Windows 7 64 won't unlock - Ctrl-Alt-Del / Keyboard 'not responding'

[KSPAdmins]

Bit of a weird one, this. Occasionally just recently we have had an issue with users being logged on, leaving their PCs for a while, and then not being able to unlock them when they come back. The keyboard is fine (to an extent) - still capable of turning NumLock on and off - and changing USB port or indeed keyboard while the machine is locked has no effect. The mouse still functions as normal.

 

Some people online have suggested that it may be USB Selective Suspend at play, but that's never been a problem in the past 4 years that we've been running Windows 7. Also, the really odd thing about it is that you can't even send a Ctrl-Alt-Del signal to the machine from AB Tutor (v7.3.10, by the way) - it just flatly refuses to unlock. AB Tutor will happily reboot or shutdown the PC, though.

 

I've only seen it happen so far on newer Dell Optiplexes - 390/3010/3020 models. Has anyone else had this issue, or am I just going quietly mad by myself?

 

Daryl

[Sagima]

We have 390s, 3010s and 3020s with w7x64 and we've never had that problem

[6Foot2]

We have a number of Optiplex 3020s. There is only one where the station will not respond after the user leaves it for a while [i can usually get it to come back to the user by using Ipmero to Switch user at the locked screen.Most of the time they can logon normally and pick up where they left off]

 

I believe that I have eliminated all other sources of this annoying problem, leaving only peripherals that only this user has. These are a Wireless keyboard and mouse, a flatbed HP scanner, and another that I can't remember right now.

 

I have asked him to disconnect the scanner and only have it connected via USB when he wants to use it. Since he has started doing this he hasn't been locked out of his station. I am not saying that this is my answer yet as we have only been trying this for 3 weeks and he has been on holiday for one of those.

[KSPAdmins]

We've got good old-fashioned wired keyboards and mice, which should (ha!) be more stable, but this issue has got us stumped. As I've said, AB Tutor won't even touch them once it's happened. We're trying to find solutions we can push out via registry or GP as we have 500+ computers and don't fancy logging on to all of them...

[KSPAdmins]

One further thing I've noticed is that it tends to coincide with Windows Updates, whether checking for them or actually installing them. I'd have thought an i3 processor and 4GB of RAM would have been able to cope with a couple of dozen or so updates...

[Duke5A]

We've got good old-fashioned wired keyboards and mice, which should (ha!) be more stable, but this issue has got us stumped. As I've said, AB Tutor won't even touch them once it's happened. We're trying to find solutions we can push out via registry or GP as we have 500+ computers and don't fancy logging on to all of them...

 

If remote control software won't connect to them then it's not an issue with the keyboard - the machine itself must be frozen. I would say have a look at the system log in event viewer and see if anything stands out. Maybe a driver being misapplied in the imaging process is causing something to hang when the machine sleeps. I've had old versions of a driver work fine on one model machine, match the vendor and device ID on a newer machine so that WDS would install it at imaging time, but cause stability issues further down the line. It can be a pain to narrow down.

[KSPAdmins]

I'm coming to the conclusion it's definitely an AB Tutor issue - I eventually realised it was only happening when I tried to unlock the PC whilst shadowing it. Once the PC is imaged we usually reapply all the latest drivers back to the machine but it's possible there's something that currently disagrees with AB Tutor. Guess we'll have to chalk this one up to experience and avoid doing things this way; it's not like we do it that often. I might find a solution at some point, but at least it's not insurmountable. Thanks all.