive for errors and then the computer will just restart normally when it is finished.

4. RUN A MEMORY DIAGANOSTIC TEST ? It is always a good troubleshooting step to rule out a potential memory problem by running a full memory test with something like the free Memtest86 from www.download.com.

5. FULL CLEANING AND SCAN ? Unfortunately, so many problems are caused by viruses, Trojans and Malware that you really have to run a series of full scans just to cover all your bases. First perform a general cleaning using CCleaner from www.download.com . Then Run a full virus scan with whatever antivirus software you have installed. Then download and run a full scan with Malwarebytes from www.download.com and then scan again with one more scanner such as spybot or AdAware just to be sure everything is clean.

6. UNINSTALL PROGRAMS THAT YOU NEVER USE ? You might luck out and find that some program that you have never used is outdated and causing a problem. Go through the list of installed programs and uninstall any programs that you do not use or need.

7. UNINSTALL ALL SECURITY SOFTWARE ? Unfortunately, one of the more common causes of just about any problem can often turn out to be related to Security Software so it is always a good idea to uninstall any antivirus and firewall software that you have installed on your computer just to rule it out. Don?t forget to reinstall it later when you are done troubleshooting.

8. UPDATE WINDOWS ? It is always a good idea to make sure Windows is fully up-to-date with all the latest Service Packs and patches. The best way to do this is by manually running Windows update. Click on the START Ball > Right Click on COMPUTER > Select PROPERTIES > Click on WINDOWS UPDATE (Bottom Left) > Click on ? Check for Updates? and then follow the instructions to download and install all updates. You may need to keep clicking on ?Check For Updates? several times, even if it shows no more updates available, to make sure you have install all available updates.

9. UPDATE DRIVERS ? When you are having problems it is always a good idea to check the manufacturer?s website to download and install all the latest drivers for your computer. Video, Audio and Network adapters are usually the most common problem creators, so start with those first. Standby issues are often related to incorrect or outdated drives that prevent hardware items such as video cards and network adapters from entering low power states or cause problems when they try to wake up.

10. UPGRADE THE BIOS ? Go to the manufacturer?s website for your specific computer or motherboard to get the most recent update for your System Bios. Follow the instructions carefully to upgrade your BIOS to the most recent version. WARNING: Making a mistake while updating the BIOS can render your computer unusable and virtually useless. I do not normally recommend updating the BIOS unless you are doing it to fix a specific known problem.

11. REMOVE ALL STARTUP PROCESSES ? If you still can not seem to isolate the problem I would suggest that you disable all Start up items and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then start enabling start up items one by one until the problem returns again to determine which one is causing the problem. This can take a long time to work through and you might try to narrow it down by disabling and enabling several items at a time. To use MSCONFIG to control Start up items: Hold Down the Windows KEY (between the left hand CRTL and ALT Keys) and Tap ?R? > Type msconfig into the text box > Click on OK > Select the STARTUP tab > Check or Uncheck the items of interest > Click on APPLY > Re-Start the Computer to test > Repeat until you find the process that is causing your problem and then look it up on Google to identify what it is. If that does get you anywhere you could also experiment with the disabling items in the Services Tab but make sure you first place a check mark on ?Hide All Microsoft Services? so that you only mess with NON-MICROSOFT services.

In the end if you have gone through all this and are still having problems, I would suggest that you backup your data and perform a clean re-install of Windows 7 and make sure that you download and use only the latest Windows 7 Drivers specified for your model computer or Motherboard. Be careful to select the correct 32 or 64 bit drivers and software when offered a choice to match the version of Windows 7 that you are installing.

Dana
Wayland Computer