Taskbar, desktop and windows become unclickable

I've had a Windows 8.1 laptop (Acer) for a couple of months now. As of yesterday it's started to become unresponsive after an undefined period (say, 10 minutes) of unuse. So, when I turn on the computer, everything works fine. After I've left it alone for a while, I come back to it and find that the taskbar, desktop, and all windows buttons (minimize, maximize, close) have become unclickable, though other things (e.g. the tabs in Firefox) are still clickable. If I shut the computer down and restart it it's ok again, until it happens again.

This started yesterday: I hadn't installed any new programs yesterday. Any one else had this problem, or know of a way to fix it?

Thanks!

I would start with a complete scan using MBAM

Thanks -- actually the one thing I did do yesterday, just before the problem occurred, was a complete scan with MBAM. It only discovered one issue: suptab.dll, which I quarantined. I will run another scan now.

Ok, I've completed a scan, no threats were found.

If the MBAM action was just before the weirdness happened there's a chance it caused it. I would run a Restore Point if you have one from before the first scan. See if you get the clicking back to normal.

This is an old but good technique: try running it in Safe Mode to see if your computer gets unresponsive with just running Windows programs....
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2757-safe-mode-start-windows-8-a.html

By the way, does your harddrive go crazy when it's unresponsive? I've had this. A quick shutdown and reboot cleared that up somehow.

Thinking about it, sounds like your problem is some service starting when the computer is idle... but when you get back to it, this program keeps on running, preventing you from doing what you want.

Try shutting off Windows Index service.
1. go to Run window by pressing the Windows Key + R
2. type in services.msc
3. go to Windows Search, at the bottom.
4. Double click on the line and change 'startup type' to Manual or Disable.

p.s. It would probably be good if you click on the line and in the upper left of the window click on 'Stop Service', to make sure that this is stopped.

If the Restore Point enables clicking try to uninstall suptab manually using Programs and Features.