System Goes to Sleep

[Chaplain Pruiett]

I have Windows 2000 running on a Pentium III with 500 MB
memory. My system has the iritating habit of "going to
sleep" at various times during my logon session. Normally
it happens when I am using Internet Explorer 6.x, but it
affects all programs running at the time. The cursor
freezes, the mouse and keyboard do not respond, and it
remains this way for about 10 to 30 seconds. There is an
audible "click" (like when you click on a link or press
the back arrow in IE) and control returns. The mouse
again works, and the cursor again moves. This scenario
happens two or three times during a one to two hour logon
session. What could be causing this. Thanks for any
help. God bless.

Chaplain Doug

 

[Leonard Severt [MSFT]]

I have Windows 2000 running on a Pentium III with 500 MB
memory. My system has the iritating habit of "going to
sleep" at various times during my logon session. Normally
it happens when I am using Internet Explorer 6.x, but it
affects all programs running at the time. The cursor
freezes, the mouse and keyboard do not respond, and it
remains this way for about 10 to 30 seconds. There is an
audible "click" (like when you click on a link or press
the back arrow in IE) and control returns. The mouse
again works, and the cursor again moves. This scenario
happens two or three times during a one to two hour logon
session. What could be causing this. Thanks for any
help. God bless.

Chaplain Doug

Sounds like a process is hanging the system. I would check both the
system and application event logs for errors that occur when the system
is hung. That might point you to the root cause.


Leonard Severt

Windows 2000 Server Setup Team

 

[Guest]

How do I check the system and application event logs?
Thanks.

Chaplain Doug

 

[George Hester]

Start | Settings | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Event Viewer. You'll see the System and Application Event logs on the left. Chosse the one you want to read and read the events on the right.

What you describe sounds like what can happen when a window loses focus and there is no cursor for the keyboard to attach to anything. Like this. Say a system hung for some reason. After you bang on the keyboard for say 10 minutes or so, you'll get this clicking sound everytime you touvh the keyboard. I'm not saying that is what you do just trying to identify what this clicking is. It is usually a hung system and pressing the keyboard reulting in a click means keyboard messages are not getting to their rightful place. Some computers will ding and others will just click. Mine clicks when it gets constipated like that.

 

[Chaplain Doug]

Mine just clicks one time and then everything goes back to
working.

 

[George Hester]

Well I am not sure if you have ever noticed this but sometimes an application may seem to hang while it is running or starting up. If you look in the task manager when this happens you may see "the application is not responding." You may now get your clicks. If you are of the impatient type you may try to shutdown manually the application from the Task Manager. But if you can just hold on a moment you may find that the application comes back to life and the Task Manager will say Running. This is notorious in MSQuery. So it may be you are just "hanging" for a moment and then come back to life and the clicking ends. This can be Network congestion. Need to look in those Event logs.