GRRRRR, damn NT kernel...

[Kooldino]

I can't take it anymore.
It's happen to me on many different hardware setups, ranging from P3's to Athlons, and even a P4.

Happens in two different OS's so far... Win2K and WinXP...

I'll come back to my PC, which I left in a stable condition. It will be locked, so I'll unlock it...

and it will just sit at my wallpaper. My windows/taskbar/etc don't come back. I can move my mouse, my num+caps lock keys light up the lights on the keyboard, but that's it.

CTRL+ALT+DEL won't work.
Right clicking won't work.
I can do NOTHING but move my mouse around, and light up the "Lock" LEDs.

WHY? And more importantly, how do i fix it?

[Kooldino]

On a simliar note, does anyone know any programs that allow you to kill a Windows program or process from the command line? If so, maybe I could telnet in and kill certain things, etc.

[High_Jumbllama]

It's more likely your system or a combination of your system and the Operating System. It could be powersaving. Try turning it off. Or a piece of your hardware could be bad or just not compatable with a particular Operating System's power saving method. This happens all the time at the one school where I do work. Turn off power saving and these machines can last several days without a crash and this is Windows 98SE.

Also are you using a screensaver that came with Windows or one you downloaded?

Edit: I reworked my answer as I realized part of it did not make sense.

[Kooldino]

Well, I DO have some power saving crap on, but I need some of it...
here are my settings:
Plugged in/Batteries
Turn off Monitor: After 3 hours/After 15 mins
Turn off hard disks: Never/After 30 mins
System Standby: Never/Never

whaddya think?

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by High_Jumbllama
It's more likely your system or a combination of your system and the Operating System. It could be powersaving. Try turning it off. Or a piece of your hardware could be bad or just not compatable with a particular Operating System's power saving method. This happens all the time at the one school where I do work. Turn off power saving and these machines can last several days without a crash and this is Windows 98SE.

Also are you using a screensaver that came with Windows or one you downloaded?

Edit: I reworked my answer as I realized part of it did not make sense.

My screensaver is "blank".

I dunno about it being a combo of my system and the OS...like I said, I've seen it happen on very different PCs (not a peice of hardware in common), with both Win2K and WinXP.

[Wombat]

Sounds like something isn't coming out of standby correctly.

[Kooldino]

Right, but the only thing that should be shutting down on AC power EVER is my monitor...

[The PIT]

Same motherboard out of interest???

[Kooldino]

Yeah, it happened on my asus a7v133. But like I said, it's happened on P3's an P4's as well. So it's not CPU/chipset specific.

[High_Jumbllama]

Does it happen when plugged in and on batteries? Since it has happened on many system I am at a loss. Obviously a notebook shouldn't have those problems. I have used over a dozen 2k systems and a pair of XP systems as well. Is your power cord secure? Could it be popping out unexpectedly?

[2Whyzzi]

Originally posted by Kooldino
On a simliar note, does anyone know any programs that allow you to kill a Windows program or process from the command line? If so, maybe I could telnet in and kill certain things, etc.

http://www.teamcti.com/pview/prcview.htm
From the website: PrcView is a process viewer utility that displays detailed information about processes running under Windows. For each process it displays memory, threads and module usage. For each DLL it shows full path and version information. PrcView comes with a command line version that allows you to write scripts to check if a process is running, kill it, etc.

Have fun.. (did I forget to mention that it is free binary download?)

[PowerHungry]

I ran into a problem where my power supply wasn't powerful enough, and when the system came out of standby and woke all the components up, the system froze. It went away when I removed a hard drive or hooked in a larger power supply.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by High_Jumbllama
Does it happen when plugged in and on batteries? Since it has happened on many system I am at a loss. Obviously a notebook shouldn't have those problems. I have used over a dozen 2k systems and a pair of XP systems as well. Is your power cord secure? Could it be popping out unexpectedly?

Well, i have a UPS, so it's almost never on battery. Cables all seem secure.

BTW, happened again JUST NOW. It's REALLY annoying. 2x in 2 days. WTF???!!

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by 2Whyzzi
http://www.teamcti.com/pview/prcview.htm
From the website: PrcView is a process viewer utility that displays detailed information about processes running under Windows. For each process it displays memory, threads and module usage. For each DLL it shows full path and version information. PrcView comes with a command line version that allows you to write scripts to check if a process is running, kill it, etc.

Have fun.. (did I forget to mention that it is free binary download?)

VERY cool! Thanks much.
However I doubt this will solve my problem because I probably won't be able to log in remotely when it's "frozen". Worth a shot tho. Anyone know of a good, free SSH server for winxp?