Windows freezing when PC locked

[molecul3]

Hi all,

In our office, we have recently experienced Windows freezing on random computers.
Out of about 50 PCs, approx. 10 PCs repeatedly experienced this freeze and not the others.
Here is what happens...
Users works on Windows, and during lunch, locks their PC and leave the office.
When they return, their PC locks up showing only the desktop.
Sometimes, when you hit ctrl + alt + delete to get the unlock window where you enter your password, it just shows you a grey box sometimes with or without the fields to enter your password and nothing happens.
You have to hard reboot the system to get back to work normally.
For some of these PCs, there is an error prompt stating that windows is low on resources... can't remember exact error.
Has anyone experienced this?

Note: we have checked the power settings etc and they are not set to hibernate or go into standby

Any ideas is greatly appreciated.

 

[ArizonaGeek]

The first thing I thought of when reading this would be maybe they are over heating. Especially if they sit on the floor. I'd crack open case and blow out any dust. Forget those cans of compressed air, get yourself an air compressor. I bought a 2 gallon air compressor for $60 last year at Target. Best $60 I ever spent and no need to buy those cans again and I get about 100% more blowing power out of the compressor, not enough to blow over trees but enough to get rid of dust out of computers perfectly.

Next on my list of suspects would be to assess what kind of a PC it is happening to. If all the PCs were the same brand, same model, bought at the same time, it is possible the manufacturer got in some bad RAM or bad CPU's. I've had this happen before so it CAN and does happen.

The next thing on my list would be to run updates, make sure the video card, sound card and NIC drivers are all up to date. Make sure your BIOS is up to date.

Check your anti-virus to make sure it isn't scheduled to run full scans at lunch time, and make sure they are up to day. Make sure the hard drives aren't full and maybe run a defrag. If nothing else none of these cant hurt.

Have you checked the Event Viewer to see if there was something running or reported there? Check to see if the swap file (virtual memory to Windows) is set to Windows Manage and not set too low. Actually had that happen on a friends PC just last week. Not sure how it got changed but after I set it to Windows Manage, no more memory errors.

A few ideas....

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[molecul3]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your detailed response.
We are actually suspecting kaspersky av as all this started to happen just after we ran some updates but we can't prove it.. whether or not its hardware or overheating.. i do not think so as these machines have been working for about 2 - 3 years without problems.. also tried adding/swapping ram without any help.
full scans are not scheduled to run during lunch and we even uninstalled the av's on some machines without help...
if ever something is reported in event viewer.. it is error 2000
also looked at virtual memory and changed settings but still no fix... we are absolutely clueless as to why it is happening...

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Do those machines run a screen-saver? I have known some to cause memory overruns and other odd behaviors when running too long and that locks the PC..



To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[molecul3]

Hi Turkbear,

No they don't
What you see is the standard "This computer has been locked" prompt on the screen and you will know when the PC has frozen when the fonts on the prompt disappear and all you end up with is a grey box or only the wallpaper.

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Have you tried uninstalling Kaspersky then locking the computer to see if it freezes? I actually had Kaspersky do that to a few machines on my network. I have about 6 Vista machines on my network and about a month ago they would just lock up if people walked away, not even locking their computer or screen saver kicking on. They would just be idle for a few minutes and it would lock up. This also only happened to my Vista machines.

The kicker for us was that it happened the same day MS released a bunch of updates so we started trouble shooting as a Microsoft problem. We spent the better part of a week trying to troubleshoot it when we finally figured out it might be Kaspersky (we had stopped it but not uninstalled it on our machines we were testing) and after a few days Kaspersky wound up issuing a patch that seemed to clear everything up. We're thinking it was an update Kaspersky issued didn't like an update Microsoft issued.

I'd call Kaspersky, if nothing else they can help rule their software out. Their support is actually pretty decent.

The odd thing is that if you have a bunch of computers and they're all running Kaspersky, what is common on the machines locking up?

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[linney]

More on Kaspersky.

System hangs (cursor spinning)
thread1583-1530404

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Thanks linney, I was looking for that thread but before I could finish I got sidetracked on actual work and just had to post my last one without it.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[molecul3]

thanks for the reply guys.. there actually isn't anything common between those PCs, maybe 3 to 4 of them are the same make and model but nothing really standard among them...
we actually did call kaspersky but the tech we spoke to did not mention anything about this happening with other computers...
Rob, you mentioned Vista, do you know if they happen on XP as well.. we are running XP and I will have to check SP levels. I believe it happened around the same time you mentioned (when Microsoft released a bunch of patches).

 

[linney]

What is showing up in the Event Viewer?

Can you grab a machine that is having problems and see if you can isolate the fault by running it in "Safe Mode with Networking", and then if it doesn't occur proceeding down the process of elimination path?

310560 - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310560&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Some articles (probably not relevant) concerning locking a Workstation.

Information About Unlocking a Workstation

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281250&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Administrator unable to unlock a "locked" computer

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/242917#appliesto

How To Force Users to Quit Programs and Log Off After a Period of Inactivity in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314999&Product=winxp#appliesto

 

[BadBigBen]

Kinda sounds like a network issue there...

I would try to update all the NIC drivers, first, then open up any Folder and navigate to EXTRAS >> FOLDER OPTIONS, a new window appears there on the second TAB (Views?) there are lots of check boxes, look for the one called "Auto Connect Network Folders and Printers" (or similar worded, sorry non english XP here) and UNTICK it...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[cmeagan656]

...navigate to EXTRAS >> FOLDER OPTIONS, a new window appears there on the second TAB (Views?) there are lots of check boxes, look for the one called "Auto Connect Network Folders and Printers" (or similar worded, sorry non english XP here) and UNTICK it...

Very close. In the English version its Tools ->Options. Then on the second tab (yes it is "View") you want to UNTICK the first check box, next to "Automatically search for network folders and printers"

Cheers.

 

[BadBigBen]

cmeagan656 - Thanks for clearing that up... ;-)

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.