Vista freezes when left idle

[Jacob.d]

I recently dual booted Windows Vista Business 64 bit in a separate partition along with my Windows XP Pro installation. I have 6GB of RAM and slightly overclocked from 800 MHz to 850 MHz at the moment.

My problem is that if I keep Vista idle for a while, it freezes straight away! No error messages, codes, nothing. I tested my machine with Prime95 and it never froze. It just seems to freeze when it is idle.

Is there anyone who have some ideas to fix this issue?

[kraal]

Even I had the same issue once. Since I set the Vista program never to go to sleep on its own, there have been no more freezes. Just try that. It should work for you too.

[mv]

It could be caused by any of these things:

Software program
Device Driver
Operating system update
CPU/Case Fan not working or overheating
Hardware malfunction ...hdd, cd drive ...etc
Could even be a serious issue with Windows OS

Have you installed any new hardware or software before this started to happen? If yes remove/uninstall it and see if it fixes the issue.

[Marthaz]

This same thing is happening to my ASUS laptop. I bought it about 2 month ago and it worked fine for about 4 to 5 weeks, then it started freezing randomly. It still does. When idle, when in use, when just turned on, sometimes even before the OS loads. Sometimes it works for hours, and other times it freezes over and over again.

[Steve123]

Does this system have a Screensaver enabled? Set it to have no Screensaver.
Go to Control Panel -> Appearance and Themes -> select Display -> look at Screen Saver tab.

Is it set to power off the hard drive after xx amount of idle time ?
Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> Power Options.

[Alexisus]

It sounds like your computer may have some trouble entering a power-saving state. I'd recommend to try reinstalling Vista.