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As the title says, my Dell Latitude E6420 which is running Windows 10 Pro, has been randomly locking. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing on the laptop or whether I'm not even using it. It will suddenly and very briefly display a blue screen that says "Locking" and then seems to simply go into what I believe is a hibernation state?

I simply press the power button and the system, I'm assuming wakes up again and I'm right back to where I was; either in the middle of working or if this occurred while unattended, back to the desktop. I've ran system hardware diagnostics at start up and everything passed. I've ran several test to determine if my system RAM is bad and they have all passed. I've removed and replaced the Ram as well with no change. I've tried an extensive list of system sleep/hibernate and power settings with no success. I have also tried many registry tweaks to prevent the system from sleeping to no avail (I reset the registry back to it's defaults). I've tried my best to scour the Windows Event Viewer and have only ran down a multitude of rabbit holes.

I've recently added some snap-ins to the Microsoft Management Console to hopefully gain some better insight into the systems locking events. I've yet to experience anything from that yet.

This has been going on for about two months. I've just about accepted defeat at this point so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

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  • Do any events (eventvwr.msc) occur around the time when it starts "locking"?
    – Albin
    Commented Aug 28, 2020 at 20:05
  • There are events that take place when the "locking" has taken place. The first to come up as an "error" was Under Administrative Events. WindowsUpdateClient Event ID: 20 The other was Windows 10 error ID:69 app model runtime I believed I've fixed both of these issues but for the life of me I can't see a correlation between these and the system going in to a locking state. I've done my best to track these events and then rectify each as I go. None that I've fixed have changed anything though. It would help if I knew my way around the Event Viewer better. Lol
    – Nick Moore
    Commented Aug 28, 2020 at 22:20
  • Can you make a screenshot of the log list(s)? The timing of the events in correlation to the "locking" is more important then anything else. Also if you a are going into some kind hibernation, there should be a event for that too, I think in the system log.
    – Albin
    Commented Aug 29, 2020 at 8:37
  • I'll make a screenshot of the event viewer log list the next time the system goes into its locking state and I'm here sitting at it. Thank You
    – Nick Moore
    Commented Aug 30, 2020 at 2:57

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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First, upgrade the BIOS and Power Management driver for your specific machine.

Now go to Windows Power Management settings. I suggest you use Suspend and not use Hibernate or Hybrid sleep. Hibernation has had more than its fair share of issues.

Having set to Suspend, set the Suspend time (completely idle time) of 30 minutes or 1 hour.

Restart to make sure the settings take effect.

Now check that the machine does not suspend on its own if you are using it. You may have a battery issue.

Set as above works very well for me. I know my battery is good.

If these things do not work, try creating a new operating system on a new disk.

This will help divide the problem in two between operating system (new install does not fail) or hardware (new install fails the same way).

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  • Thank you for the assistance. My BIOS is as updated as it can be, at least that I've found on the Dell site. I've implemented the changes you suggested already and so far they haven't changed anything. Like you suggested, I also replaced the battery with a new one about a month ago and still no change. Lol This is literally one of the most difficult issues I've personally dealt with on my own system.
    – Nick Moore
    Commented Aug 28, 2020 at 22:25
  • Do you have a spare drive? Try loading another operating system (not a clone of what you have) and see if the new system causes the same issue.
    – anon
    Commented Aug 28, 2020 at 22:30
  • Unfortunately I don't. But that's a good suggestion. At this point and because I'm stubborn, I'll buy another drive and do a fresh install a windows 10 and see what happens! Lol Thank You
    – Nick Moore
    Commented Aug 28, 2020 at 22:34

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