Windows Freezes when I close the lid

Hey guys

Over the last 2-3 days I have noticed that whenever I close the lid of my laptop, while its still running and leave it even for a little while, if I go to eat or sleep and leave something to download etc., and then open it the laptop freezes

By this I mean that when I re-open the lid the mouse moves but when I click the start button the hourglass appears and nothing happens
No right click, nothing on the taskbar opens, no programs launch from rocketdock, and even pressing ctrl+del+alt has any effect

The only thing I can do is too hold the power button till it closes, but I am worried that this will damage my HDD as a weird sound comes as it closes, and upon restarting the screen shows up that says, Windows Was Closed Incorrectly.

Can someone tell me why this happens and how I could possibly stop it

 

Try a new GPU driver...

If its not a problem i'd try to re-install windows... If it still happens its probably hardware related.

Also holding down the power button shouldnt be a problem..

 

Yes and no on the power button.

In theory "crashing" or using a "hard shutdown" shouldn't do any damage - in theory.
Data loss can occur (if files aren't written fully to the HDD) and data loss is another possibility.
An electrical fault shouldn't happen - but either way - its not healthy to do so.

Why this happens I do not know - you could try looking at the error logs and check whether any evets are logged for immediately after you open your laptop.

Trying to find the cause could be difficult without knowing what causes (explorer amongst other things as it seems) to freeze.

Before you know that it could be a graphics driver, a strange power profile behaviour (I've had an Intel driver crashing on battery until I went into battery saver once, then it suddenly worked fine???), a botched Windows Update etc.

If youwoul know whether you isntalled anything before this happened would be good too.
(Software, drivers, Updates)

 

Check Control Panel - Power Options - Advanced. What did you set your laptop to do when you close the lid? Usually "Do nothing" is a good option. You close the lid and it shuts off the LCD screen of course, you open it and it's back up.

If Windows didn't shutdown the way it should I'd take a look at the Event Viewer to see what went wrong and when. The shortcut is WinKey+R and then type in "eventvwr". There's an option in the registry where you can force all programs to autoend on shutdown and there's a timeout in seconds (allows running processes to finish up before shutdown) that you can set your own value if you want a fast and safe shutdown.

 

Well, I have just updated the GPU driver, but don't think its related to that because I had the older driver for a while before the issue.

Haven't installed any new drivers except for the GPU one after my first post, and windows update is automatic so I'm not quite sure.

I recently re-installed some games, but none of them were running at the time, and no new software.

Also I always have my pc running in high performance mode, except when I am on battery (balanced).
I have tweaked the power plan already so it doesn't automatically go into sleep, and nothing shuts down when I close my lid.

The reason is that I have always been closing my lid alot, even if I am getting something to drink, going to the bathroom, etc, and nothing of the sort ever happened before.

@Twiz - Windows didn't shut down properly because I had to keep the power button pressed to manually kill windows.

Also what should I be looking for in event manager?

EDIT - I checked the windows update log, detlev for the last few days (when the problem started) and this is all there is:

 

Well you may want to use Balanced mode all the time - look through the last pages on the myth of power modes.

Else: Difficult...
Could be your GPU driver -could be your power plan tweaking...

Tweaking = bad on Vista

 

I see
I'll see the thread

I don't think it was the tweaking, but I will reset it to default and see if it makes a difference

 

I think the best thing we can do is go backwards step by step to things we know that work.

Unless you find that one conclusive error log (slim chance )

 

I'm not sure what errorr log I'm supposed to be looking for and what it looks like
Problem is that I have never used event manager before

Also, updated my second post with the windows upadate log from a while ago

I'm thinking of doing a full scan with both ESET and malwarebytes, just to rule out any nasties.


Also what's strange is that this morning when I had the problem the wireless light on my laptop was constantly flashing (indicating data transfer) as was the light on my router

This made me think that the file was still downloading even though the firefox window wasn't opening

 

Your update shows the Windows Vista Updates log - those Nokia drivers - are they just for an external phone? If yes I think we can ignore them.

The event viewer do what Twiz57 said:

Then continue to te Windows Protocols - tons of "goodies there".

Now, after you did this, close it, jot down the time ad close the laptop.
Wait 10 minutes or so, then open it - jot down the time.

If it doesn't respond, "hard shutdown" - wait 5 or 10 minutes, start it, check the time andcheck the event viewer. If we are lucky there is something there in one of the windows protocols.

