STRAT Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Hi guys, been suffering 1 or 2 niggling probs over the last day or 3, wonder if anyone can shed any light? first off, (and since i installed a windows update yesterday) my windows wont shut down properly. it just stays on the blue logging out screen, even though i can freely move the mouse cursor. how is this resolved? secondly, my pc will randomly hand and completely pause for 5 or 6 seconds, then resume as normal without data loss. this really is frustrating. it's be fine for 2 or 3 mins then completely hang again, then kick in again after a few seconds. it doesn't seem to effect any thing though. i can even be in mid-burn of a dvd when it hangs and the finished dvd comes out working perfectly. again, any ideas? i've tried all the virus checks, scandsk and defrag options, and i generally keep my machine clean and clutter free. personally sounds like a faulty C drive to me, but then, maybe it's a software problem instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Make sure all that data is backed up... Im sure you have all of it backed up anyway, but a double check might be in order.... just in case. Frequent hangs can be disk failure, but they can also mean software glitches as well.. programs not fully shutting themselves down on shut down etc.. Im sure one of the other more system savvy guys will come up with some more ideas soon.. Have a look thru this... just to see if you recognize anything.. http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1201930,00.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newdirection Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Try disabling the antivirus service. The brand new machine I built yesterday was displaying similar problems shutting down and freezing. I have applied all Windows updates. It turned out to be the version of Symantec I was running (perhaps specifically with the /3GB switch applied). In fact I've had to uninstall it. Everything works absolutely fine now. Course it could be something else but AV is a good one to start with because it's a constantly running process. It's then about dividing and ruling out services, checking event logs etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 16, 2007 Author Share Posted August 16, 2007 the running processes i'm using are AVG antivirus and 1 or 2 other minor backround trogen detectors. i'll disable them and see what happens. thanks chaps, and a usefull site the Andy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigroo Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Maybe try a system restore to a point before the troubles started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 16, 2007 Author Share Posted August 16, 2007 again, this i will also try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Our IT guys turned us on to a great little freeware ap. called cCleaner. It goes in and cleans up your systems, removes all unused files from your computer and goes in and cleans up all the leftover bogus stuff in your registry. Its a good program to run occasionally in general but it also helped the last time I was hanging to clean up the problem. best of all like I said it's freeware, no ads or spyware or otherwise come with it... http://www.ccleaner.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 16, 2007 Author Share Posted August 16, 2007 cheers brian, cc is one of my regulars anyway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Have the TaskMan open while you're working, with CPU usage from 100% down displaying (versus by name or memory usage). When the computer has it's 'senior moment' look at what processes are using up all the cycles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 16, 2007 Author Share Posted August 16, 2007 When the computer has it's 'senior moment' look at what processes are using up all the cycles. i prefer to call it 'senile moment' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 17, 2007 Author Share Posted August 17, 2007 any more ideas? basically, the whole system completely freezes for several seconds, then continues as if nothing happened. i'm completely virus clean and run as many other s/w tests as i could think of. tried re-store points, did a major de-frag (which took overnight), removed windows updates etc etc. if it is the motherboard or maybe a power supply or other hardware problem, how can i test this, as i'm sure it aint a s/w problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigroo Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 cheers brian, cc is one of my regulars anyway Mine too, it's a great little free app. As for the freezing issue, I can't help any more than my puny input but just to say that my new pc locks up at any given time and doesn't come out of it. I have to do a soft reset to get things going again. Nt much help but I can at least empathise with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1180488151 http://www.hdtune.com/ http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30471590/computer-freezing.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 any more ideas? You didn't say what you learned (if anything) from the TaskManager when the pause occurs. I would doubt a powersupply problem, even most HW issues because there isn't a crash or data loss. The hard-drive is a suspect, of course. If the machine is on 'system idle process' at 99% when the pause happens, it would suggest the hard drive is the problem. Or, it may show a process that is eating up all the cycles. I find that FireFox has a nasty habit of consuming too much memory and CPU clicks, so I close it and re-start. Occasionally, the FF process is still running even after I've closed the program, so I have to 'end process tree' from TaskMan. Also, sometimes Acrobat, if launched from within FF (reading a document from a webpage), will not terminate and still be sucking cycles up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 17, 2007 Author Share Posted August 17, 2007 sorry Ernest. at the exact point of freeze up, the task manager showed a blip of 99-100% disk usage. just a blip, but its there. this is also when there's no aplications running and im just hovering around the desktop. but how can a hard drive literally freeze up the system? my system isn't idling from the hard drive. it sounds more to me like a processor or mother board problem. but then, i know nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 The OS needs to check the HD for bits it needs, if the HD is unavailable it could cause a pause. When I'm moving a large volume of data from my HD to an external HD for back-up, the system gets slowed down, but then I know why. How fragmented is your disc? RAID settings get bunged? The fact that you are not suffering crashes or damage strongly suggests the HD. I wonder if booting from a WinOS CD would tell you anything, since the OS would be looking to the CD and not the HD for its operations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 17, 2007 Author Share Posted August 17, 2007 How fragmented is your disc? RAID settings get bunged? i did a full safe-mode de-frag the 2 nights ago (took several hours though ) RAID settings? dont know about that bit The fact that you are not suffering crashes or damage strongly suggests the HD. I wonder if booting from a WinOS CD would tell you anything, since the OS would be looking to the CD and not the HD for its operations. aye, not crashes, just complete pauses/freezes for 7 or 8 seconds every minute or so. absolutely no data loss. i've even been mid dvd-burn which paused, but the dvd works fine. I've downloaded some HD testers i'll run tonight. if they pass i'll take my pc to a shop to get the hardware properly tested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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