windows xp home hangs (but mouse still moves)

[omermaras]

hi folks,

we have this problem.. suddenly our win xp home system stops responding, you cannot alt+tab or click on anything - mouse still moves around, keyboard numlock etc. lights can be switched on an off, but on the screen nothing changes. nothing you click on opens you cannot ctrl+alt+del to the task manager
and you have to restart the system.
after rebooting, however, our database user which was logged onto a server appears as locked (saying we are already logged in). we can log on as a different user, but to use the normal user we need to restart the program on the server..

what could be our problem, and how could we solve this??

thanks for any help,!

om

 

[Ijack]

How long do you leave it when doing the ctrl+alt+del? If some program is hogging the system it could take a few minutes to respond. The fact that the keyboard leds still work means, to me, that Windows is still running.

Try leaving it for 5 mins or so to respond to the ctrl+alt+del; if it does eventually respond you can use task manager to narrow the search, if not then it probably is a true lock-up.

Another thing that you could try would be to create a new user and see if you get the same behaviour when logged in as that new user.

Another thing to try would be to shut down the server when the PC locks up. If this frees the lockup then it's somehow related to your database. Or you could even try using the PC with the server switched off to see if it still locks up.

 

[omermaras]

thanks ijack!!
1-we'll try your first suggestion.
3-the server works fine for other users on the same network, and for a different user on the same machine (but when it "stucks" again, this "different user" login also gets locked)
2-about your 2nd suggestion - actually, we had some problems with the normal user on this win xp home machine, and created a new user for it (and copied as much of the files under the folder of the old user in the "documents and settings" folder under this new user - could that be the problem??)

oh, and my friend just said that after waiting for about 1 hour (using the server through a different user) his old user account got "unlocked" and he can use his old account now..

thanks!!

 

[Ijack]

I doubt that copying the users "documents and settings" is causing this - I'm sure that I've done this in the past without problems. But it wouldn't do any harm to try creating a new user from scratch without copying anything. If you still get a problem with the new user then it points to something other than an account problem.

I'm not surprised that the database server eventually releases the lock on the user. I'm sure most database servers would do this to cope with just the sort of situation that you have.

I suspect that the answer to your problem is not going to be trivial! You don't mention, and I didn't ask, whether you've recently installed any new software on this PC - if so, well the implication is obvious.

Good luck with your search!