Computer freezing then unfreezing repeatedly

[loopylulu]

Good day,

We went away to a cottage for a week and when I came back and started using the computer it was acting strangely. We just moved to a new house a few weeks back so obviously they had to move my internet. I am not sure whether this is a network issue or a computer hardware issue or software.

I do not get any BSOD's. I have not noticed whether the computer freezes when I am not using the internet. I will be looking out for a pattern.

The screen will freeze, it will not go black it will just freeze, I cannot open any icons on the desktop or do anything on the computer. When I am using youtube it may say the schockwave plugin stopped working, I tried uninstalling the plugins and the player itself and reinstalling but to no effect.

It can last anywhere for 30 seconds to five minutes. Obviously it is very annoying especially if I am playing multiplayer games.

The computer is working right now without freezing and task manager is saying of the 2047 mb of ram, 852 is cached, 833 is available and 16 is free.

cpu usage is between 40 and 50% and all I am doing is running chrome for the most part as well as utorrent. I have stopped most of the programs running in the background. It says there are 52 processes in task manager. In resource monitor I see something called deferred procedure and interrupts appearing near the top of the list in cpu consumption but maybe that is normal. I have no idea. Also wmpnetwk.exe is running.


Any ideas what could be causing this. It was working fine before I left for the cottage.

Thank you.

 

[dodger46]

Try Clean Startup method to isolate a process that could be causing the freezes.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796

And it won't do any harm to check your temps in case something is getting too warm...
http://download.cnet.com/Speccy/3000-2094_4-75181811.html

 

[geraldfryjr]

Usually a bad hard drive or one that is beginning to fail can cause this.

I have had this happen to me a few times.

You can run a drive checker the last one I had do this was working okay but was very slow in responsiveness as the drive checker program verified that it was missing a lot of search hits and then one day out of the blue it just died.

Another one that was with intermittent problems like you had described, I had finally got tired of it and replaced it and the machine worked fine after that.
I later went back to that older drive and reformatted it and did a re-install and it worked for a short time and then died.

FWIW

jer

 

[loopylulu]

Thanks for your help. What is the best drive checker to run, I ran one a few months back after having other problems which eventually went away and there were quite a few bad sectors.

If it is the drive how will I know for sure before it dies?

I am dual booting with xp on one drive and windows 7 on another.

If I have to get a new drive how do I keep all my data from the windows 7 drive because it is a lot in tact.

I am not new to computers but can you possibly explain the easiest way to move all my data to the new drive, remove xp because I do not use it even though it is on the master drive and start all over.

thanks so much

Usually a bad hard drive or one that is beginning to fail can cause this.

I have had this happen to me a few times.

You can run a drive checker the last one I had do this was working okay but was very slow in responsiveness as the drive checker program verified that it was missing a lot of search hits and then one day out of the blue it just died.

Another one that was with intermittent problems like you had described, I had finally got tired of it and replaced it and the machine worked fine after that.
I later went back to that older drive and reformatted it and did a re-install and it worked for a short time and then died.

FWIW

jer

 

[loopylulu]

I tried loading event viewer but it says the MMC could not create the snap-in, this does not make any sense to me. Hoping you can still assist me.

thanks

 

[dodger46]

Don't think the Event Viewer is going to save your Drive! Best advice would be to transfer your personal data from the Win 7 drive, which I understand is the problem one, to the XP drive if it has the capacity. Sooner the better, as failure could occur any time. Then clean install Win 7 to a new drive, transfer your data back to the new drive and format the XP drive to use for storage or whatever.

 

[loopylulu]

Problem is XP is not running properly, that is primarily why I switched to windows 7.
thanks

 

[dodger46]

So just to clarify, Win 7 is on the failing drive but running ok at the moment, and XP is on a good drive but not running properly. Most of your valuable data is on the Win 7 disk. If this is the case, you should try to transfer your data to the XP disk before you lose it, whilst running Win 7. Then we can consider your options, either re-arrange your XP disk to install Win 7 or buy another disk.

 

[geraldfryjr]

I use several different software's I don't remember which one it was but it gave me a healthy status.
And the status slowly got lower and lower and it failed well before it got down to 20% or 30% or so.

It just failed with that familiar loud click and the machine locked up solid while I was watching a Flv video file and it never booted up again !

Yes, Back up or data right away do not wait or suffer the loss.

Sorry, But there are only a few indications like a noisy drive or intermittent and sometimes there are none.

Back in the MS Dos days I had a BIG 80 meg drive fail with a loud Squeeeeal like a jet engine winding down and that one was only a few weeks old!

jer

 

[loopylulu]

Why would my download speeds decrease rapidly when the computer freezes and also why is the mouse still working, the computer freezes but I can control the mouse completely.

thanks.

My xp drive is only 200 gigs and I have at least double that if not triple that I would need to backup if it was a hard drive failure.

