Windows 7: Unlock Workstation Hangs A Long time

[Dr. Zhivago]

So, on my laptop (see sig), with it sitting at the Welcome Screen after Locking it, and then entering my password to unlock it, the laptop goes to a black screen with no cursor or anything. It appears unresponsive for about 1 minute. It has done this with both the RC and RTM. I've disabled all startup programs including Antivirus and related services with no difference.

The hang time seems to vary and when it seems to hang also varies. It's pretty random.

Any ideas?

[daPhoenix]

It wouldn't happen to go into sleep mode / hibernation and then wake back up and take forever to resume?

I've heard of similar incidents lately from multiple people, apparently RTM shipped with a funky little bug.

[Zero]

It wouldn't happen to go into sleep mode / hibernation and then wake back up and take forever to resume?

I've heard of similar incidents lately from multiple people, apparently RTM shipped with a funky little bug.

I used to have that in RC as well. I can't remember what it was, but it seemed to have an issue either with my video (ATI) driver or keyboard sofware. Updating both seemed to have resolved the freezes.

[caveman-jim]

So, on my laptop (see sig), with it sitting at the Welcome Screen after Locking it, and then entering my password to unlock it, the laptop goes to a black screen with no cursor or anything. It appears unresponsive for about 1 minute. It has done this with both the RC and RTM. I've disabled all startup programs including Antivirus and related services with no difference.

The hang time seems to vary and when it seems to hang also varies. It's pretty random.

Any ideas?

Video driver update.

[Dr. Zhivago]

I'm on 9.8 now, I'll try 9.9. I'll update the thread with my results. Thanks for the input guys.

[daPhoenix]

Note that the machines I know where this incident has happened are _all_ equipped with an nVidia display adapter.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Mine isn't.

Oh and I think the driver update to 9.9 fixed the problem.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Spoke too soon. Still doing it. Latest drivers and BIOS on everything.

[caveman-jim]

Tried the leaked 9.10 RC7 drivers? (see Cat driver forum)

[Dr. Zhivago]

No. Do you really think it's the video drivers? I guess I could try the In-Box driver and see wha' hoppen.

[caveman-jim]

It's either bad hardware or video drivers; I had the same problem on a few nvidia gpu based laptops (my own included, which failed and had to be replaced).

Have you tried the WU offered WDDM 1.1 driver?

[Dr. Zhivago]

Just installed that last night. Still does it. I'm not convinced it's a hardware issue yet. This is the only problem I have with the laptop. I'm going to uninstall updated drivers for everything this morning and see how it behaves.

[VW_Factor]

Ive had a compaq lappy do something similar to me. (with XP though). Are you certain that during the wakeup period, the CPU and all that jazz is ramped up to full speed?

This particular compaq lappy had a bad habit of not turning up the clockspeeds and such during some intensive tasks, at which point they would take forever.

Something to take a look at I think.

[Dr. Zhivago]

At this point, I don't know for sure what it is. But, it hasn't hung since I uninstalled the Realtek HD Audio drivers and Catalyst drivers and am just using the in-box versions. I'll play around with it for a few days in this config and see if it holds.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Ok, I'm getting somewhere. In box drivers still hang if Aero is enabled. Set to Windows Basic, let it sit Locked for hours and no hang. I also set the power profile to High Performance. So, need to set it to Balanced, leave Aero off and test some more.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Since we're talking about drivers in this thread, one thing I've noticed with newer Catalyst versions is a much lower Aero score in the Windows Experience Index. For instance, it used to be 5.2 when I first loaded Windows 7 RC on this laptop in May I think and now it's 3.8.

EDIT: So, I re-ran the assessment after setting the Power Plan to High Performance and Aero scored a 5.7. I had forgotten that I changed to Balanced sometime after I first set up the Laptop and ran the original assessment. Oopsie.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Ok, so after further testing I am convinced the problem is caused by running the Balanced Power Plan with Aero enabled.

[Dr. Zhivago]

And here's another thing: I can let it sit at The Welcome Screen ALL DAY LONG without logging in and once I log in, it goes right to the Desktop wthout hanging. It's only the Lock/Unlock that causes the issue.

[caveman-jim]

Does MSI have a recommended power plan for windows vista/7 to download and use? I had issues with perf/battery life with my Dell until they released a powerplan for it, which gave better performance and better battery life.

[Dr. Zhivago]

I don't know.

I'll go look.

EDIT: No Power Plan.

[Dr. Zhivago]

So, as probably the final update to this thread:

There is either a problem with the PowerNow implementation on this laptop or with Windows 7's implementation. Running Serious Sam: Second Encounter for example with PowerNow enabled results in the the pre-recorded Demos and the Flashing Menu Items running 2x normal speed. Game-play can be weird with slow downs in random places and performance being generally "weird".

Turning off PowerNow support in the BIOS fixes these problems. Changing Power Plans to High Performance in Windows and setting the Minimum Processor Speed to 100% does nothing to correct the issue. Installing the Dual-Core Optimizer does nothing to correct the issue. Turning off PowerNow hard sets the processor speed to 800Mhz however, so that is not an option.

SS:SE plays fine on other machines in my house under Windows 7. Even on machines with PowerNow enabled and functioning. So, it may not necessarily a game specific issue. But, RTCW plays fine on the laptop, for instance.

Maybe I'll call MSI's support and see what they have to say.

EDIT: Here is what MSI's Tech Support had to say.

Dear Customer, this laptop is not support windows 7. Please use windows vista support for this laptop and retry it. Thank you very much!

I was pretty sure that'd be their response. Oh well. Can't win them all. Maybe a driver update from ATI will help with the lock/unlock issue or maybe it's just the PowerNow problem.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Aha!

I figured it out!!!

Ok, so I think I discovered a bug. Here's the deal:

With the Aero interface turned on, but with Window Animations and other Fade In/Out and Taskbar / Menu Animations turned off, that causes the hang when Unlocking Windows from a Locked state.

Leaving all of those set to Default when enabling the Aero Interface and there is no pause when returning to the Desktop after Unlocking the machine.

I tried this with a new account and with my existing account and the problem is reproducible.

I always turn those animations off because I hate waiting for the stupid things. I just want things to snap and pop into or out of existence. I only thought about trying this because I hate giving up. So, I created a new account to see if it had the problem. It didn't. Aero defaulted to on with the new account. I noticed the animations and a little light bulb went off in my head.

The problem seems to be related directly to the top selection in the Visual Effects list in the Advanced System Properties dialog: "Animate controls and elements inside windows" Toggling that option makes the problem reproducible.

I just thought I would share.

Maybe we can clean this thread up and add it to the Caveman Stickies.

EDIT: Thanks Cavedude!

[jimmt]

Glade you figured it out, but I had a similar problem and it turned out that EA updater with the Sims was causing my problem. Removed that beiatch from my system and fixed my issue.

[HAL10000]

You should post this on your vendor's website/forums instead. Chances are that's where the first people will go to look.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Well, that would mean I'd have to register on their forums...

[Dr. Zhivago]

As an update to this thread, Microsoft has posted a KB article with symptoms extremely similar to the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977346

There is also a Hotfix available. You only need supply an email address and type in a Captcha code to get it. If you are running a 32 bit browser, the website suggests a 32 bit Hotfix. I was. I then launched IE8 64 bit and went back to the same website, clicked the link to the Hotfix Request page and was offered the x64 Hotfix.

I have not installed the Hotfix yet, but I have applied the Registry Tweak suggested in the Workaround section of the KB article. I'll post my findings here for each solution.