Vista guest keyboard freezes

[jswdb]

Running:
- Linux: Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 Host (64-bit)
- VirtualBox 2.2.4
- Windows Vista guest (32-bit), Guest Additions installed and working

Symptoms:
After "some" idle time (30 min or so), the keyboard freezes inside the VM. The mouse can still be used.
If I run Vista in a window, then I can minimize the VM-window, then restore the VM-window and clicking in the VM I can now again use the keyboard (= workaround).
However, when I run Vista in full-screen mode and my keyboard gets frozen after some idle time, then I can not switch to Linux and try the previous workaround. The only way out is to use the mouse and click the menus to shutdown the Vista-VM. This is not a real workaround if you're editing a document!

This effectively makes my Vista-VM unworkable/unreliable in full-screen mode. My family needs to run in full-screen, else they are confused. For me this is a showstopper to move my Vista (and other Windows-) PCs to VMs.

I have searched extensively through the forums and bug-reports and found no solution or workaround for the full-screen situation.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[Perryg]

Not sure if this will help but, most of the time I see this problem is due to the keyboard being plugged into a USB port. I had the exact same problem until I moved the keyboard to a ps2 port instead.

[jswdb]

Perryg, thanks for your suggestion.
However I do have a PS2 mouse on the system.

[Perryg]

OK so where is the keyboard plugged in? USB, or ps2?

[jswdb]

Plugged into PS2

[Perryg]

Do you have a screen saver running on the guest? This has been a problem in the past and doubt if it has been fixed. If so try turning off the screen saver in the guest and see if it helps.

[jswdb]

That is one of the suggestions I tried when reading through forums and bug lists. So:
- screensaver is disabled in guest and in host
- display power saving options are disabled in the guest

[jstrot]

I'm having the same issue with Vista 64 guest freezing after a while.
I'm running Debian testing/64-bit host on an ASUS G50Vt-X1 laptop.

The VM is accessing the raw partition of my disk where Vista Home Premium 64 was installed by Asus.
Everything worked out of the box except I had to move the VM disk to SATA port 0 due to Vista's IDE driver being disabled.

VT is enabled.