 

I'm sorry for some reason I thought you're running XP. I have Vista Home Premium installed on the original partition of the harddrive but I haven't accessed that partition in like 2 years, I've lost track of it. But like Detlev said you could try to skip all devices/services that failed to start. You could see all changes in event viewer going way back... two, three days back to the point where your system was stable.

 

Yeah, those were just update to the software/drivers for my phone

Well, at around 4 AMish (now 5:36 ) I went to grab a bite to eat, and firefox was open along with utorrent

I came back at around 4:20 and it seemed as though the system was responding. I was able to open RMclock, but then when I tried to scroll down the page i was trying to read BAM it froze up again.

Now I have opened event viewer, but I'm not sure where to find "Windows Protocols"
This is what I see, where do I go next.


Also, while typing this message I BSOD for the first time
It disappeared to quick but I wonder if this had something to do with it??

Was thinking of re-formatting to 64-bit and fixing u pmy partiotions but I have to wait until I get a new external drive and make an up-to-date backup (in a few days hopefully)

Sorry but I don't understand what you mean

 

Looking at your picture - "Windows logs" - that's the bit you need to check now.

A reinstal may be the "easiest" way depending on what it is.
It would be best if we could solve that problem from within though.

 

Well I looked through the log for anything between 4-420 AM

And there were some things

Could it be this ?


Also, going through the log from the past few days this error has come up quite alot
Maybe its this???

 

It shouldnt cause freezes no.. my experience with freezes like this is that event viewer never gets to log anything.

 

It can be one of those errors, but doesn't have to be.

A next good step, double click the error, then go to "online help" and allow to send information.
That should give you a Technet Site.

Link to it (for us) and see if it helps with your errors.

Sometimes it doesn't - there is on whre it just says in a way "Windows should do that" - which makes you wondr why that event is logged as an error.

 

That would be the unlucky scenario

 

yeah its really a bugger... but i'd seriously just try out a reformat.

 

Well, I did this

"Crash dump initialization failed!"
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/su...g System&Version=6.0.6000.16386&Language=1033


"The Computer Browser service depends on the Workstation service which failed to start because of the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it."
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc756332(WS.10).aspx

"The Parallel port driver service failed to start due to the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it."
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc756344(WS.10).aspx

"The previous system shutdown at 2:46:00 PM on 9/23/2009 was unexpected."
http://www.microsoft.com/products/e...ventLog&FileVer=&FileName=&EvtType=&LCID=1033

These are all the recent errors under Windows Log > System for the last few days
Hope it helps.

Also, the last time it froze, I just pressed the shut down button instead of holding it pressed, and a message popped up after about a minute

"Following programs are still running

msnmsgr.exe
(this program is preventing the computer from shutting down)

RocketDock

Program Manager (not responding)

To close these ........
.................
................"

I'm just wondering what the program manager was why it wasn't responding.
Could this have anything to do with it??

 

Nice, nice. Well done.

Well, parallele port driver - had that too, not sure what to do exactly about this, it doesn't caue crashes as far as I am aware - but lag: possibly yes.

But we seem to have 2 culprits
MSN messenger and the Program Manager.

I think it may be best to focus on these - te links you posted seem to be even in reaction to a problem.

on your next sleep, close MSN messenger before sending it to sleep, what version do you use?

I'm trying to track down the program manager.
And see if I can find something - or maybe those link do have the answer...

Edit: By the way, did you try the troubleshooting in the technet articles?
(on a running system)

 

I don't actually put my system to sleep

I close the lid while its running, and leave it running (closed lid does not put it to sleep)

I just re-opened my pc and it didn't freeze, after I left it for about 0.5-1 hrs with the lid closed.
MSN wasn't running so it might be the cause??

I have Windows Live the newest version out

I'll try the troubleshooting listed in the articles for the event viewer, and let you know, but I think it might be windows live

 

Well in most cases your system will do something of you close the lid.

Sleep, hibernation, switch off, etc.

But if it didn't happen withough MSN it may be.

 

Oooo, that may NOT be a good idea. Many laptops are not designed to run that way as it can cause a heat build up as heat rises and warms upthe display. I am curious, why are you closing it if it is still running?

Gary

 

I have disabled sleep when I close the lid and set it to do nothing

I usually leave the laptop running the whole day.
When I'm not using it I prefer to put it to sleep, but if somethign is running like MSN, or a download, then I simply close the lid to stop it distracting me
At night, if I do leave it on, I close the lid, so all the indicator light, and touch buttons are hidden
I don't like my own light show at night

Also, do you think this was simply caused by MSN??

