I have a computer problem that is driving me nuts! I figured I would post here before I take it to the Geek Squad to see if anyone here has had the same problem. Sony online helped another issue but not this one. I would appreciate any help anyone and hope that we can avoid "buy an Mac" posts and this is not intended to be a PC vs. Mac thread. <BR> <BR>I bought a Sony Vaio laptop about 5 months ago that has worked great until about 6-8 weeks ago. I noticed that Internet Explorer would stop responding a lot and I had to close the browser down and re-open it to do anything. I figured it was a Vista glitch and so I upgraded to Windows 7 with the free upgrade DVD that Sony sent me. <BR> <BR>The problem has gotten worse. Now, the computer freezes up when it's left idle for short while. The cursor will move (usually) but no programs respond. Ctrl+Alt+Del does't bring up Task Manager or do anything. I have to hit the power button for a hard shutdown every time. <BR> <BR>If I'm using it then it works fine but if you walk away for 10 min, it's a gamble if it will respond when you come back. <BR> <BR>Antivirus finds nothing.

Is it getting hot at all? I had a similar issue, and it was the fan. The computer did get pretty hot, though. It can also happen if you leave your laptop on something soft where it doesn't ventilate enough and heats up. That's just one thing that can cause those symptoms.

It's not hot at all. That's what happened to my last laptop. This one is sitting on a hardwood coffee table and runs cool.

Maybe there is something wrong with the internet explorer. Maybe try another browser like Fire Fox or chrome maybe safari see if that helps. Right before you think that it will do it try opening the task manager menu and click processes. It will either be on the top or bottom but look at which thing is taking up the most memory. Which ever one has the highest CPU number. Then get back to us.

IE is open three times.... 16,000K, 30,000K, and 46,000K (rounded). That's the highest. This thing has a ton of memory and a new laptop, hard to believe memory would be the problem. I'm not running any difficult programs... just MS Officer, IE, etc.

IE-8? <BR> <BR>POS, my lappy likes to hang running 8, therefore I don't even test any work in 8 any more, send it off to one of my guys to handle. <BR> <BR>FYI I am running 64-bit win 7. IE8 is crap. <BR> <BR>Get chrome: <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/chrome</a>

I think you should try Google chrome I never use IE its junk.

MacBook Pro.

Since it only happens after being idle for 10 minutes or so, try looking at the the power settings. Disable all the automatic power saving features and screen saver. If that stops it from locking up then you can play with those settings to nail down the offending settings. After that you might find that a service or program running in the background from startup is conflicting with the power setting.

I'll try Chrome but it also does with no programs running. If I leave it open and come back hours later it's frozen even if I don't have any programs open.

+1 for what John said. IE is crap. Google Chrome is fast even on a slow PC.

All browsers are going to have issues. I don't think it's a IE8 thing with Windows 7. However, when I was running Windows XP, I agree with Manzo, the OS didn't like it one bit. <BR> <BR>Have you checked your event logs to see what the problem is?

<b>I'll try Chrome but it also does with no programs running. If I leave it open and come back hours later it's frozen even if I don't have any programs open.</b> <BR> <BR>If that is the case than IE8 is not the likely culprit, though it still sux.

I haven't checked the event logs because I don't know about it to know what it's telling me.

Wow, Chrome is definitely faster than IE

^^ And, more user friendly, and more secure and more standards compliant and better arch'ed.......

What I like about chrome is there are no stupid tool bars. In IE there are so many things that have bars its crazy

I have Opera and I love it. Very simple and just as fast as Google Chrome IMO

I had a crazy freezing problem with my PC, checked everything in the damn box and then found that it had a power-saving thing in the BIOS that was underclocking the power so severely that it just had to freeze. I would check it out, definitely worth the time. <BR> <BR>and get firefox/chrome. join the computer age lol...IE is just so awful its hard to understand why anyone would use it...

Chad, <BR>I hate recommending this, but I would save your data and reinstall the OS using the Win7 disk. We have had some similar issues regarding Vista to Win7 upgrades like your experiencing. The fact that IE is still fairly rooted into the OS(although less than it was with XP) is part of the problem. You get a failure with iexplore.exe and it tends to leach to Explorer.exe, and BAM, OS gets flaky. <BR> <BR>Reinstall Win7 clean and don't forget the format of the partition would be my suggestion.