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This has happened a few times, when I haven't used my laptop for 10 minutes or so, it just freezes. I had to power cycle it. Does this sound like a hardware issue? What can I do to diagnose this issue?

Software: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit

Hardware: Acer Aspire 5517; AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core TK-42, 3GB RAM

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is your screensaver set to go off in 10 minutes? or any other power option like monitor off, hard disk off, or sleep mode set to go off after 10 minutes? – A.Donahue Aug 6 '10 at 16:35
@A.Donahue, good question, I overlooked that. My current power options are, when the laptop is plugged, dim the display after 10 minutes and turn off display after 30 minutes. The freezing only happens occasionally. Thanks. – grokus Aug 6 '10 at 17:28
gotcha, I'm not too familiar with Windows 7 (cuz I'm still stuck on XP lol) maybe you can take a look at the system error logs, might give you a rough estimate of where to start looking – A.Donahue Aug 6 '10 at 18:52
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To follow up on A.Donahue's suggestions...

  1. Disable your screen saver, then wait for the freeze to happen again
  2. If it does freeze, then change the power options to "always on"

It sounds like one of those will fix the problem. If #1 fixes it, then stop using (or delete) that screen saver. :) If #2 fixes it, then install updated drivers for your monitor.

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