Media causes computer to go into standby mode

[emyn]

I've had this strange problem that seems to have gotten worse over the last month or so. The short version is that every time I tried to watch a movie or video or even do some editing, my computer would stop running after a varied amount of time, and go into standby mode.

When it first started happening, it was just while watching movies on Netflix. I thought it was an issue with Silverlight, so I uninstalled Silverlight. Problem kept occurring.

Then it started happening on YouTube if I was watching something longer than 10 minutes or so. I would pause the video every few minutes, and that seemed to help for a while. But that didn't last too long, and now I can only watch something for maybe a few minutes at most.

Now I can't even edit using Adobe Premiere, because scrolling through video clips will cause the computer to go into standby mode.

When it first started happening, an audio loop would occur and wouldn't stop until I did a hard restart. Now, the audio will actually continue normally, until I do the hard restart.

I have McAfee Total Protection and it doesn't see anything wrong.
I ran Malwarebytes and it removed a few threats, but the problem continued.
I ran a computer cleaner, and the problem continued.
I run the computer in Safemode and the speakers are disabled, my second monitor is disabled, but I can watch media and edit without a problem.

I have a Dell computer that is maybe 4 years old tops, and I just replaced the hard drive a year ago. Running Windows 7, and I have dual monitors. I don't know any other specs off the top of my head.


[I'm not sure if this is a hardware problem, or a driver problem, so I'm posting in both places. I hope that's ok.]

[emyn]

I've had this strange problem that seems to have gotten worse over the last month or so. The short version is that every time I tried to watch a movie or video or even do some editing, my computer would stop running after a varied amount of time, and go into standby mode.

When it first started happening, it was just while watching movies on Netflix. I thought it was an issue with Silverlight, so I uninstalled Silverlight. Problem kept occurring.

Then it started happening on YouTube if I was watching something longer than 10 minutes or so. I would pause the video every few minutes, and that seemed to help for a while. But that didn't last too long, and now I can only watch something for maybe a few minutes at most.

Now I can't even edit using Adobe Premiere, because scrolling through video clips will cause the computer to go into standby mode.

When it first started happening, an audio loop would occur and wouldn't stop until I did a hard restart. Now, the audio will actually continue normally, until I do the hard restart.

I have McAfee Total Protection and it doesn't see anything wrong.
I ran Malwarebytes and it removed a few threats, but the problem continued.
I ran a computer cleaner, and the problem continued.
I run the computer in Safemode and the speakers are disabled, my second monitor is disabled, but I can watch media and edit without a problem.

I have a Dell computer that is maybe 4 years old tops, and I just replaced the hard drive a year ago. Running Windows 7, and I have dual monitors. I don't know any other specs off the top of my head.


[I'm not sure if this is a hardware problem, or a driver problem, so I'm posting in both places. I hope that's ok.]

[Geek-9pm]

No need to  double post.
Is this Windows 7 64 bit?
You should not lose sound in safe mode. It may be  an attack on your drivers.
Do you have another PC that can be used to download and make a rescue CD?
You may want o consider this a virus  attack. The fact that your AV did not catch it is not conclusive. 
Before you do anything, wait for instructions from somebody better qualified than myself. Hopefully you already have  a data  backup plan in place.

[Calum]

Welcome to the forums!

When you say your computer goes into standby mode, does the PC keep running, as in the fans continue turning, but the monitor just goes into standby?  If so, it sounds like a graphics related problem, probably a driver issue but potentially hardware related.  Basically, if it runs in safe mode fine then the problem is only occurring when the graphics drivers are loaded.
My advice would be to uninstall your graphics drivers completely, then reinstall the latest version - but to tell you exactly how to do so, we'll need the rest of your specifications.
Speccy is a great tool to get your system specifications easily, if you could run that and post the results that would be a great help and we can then advise you further.

Also, losing sound in safe mode is entirely normal as the Windows audio service is disabled in safe mode.  I don't see anything here to indicate this is a malware issue, I've dealt with this issue literally hundreds of times and it's more than likely to be driver related with a small possibility of a hardware fault.