 

It could be caused by MSN - but it could be a number of factors.
Heat build up being an external one.

Try allowing sleep.

Normall it sleeps within seconds and wakes up quickly too.

Its better than leaving it on.

 

If you have the power profile option set to do nothing when the lid is closed, then I don't think this has ANYTHING to do with software. None of the software is going to know the lid has been closed. The display should go dark when you close the lid, but I believe that is a hardware switch, but I might be wrong on that. It could be the same switch that notifies the power management routines. If so it is the video driver that is turning off the display. And if that is the case then that leaves only two things that could be the problem. First the video driver, since no other software is being notified of the lid close, since you have the power profile option to do nothing. Or you have an overheating issue.

Either way, as I said before it is a very bad idea to run most laptops with the lid closed. They are just not designed for it. If it were me I'd find some other way to prevent the distractions or "light show" when leaving it on at night.

Gary

 

Black tape would be an idea to prevent a "Lightshow" ... or use a black felt tip on masking tape, then stick that over the lights.

 

I know that this is probably bad, but sometimes I leave it on so I can download stuff at night or when I'm not doing anything, and I close it out of pure habit, and because there is a lot of dust here and it gets real dusty fast if I don't close the lid
When the lid is closed the pc is just idling, with maybe one program running, and idle temps are normal the same as when the lid is closed, I checked using HWMonitor

Putting it to sleep cuts the internet connection so the downloads don't complete.

It happened again just a while ago, but it was a little wierd. I opened the lid, and pressed start, the start menu opened, but when I clicked firefox, it froze up.
The whole start menu, bar with windows, and taskbar froze
But for a few seconds I could click icons on the desktop that was visible and click on icons on RocketDock, but when I clicked them nothing happened, and then the whole thing froze up

Gary - I was told in one of the first few posts to change the graphic's card driver, so I did from nVidia 186.03 to 186.81, but when I check with GPU-Z it shows this :


Should I switch to a different driver

 

That IS 186.81.

Gary

 

I thought is wasn't because the other ones showed "Forceware 186.03"

Also, any idea what else I can do to stop this problem?

 

Guys this just happened again

This time the laptop was on my desk, with the screen open

Basically it was running, I had a 2 tabs open in FF and iTunes open because I was charging my iPod

I came after a while and at first I pressed start and the start menu opened up, but then everything froze and I was forced to do a hard shutdown

This is really irritating as the computer was running and I left for about 20 mins to get something from the store for my parents and came back to find this

Any ideas on how to fix this short of a hard reset?

 

so its back to te drawing board...

Unless this is an overheating issue - did you eventually check up on all the suggestions from Microsoft the error logs provided?

 

If I were you, I would start fresh with a reinstall. And don't close the lid of your notebook at night when you are downloading. Just turn it so the back of it faces you and it shouldn't bother your sleep.

 

anyone else thinking registry issues?

 

That may be the "easiest" solution - but depending on software could be time consuming

Possible - but what kind of issue?
Could be a bad driver that would be fixed with a reinstal at its most simple - could be a pogramme that interferred...

What I find strange that closing Windows Live Messenger (WLM) fully once solved the problem - maybe WLM is the issue?

Was WLM running in the background this last time this happened?
If it was I suggest removing any live software - rebootng, running CClener, the registry cleaner too BUT manually only tick the WLM/Live entries - leave others to be safe in peace and "clean them out" (save backup).

Then reboot - reinstal Live and see what happens.

 

Well, Windows Live wasn't running this time, so should I still un-install that?
Utorrent was on most of the time it froze, so should I try the process you mentioned with that instead?

I haven't had any overheating issues, I don't close the lid while its running now either, so that's not it

I haven't been able to try out the technet trouble shooting as my SAT is on the 10th (Sat.) and I have mostly been studying for that

I may do a re-install, but I first I need to make a backup which requires a new HD

Thanks for the responses guys/gals

 

Before you unistal anything:
Try teh Technet suggestions.

Next - try with utorrent shut down (not unistalled) - if you can remove the problem by not running a programme you found the fault.

 

I dont think I will be able to over the technet help until sat. But the next time I leave my laptop for a while I will make sure uTorrent is not running
I'll update the thread once I am done with that test.