When I manually activate the "Stand By" on my PC, it goes to the stand by page, displays the Windows XP logo and the subject message and then hangs. The mouse still moves, but is of no use. The alt-ctl-del combination does no good (apparently the keyboard is locked?) There are no error messages. Nothing happens. The machine is still running (has not powered anything down) and can only be unhung by pressing the reset or start buttons.
This used to be an "every once in awhile" (once every 2 or 3 months) occurrence, but the last week has been really bad. Last weekend I installed a whole bunch of Windows XP update, the Norton Internet Security Suite and several anti-spyware/anti-adware programs. I also got a cable modem two weeks ago. I cleaned out a bunch of spyware/adware junk with the help of Bazooka Spyware Scanner. I've tried disabling both the Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet security programs as well as the resident Spyware Blaster programs, but this does no good.
However, it doesn't address your problem, so the first thing to check is if you have all Windows Updates installed, and that you haven't got a 3D screen saver operating.
Work through this article, to make sure you have Windows configured correctly:
