Hello! From the first moment on I started using Windows 7 (August 09) I've had the following problem: After some time of inactivity the Windows 7 GUI often hangs for a while. It doesn't happen always, but it seems that the time of inactivity affects the time of hanging. Usually, when I've been away for some minutes, the GUI freeze won't last longer than 5-10 seconds, but it also happened that when I let my computer powered on over the night and wanted to use it on the next morning the user interfaced hung for over twenty minutes! During these freezes the system itself still works and so usually does the mouse pointer. When I select and drag some text in the web browser (although you cannot see that the text is selected) even the pointer symbol changes, so there is still some kind of response. I thought it may be a problem of an old graphics driver but the update to Nvidia GeForce Notebook Driver 195.62 WHQL some weeks ago didn't change anything. I'm also a bit surprised that I couldn't find any similar problem reports on the web. Would be great if you could help me to locate and resolve the reason of this problem. Thank you! System Summary: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Manufacturer Dell Inc. Family Product Name Vostro 1500 PC System Type Mobile Machine Type AT/AT COMPATIBLE Motherboard: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Manufacturer Dell Inc. North Bridge Intel PM965 Revision C0 South Bridge Intel 82801HBM (ICH8-ME) Revision C0 CPU Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz Cpu Socket Socket P (478) Memory Summary Maximum Capacity 4096 MBytes Memory Slots 2 Error Correction None BIOS: ------------------------------------------------------------------ BIOS Vendor Dell Inc. BIOS Version A06 BIOS Date 04/21/2008 BIOS Size 1024 KB BIOS Starting Segment F000h DMI Version 2.4 CPU: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Number of CPU(s) One Physical Processor / 2 Cores / 2 Logical Processors / 64 bits CPU Full Name Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz CPU Name Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T7250 CPU Code Name Merom Platform Name Socket P (478) Revision M0 Technology 65 nm Instructions MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, ET64, XD, VMX, EST Original Clock 2000 MHz Original System Clock 200 MHz Original Multiplier 10.0 Memory: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Memory Summary ------------------------------- Maximum Capacity 4096 MBytes Memory Slots 2 Error Correction None DRAM Frequency 332.5 MHz Memory Timings 5-5-5-15 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS) ------------------------------- Device Locator Slot 1 ------------------------------- Manufacturer Kingston Part Number 99U5295-011.A00LF Capacity 2048 MBytes Memory Type DDR2 (PC2-5300) Speed 333 MHz (DDR2 667) ------------------------------- Device Locator Slot 2 ------------------------------- Manufacturer Kingston Part Number 99U5295-011.A00LF Capacity 2048 MBytes Memory Type DDR2 (PC2-5300) Speed 333 MHz (DDR2 667) Video: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Display Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT Video Processor GeForce 8600M GT Video memory size 256 MBytes Adapter DAC Type Integrated RAMDAC BIOS String Version 60.84.50.00.02 BIOS Date 05/07/07 Display Drivers nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll,nvwgf2um.dll Driver Version 8.17.11.9562 Driver Date 2009-11-20 00:00:00 Inf File Name oem52.inf Inf Section Section002 Operating System: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Name Windows 7 (Business) Features Terminal Services in Remote Admin Mode, Media Center Edition, Multiprocessor Free Activation Status Activated Checked Build No UAC Enabled Yes PAE Enabled Yes Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2 System Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2 Kernel Version 6.1.7600.16385 Security 256 bits Product Name Windows 7 Professional Build Lab 7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255 License Status Licensed (Windows Operating System - Windows(R) 7, RETAIL channel) Hardware DEP Available Yes DEP for 32 Bits Applications Yes DEP for Drivers Yes DEP Policy OptIn (only Windows system binaries) Windows Update's version number 7.3.7600.16385 Automatic Updates Automatic (Recommended) Installation Time 2009-08-18 11:38:30

