Unlock Computer takes a full minute!

When I step away from my desk, I always lock my computer. Upon returning and unlocking the computer, though, for a full minute all I see is my desktop walpaper, no taskbar, no icons, etc. After a minute or so, everything comes back, but the delay is really annoying.

I'm fully patched, and tried re-installing sp1a, just for the heck of it. I tried removing the computer from the domain and rejoining it as well, and that didn't help either. Tried removing and recreating my swap file as well.

I've searched Microsoft's Knowledgebase to no avail.

Any ideas?

TIA

-loach

 

How much RAM do you have, and what are you running on your system?

Any messages in your EventLog?

 

This is my work computer and it's a Dell Dimension 4550 with 512MB RAM, 2.66Ghz P4, Intel 845PE Chipset, GeForce4MX Video, etc... It's joined to an Win2k AD Domain. Unusual software running:

Yahoo Messenger
SQL Server Service Manager / SQL Server Services are not started
WinAmp Agent / Winamp
McAfee VirusScan v4.5.1
Cisco VPN Service
IIS (Web and IIS admin)

There is one other machine in the office that is configured identically and it does not suffer the same problems.

I checked the Event logs and do not see any problem there. I went to Dell's website and updated drivers for everything (chipset, sound, monitor, video, network), still no improvement.

I removed my machine from the domain and still had problems. I have since re-added it.

I probably waste 5-10 minutes a day waiting for this thing to unlock. If I spend 2-3 hours rebuilding it, I could recoup that time in a few weeks. If I can't get this figured out in the next week or so, I'll probably do that.

Thanks in Advance for any other ideas!

-loach

 

Just curious...how do you lock it? Winkey and L? or another way?

Also, has it always done this, or is it a relatively new problem? If it is a new one, did anything significant happen before it started delaying your desktop?

Johanna

 

Usually with CTRL-ALT-DEL + ENTER, but it does the same thing if I use WinKey+L

For a short time after I got the machine, it did not do it, but it wasn't long before it began doing it. The problem is, this was just as I was installing software and getting it configured the way I like it. If one of those many things I did caused the problem, I have no idea which one it may have been.

It's probably something simple, but at the same time, it appears that it's a fairly unique problem. I've been unable to find any reference to a similar problem anywhere.

I'm going to play with a packet sniffer and perfmon to see if I can figure out what it's doing while it's attempting to unlock. I'll post the results.

thanks!

 

It sounds like the PC is recovering from hibernation or standby rather than from a simple lock. Not sure exactly how that could be happening but if it is, it will surely account for the lag. In control panel~power options

- If you have hibernation enabled on the PC, try disabling it.

- Set the hard disk to never power down and standby to never happen.

See if this speeds things up for you.

Another thing that causes strange delays but normally on startup/logon is to restore network drive mappings. Again, no idea why a simple lock would cause the mappings to need to be re-established but you might try removing all mapped drives and see if that makes a difference.

I'll admit I'm reaching on all the above items but as you noted, this is an unusual problem so maybe calls for unusual troubleshooting.

 

Thanks for the ideas!

I turned off hibernation. All other power management was already off. That didn't do it. I then unmapped all network drives and that didn't seem to help either.

Late yesterday I tried determining if there was unusual processor or network activity while ulocking, but perfmon did not yield any new clues.

I've also tried clearing out the system tray and stopping every non-critical service and got my process list down to 19. That didn't do it either...

Lastly, since I last posted, I ran SpyBot:Search & Destroy, but that didn't help either.

-Loach

 

Does the Cisco VPN client install its own GINA or are you running any other network clients like NetWare? May be the Cisco GINA is not 100% compatible with XP? Is there a later version?

 

I'm not sure what a GINA is, but it's v3.6.3. Unfortunately it was installed by one of our clients (who's network we're accessing)who insisted on performing the install himself (certificate management) and Cisco does not make the client available for download. Checking their website, though, it says that v3.1 or higher should work with XP.

I only connect a few times a week and I have tried shutting it's services down with no effect.