[patio]

We will need to see the Specs on the PC...
P.S. What are you monitoring your Temps with ?

[emyn]

Yeah, the fans keep going but the monitors just shut down and nothing works to bring it back from sleep mode.  I have a bunch of my install CDs but I'm not sure which one to use to reinstall my drivers. Will doing a reinstall wipe everything out, like when I replaced my harddrive? I'm backing everything up just in case.

I ran Speccy and here's what it said:

Operating System
   Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
   Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80GHz   51 °C
   Lynnfield 45nm Technology
RAM
   6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 664MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
   Dell Inc. 0T568R (CPU 1)   22 °C
Graphics
   DELL ST2210 (1920x1080@60Hz)
   1024MB GeForce GT 220 (nVidia)
Hard Drives
   932GB Seagate ST31000524AS (SATA)   33 °C
Optical Drives
   HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GH50N
Audio
   High Definition Audio Device

[Calum]

Backing up everything is a good idea regardless.  Your graphics card is an Nvidia - click here to download the driver package, and save it - don't run it yet.  Go to Computer, Uninstall or change a program, then remove anything that says Nvidia by it, and reboot the PC.  Now open the driver package you downloaded, select Custom install rather than Express or default, and check the box that says clean install.  Let the drivers finish installing, then reboot the PC again.
This performs a clean install of the Nvidia drivers, and may well help.  It will not affect anything stored on the hard drive such as programs or documents, you won't lose anything.

[emyn]

i uninstalled the drivers and did the clean install as recommended. i thought evertything was working again, but now there's a new problem.

I still can't watch media, and instead of my computer going into standby mode, it just restarts completely. i tried going back into safe mode, but it freezes strying to load a driver called something like CLASSPNP.SYS

Then when I do a hard shut down, it runs system recovery and restarts normally.  it's been doing this on a loop for the last hour or so

I coudn't even type this reply on the compurter, I'm on my phone

Help??

[emyn]

Operating System
   Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
   Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80GHz   51 °C
   Lynnfield 45nm Technology
RAM
   6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 664MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
   Dell Inc. 0T568R (CPU 1)   22 °C
Graphics
   DELL ST2210 (1920x1080@60Hz)
   1024MB GeForce GT 220 (nVidia)
Hard Drives
   932GB Seagate ST31000524AS (SATA)   33 °C
Optical Drives
   HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GH50N
Audio
   High Definition Audio Device

[emyn]

After following Calum's suggestion to uninstall/reinstal my graphics drivers, this started happening:


"i uninstalled the drivers and did the clean install as recommended. i thought evertything was working again, but now there's a new problem.

I still can't watch media, and instead of my computer going into standby mode, it just restarts completely. i tried going back into safe mode, but it freezes strying to load a driver called something like CLASSPNP.SYS

Then when I do a hard shut down, it runs system recovery and restarts normally.  it's been doing this on a loop for the last hour or so

I coudn't even type this reply on the compurter, I'm on my phone

Help?? "

[Calum]

So you can boot into Windows, after doing a system recovery, but then the system reboots when watching media after that?
Insert your Windows 7 disk, go to start - type cmd - right click on cmd.exe and click run as administrator.  Type "sfc /scannow" without quotes, and let it run through.  Restart afterwards and see if this helps.
If not, you may be at the point where you need to consider a repair install, or reinstall of Windows.  I suspect system file corruption, possibly caused by a bad driver/driver failure which may in turn be the fault of a graphics card on its way out.
I've linked to an excellent guide on performing a repair install, this will not lose your data or programs.

[Allan]

You had two threads on the same topic and all that does is cause confusion and duplication of efforts. I've merged them into one thread.

[emyn]

I tried to run the sf scan and my computer restarted after a few minutes. Now it keeps restarting/freezing repeatedly and I can't do anything. I can't get to my desktop to run the repair or anything

Am I completely SOL?

[Calum]

If you have already managed to back up your files, boot from the Windows 7 CD and do a clean install.  If not, boot from it and do an install but don't format the disk or remove any partitions.  Your old Windows installation will be kept in a folder called windows.old - all your user files will be in here, so you won't lose your documents, music etc.