Try the newer video driver release then http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_32bit_196.21_whql.html Course you know that the Vostro 1500 wasn't even tested by Dell so they didn't even bother with Vista drivers, only Windows XP drivers are available. To be on the safe side too, run the sfc /scannow from command line just to be sure nothing dinky is wrong with any system files. If that still doesn't fly, you might try running Dell's XP video driver in XP compatibility mode http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprohardware/thread/80cae5ee-dc98-4a2f-8284-a1ab826059b7MCSE, MCSA, MCDST [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

You mean these drivers aren't tested/available? http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=at&l=de&s=gen&SystemID=VOS_N_1500&os=WLH&osl=ge&catid=&impid= I used the Dell Nvidia GeForce 179.24 first and due to the lack of explicit Windows 7 support and precisely because of these problems I switched to the latest Nvidia notebook drivers. It's also interesting aren't any problems during normal usage, but only after the screen has been dimmed or the notebook lid has been closed for a while. It's like everything on the screen is just a picture shown in full screen mode. And sometimes the screen is brightened again not before the freeze is over. Maybe hasn't even to do with the graphics driver? Btw sfc /scannow found and successfully recovered some corrupt files but I guess this happened yesterday due to power loss, chkdsk has found some problems too right after that accident yesterday: 04.02.2010 20:32:01 Wininit: CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)... Cleaning up instance tags for file 0x127a2. 119808 file records processed. File verification completed. 47 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 2 EA records processed. 92 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)... 153102 index entries processed. Index verification completed. 0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)... 119808 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 199 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9. Cleaning up 199 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9. Cleaning up 199 unused security descriptors. Security descriptor verification completed. 16648 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... 37128200 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed. Windows has made corrections to the file system.

Different site, I used the US site to look up the unit, and they didn't have Vista drivers there on the initial look, but yes, they do have the Vista drivers, so that should work. http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=&SystemID=VOS_N_1500http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R228666&SystemID=VOS_N_1500&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=13668&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=3&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=6&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=328164 179.47 versionThat's possible that its not the video driver but more likely the power settings could be a culprit. I'd be interested to know how the system works now after repairing some of the system files. Is there anything at all in the event logs that could point to something?MCSE, MCSA, MCDST [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

Does the keyboard response if you press the Caps Lock when the system freeze? Now we need to know if the issue is caused by software confliction or system kernel problems. I suggest you boot in Clean Boot Mode and see if the issue still occurs. Perform a clean startup to determine whether background programs are interfering with your game or program If the issue still occurs, I suggest you upgrade the BIOS.Arthur Xie - MSFT

As expected I still had some hangs after the system file repair. There aren't any special events, only some "The ... special entered the running state." A06 already is the latest version of my BIOS. Caps Lock is deactivated, but I'll try it with Num Lock or something similar. ;) I'll also check the Clean Boot Mode. I hope that I can reproduce a hang soon then because it doesn't happen every time, even not after hours of inactivity. Some days it seems to work, on other days it hangs nearly every time. Overall, the chance of hanging after inactivity for a short time at least is about 30 % I guess. Thank you!

Since Windows system uses separated user mode and kernel mode memory space, stop errors are always caused by kernel portion components, such as a third-party device drivers, backup software or anti-virus services (buggy services). The system goes to a freeze because there is some exceptions happened in the kernel (either the device driver errors or the service errors), and Windows implements this mechanism: When it detects some errors occur in the kernel, it will kill the box in case some more severe damage happens. Then we get a system hanging. To troubleshoot this kind of kernel crash issue, we need to debug the crashed system dump. Unfortunately, debugging is beyond what we can do in the forum. A suggestion would be to contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) via telephone so that a dedicated Support Professional can assist with your request. Please be advised that contacting phone support will be a charged call. To obtain the phone numbers for specific technology request please take a look at the web site listed below: Microsoft - Help and Support If you are outside the US please see Microsoft Worldwide Home for regional support phone numbers. Arthur Xie - MSFT