PC hangs are logon screensaver

[leonard.powers]

Hi All,
We have a problem on all our ICT Suite PC’s. Basically after the Windows logon screensaver appears (ie I haven’t logged in at all) and then the monitor goes into sleep mode, when you move the mouse to wake the computer up, the computer wakes up but the keyboard is not working. The mouse does work and I can ping the PC, so network connectivity seems to be there but I’m unable to remote control the PC or connect via any admin shares.

The problem is noticeable first thing before period 1. We power on the PC automatically each morning at 7am. By the time period 1 starts, the PC’s have hung. Powering off the PC fixes the problem and because the PC’s are always in use during the day, you don’t really see it again. They don’t have time to fall into sleep mode.

Since no one has logged into the computer, it makes me think it has to be something to do with a service that is loaded before the logon prompt. What I can say is that this doesn’t seem to happen to our Admin users PC’s. So it’s looking like something that has been installed onto the ICT suite PC’s. One program that springs to mind is NetSupport School. I might try removing it from a classroom to see if it fixes that room. Has anyone else seen this problem?

Many thanks

Leonard

[gmiller]

Leonard

I had this problem on some pcs here so i turned the logon screen saver off to prevent it going to "sleep".

This link here tells you how to turn it off.

How to change the Windows Logon screen saver in Windows XP

miller

[leonard.powers]

I forgot to mention that I have already tried this. This has sort of made the problem better. Before we were not getting the login prompt and it was just a blue screen. No with the screen saver disabled, it goes back to the Windows logon prompt (just before pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del) but the keyboard doesn't work. The monitor still goes into sleep mode and powers itself down. Not sure if that can be stopped or if that's built into the hardware.

Could be a combination of the screensaver and something else.

Thanks

[gmiller]

are these pcs and monitors dells by any chance? i had the problem on a new batch of optiplex 320s.

the symptons you mention were exactly the problem i had but turning off the logon screen saver fixed it.

let me take a look again at the pcs to see if i did anything else or if it is in fact not fixed!!
miller

[leonard.powers]

Yes we are a Dell site. The main PC's are;

Optiplex GX280 with 3rd party 17" TFT
Optiplex GX620 with 3rd party 17" TFT
Optiplex 745 with Dell 17" TFT
Optiplex 755 with Dell 20" TFT (doesn't seem to happen as much with this model)

[stevenlong1985]

what anti virus are you using is it Sophos? I had a few problems like that, when there was an update it wouldn't logon, had to do a windows system restore from safe mode and uninstall - Reinstall Sophos

[leonard.powers]

Yes. we're using Sophos. I'll have a go at uninstalling Sophos and reinstalling it again.

[stevenlong1985]

Did it work?

[leonard.powers]

We had a bit of a problem. I think it could be either Sophos causing the problem or NetSupport School that we use. We recently upgraded to v10.01 of NetSupport. Just before someone mentioned about Sophos, we decided to remove NetSupport school on 1 computer suite. Unfortuantly, the removal process totally destroyed our PC's. We had all the PC's booting up saying they were unable to start the server service, along with pretty much every other service.

On the basis that trying to figure it out for 1 PC would have taken longer then 30 minutes, we quickly rebuilt the whole room. This of course fixed the hanging problem but I'd expect that. All I can say at the moment is that our newly rebuilt PC's with all the Windows updates installed (SP2 at the moment & IE7), Sophos install worked all ok. We've yet to install NetSupport to see if this causes a problem.

Later on today I will remove Sophos from a smaller number of PC's and reinstall it. I'm hoping I will have some results by tomorrow.

[Busybub]

Yes we are a Dell site. The main PC's are;

Optiplex GX280 with 3rd party 17" TFT
Optiplex GX620 with 3rd party 17" TFT
Optiplex 745 with Dell 17" TFT
Optiplex 755 with Dell 20" TFT (doesn't seem to happen as much with this model)

We have all the models you've listed with Sophos on them. Never seen this problem before.

What BIOS version are you running?

[leonard.powers]

I have installed the latest version on all the PC's. The fact that after we reimaged them the PC worked all ok lead me to believe that it's something that runs when the PC boots up.