Vista x64 lock up while idle.

S

sdealvarez

Member
I'm running into a weird problem with my Vista Home Premium x64 machine. It was running fine for about 6 months and now I am suffering from lock-ups while it is idle. I've verified that drivers are all up to date including chipset and BIOS. If I leave the pc idle with no applications running it locks up within 15 minutes.

When the "event" occurs, everything appears normal until I attempt to perform a rudimentary Windows function like opening IE or My Documents. The mouse pointer switches to the circle/ hourglass and hangs. Ctl-Alt-Del is unresponsive and I can't do anything but a hard reboot.

The event log contains nothing out of the ordinary and I've watched the system monitor and can't see anything that is hogging memory or cpu resources.

To further muddy the waters, I've seen times when I've been playing a graphics intensive game (most recently the new Wolfenstein) and the game runs just fine. But if I alt-tab out to Windows and try to open up IE, it hangs.

I've run some tests for memory and hard drives and all have come back clean. I like to think I am a fairly pc savvy guy but this one has me completely stumped!! Any suggestions are much appreciated!!!!
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel Core 2 Dou E8500 3.16GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS Rampage Extreme
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI 4870X2
What if you start Task Manager, Click on Processes, sort from highest to lowest, and watch to see if, when idle, defrag or some other process eats up the CPUs?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    AMD AM2 6000+
    Motherboard
    Nvidia M2N-E SLI
    Graphics Card(s)
    GeForce 7600GT
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    WD
    Case
    Cooler Master
    Cooling
    Three fans
    Keyboard
    Dell Quietkey
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 MBPS
Exemplary writeup and troubleshooting - have some rep :)

A few questions:

1) Can you get the same lockup to occur in safe mode?

2) (Back in normal mode,) Is the machine still pingable from another box while the UI is locked up?

3) Assuming ping does actually still work, can you connect to its SMB shares while it's seemingly hung?

4) If IE and My Docs seem to readily lead to this symptom, are you able to start a CMD prompt and use it to traverse the same directory structure without triggering lockups?

5) What anti-virus are you using? Have you tried temporarily disabling it as much as possible or even uninstalling it outright, just to check whether it's part of the problem? (AV drivers are frequent lockup culprits.)

The deterministic way to troubleshoot lockups is to purposefully trigger a stop error (BSoD), and then to examine the relevant OS structures to see what's going on. Sadly, that's not a practical approach over a web forum so a bit of trial-and-error must be substituted.
 

My Computer

System One

Do you have an option to restart explorer.exe? Use Process Explorer to find its PID and then kill it and restart it with cmd prompt. Can you run sfc/ scannow at an elevated command prompt?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Sony Vaio Z46GDU
    CPU
    [email protected] w/6MB L2 cache 1066MHz FSB
    Memory
    6GB DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    9300M GS 256MB + Intel Integrated 4500MHD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    13.1" WXGA True Colour Tough
    Screen Resolution
    1600x900
    Hard Drives
    320GB SATA 7200RPM
    Internet Speed
    1MB/s
Thanks for all of the assistance guys! :) Work's been a little on the busy side so this evening was the first chance I had to perform some additional testing. Here are the results.

What if you start Task Manager, Click on Processes, sort from highest to lowest, and watch to see if, when idle, defrag or some other process eats up the CPUs?
Click to expand...

I have observed Task Manager before and during a lock-up. I was specifically watching to see if defrag kicked off. Nothing was eating up excess CPU or MEM. There were no abnormal processes running either.

1) Can you get the same lockup to occur in safe mode?
Click to expand...

So far I have not been able to reproduce the lock-up in Safe Mode.

2) (Back in normal mode,) Is the machine still pingable from another box while the UI is locked up?
Click to expand...

I didn't expect to but yes I can! Both by IP and host name.

3) Assuming ping does actually still work, can you connect to its SMB shares while it's seemingly hung?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I performed this test correctly, but on another PC in the same Workgroup I am able to see the problem machine in My Network Places>>View Workgroup Computers. However when I double click on the icon I cannot access it.

4) If IE and My Docs seem to readily lead to this symptom, are you able to start a CMD prompt and use it to traverse the same directory structure without triggering lockups?
Click to expand...

Do you have an option to restart explorer.exe? Use Process Explorer to find its PID and then kill it and restart it with cmd prompt. Can you run sfc/ scannow at an elevated command prompt?
Click to expand...

When I am locked-up I cannot access the Start Menu to open a CMD prompt. I'll try placing a short-cut on the Desktop and see if that can be accessed. If that works, I will try to /taskkill

5) What anti-virus are you using? Have you tried temporarily disabling it as much as possible or even uninstalling it outright, just to check whether it's part of the problem? (AV drivers are frequent lockup culprits.)
Click to expand...

I currently have no AV software installed.


Thanks again for all of the help!
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel Core 2 Dou E8500 3.16GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS Rampage Extreme
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI 4870X2
Frostmourne said:
Do you have an option to restart explorer.exe? Use Process Explorer to find its PID and then kill it and restart it with cmd prompt. Can you run sfc/ scannow at an elevated command prompt?
Click to expand...

Just completed running sfc /scannow and reported back

Window Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel Core 2 Dou E8500 3.16GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS Rampage Extreme
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI 4870X2
Can you schedule chksdsk and the memory diagnostic tool?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Sony Vaio Z46GDU
    CPU
    [email protected] w/6MB L2 cache 1066MHz FSB
    Memory
    6GB DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    9300M GS 256MB + Intel Integrated 4500MHD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    13.1" WXGA True Colour Tough
    Screen Resolution
    1600x900
    Hard Drives
    320GB SATA 7200RPM
    Internet Speed
    1MB/s
I ran both chkdsk and the Windows Memory Diagnostic. Both came back clean with no reported problems. :huh:
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel Core 2 Dou E8500 3.16GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS Rampage Extreme
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI 4870X2
Do you have the screensaver enabled? Or does this only happen when it is sitting idle for less than that time?

~Lordbob
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS P5QC
    Memory
    2x2GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVidia GeForce 9500GT 1Gb
    Sound Card
    Mobo
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster 206bw
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SP2514N ATA 250Gb 7200RPM
    Samsung [Model] 1Tb 7200RPM SATA2
    PSU
    Cooler Master Real Power Pro 750W
    Keyboard
    Razer Tarantula
    Mouse
    Razer Lachesis
    Internet Speed
    not fast enough
That was my first thought so I made sure I disabled the screensaver and all power saving options.
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel Core 2 Dou E8500 3.16GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS Rampage Extreme
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI 4870X2
I'm trying to think what is happening when the pc is idle. Sometimes applications will start when the processor is idle. Thinking out of the box - okay, maybe crazy - if you are running an intensive application, will it still lock up? If you do an FULL virus scan, full malware scan, does it lock up when you leave the pc? I mean before the application has finished.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    AMD AM2 6000+
    Motherboard
    Nvidia M2N-E SLI
    Graphics Card(s)
    GeForce 7600GT
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    WD
    Case
    Cooler Master
    Cooling
    Three fans
    Keyboard
    Dell Quietkey
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 MBPS
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