It has not gotten any worse or better, about the same, very very frustrating.

Could it be anything else. How can I completely attack this problem?

thanks

I use several different software's I don't remember which one it was but it gave me a healthy status.
And the status slowly got lower and lower and it failed well before it got down to 20% or 30% or so.

It just failed with that familiar loud click and the machine locked up solid while I was watching a Flv video file and it never booted up again !

Yes, Back up or data right away do not wait or suffer the loss.

Sorry, But there are only a few indications like a noisy drive or intermittent and sometimes there are none.

Back in the MS Dos days I had a BIG 80 meg drive fail with a loud Squeeeeal like a jet engine winding down and that one was only a few weeks old!

jer

 

[dodger46]

Recommend you buy a new 1Tb drive ASAP, install Win 7, and transfer all your data from the failing drive before you lose it...

 

[geraldfryjr]

Yes, you will have mouse cursor control as it is not the CPU that is freezing up.

Are you using a USB mouse?

If so go into device manager and make sure that your USB ports power is not going onto Hibernation mode.

I had issues of a intermittent mouse actions and had fought this problem for quite some time.
I don't know what caused it maybe some sort of virus or something.
Even with a fresh install of the OS it eventually kept coming back.

Then I tried the USB power thing and it seemed to have fixed it self.

Since then I have done several re-installs and have never had to change the USB power settings also I don't think that I am using the same hard drive either.
So I really never found out exactly what the cause was anyhow.

Sometimes I could just run Complete Systems Care and the problem would go away as well......For a little while.

Also make sure that your motherboard is free from any dust build up as I have one machine that would BSOD and lock up on me when it got to heavy around the rams.
And a good cleaning fixed it every time.

In fact that very machine was running fine and would not boot up or give anything kind of sign of life the next day the last time I used it.
I had failed to see the cake of dust around the ram slots,So now I am scrounging to find all of the parts to put it back together and give it another try.

But as I had mentioned, I had one that was doing what you described and it just got worse until it quit!
And when I did the last reboot it wouldn't reboot at all or a few times it would give me a desktop but no response after that, But the mouse cursor did work.

A new/old drive fixed it and it is still running today 5 years later.

I just fired up one of my older machines and it seemed a bit sluggish as well and it never used to be.
The transfer rate on that drive is very good at about 42Mbs but it is noisy so I expect that one to fail sometime soon as well.

I suspect the drive because it is a 2.8Ghz P4 with HT and my 2.4Ghz P4 with no HT was performing way better as far as responsiveness goes.

I will try to find the hard drive tester that I use that tells me the hits and misses as this will tell you how bad it is.

You only need to back up the data that is on your OS 200GB drive as it is the only one of concern the rest are not effect as the are just holding data.

Adrive.com is another method that you can use as you can have 50GB of free online storge per account at one email address per account.
Upload is slow but it is free and for free you are limited to 2GB's Per file I just uploaded 5GB's of files last night and it took 5 hours to do so.

 

[loopylulu]

First of all thank you so much for being so helpful. It is very appreciated. I did notice all the usb root hubs were set to power down to save power so I unchecked that and for a while I thought it worked but then it came back. Who knows though maybe that will help.

My question is I noticed my firewall is off and it also says it is blocking all incoming connections not on the allowed list. As I mentioned before when I try to run event viewer it says MMC could not create the snap in, when I try now to run windows firewall it says the same thing. Could this be the product or cause of what is happening.

How do I fix it so I can run event viewer and firewall etc....I tried googling that message about the MMC but I could not find a proper answer.

thanks again.

Yes, you will have mouse cursor control as it is not the CPU that is freezing up.

Are you using a USB mouse?

If so go into device manager and make sure that your USB ports power is not going onto Hibernation mode.

I had issues of a intermittent mouse actions and had fought this problem for quite some time.
I don't know what caused it maybe some sort of virus or something.
Even with a fresh install of the OS it eventually kept coming back.

Then I tried the USB power thing and it seemed to have fixed it self.

Since then I have done several re-installs and have never had to change the USB power settings also I don't think that I am using the same hard drive either.
So I really never found out exactly what the cause was anyhow.

Sometimes I could just run Complete Systems Care and the problem would go away as well......For a little while.

Also make sure that your motherboard is free from any dust build up as I have one machine that would BSOD and lock up on me when it got to heavy around the rams.
And a good cleaning fixed it every time.

In fact that very machine was running fine and would not boot up or give anything kind of sign of life the next day the last time I used it.
I had failed to see the cake of dust around the ram slots,So now I am scrounging to find all of the parts to put it back together and give it another try.

But as I had mentioned, I had one that was doing what you described and it just got worse until it quit!
And when I did the last reboot it wouldn't reboot at all or a few times it would give me a desktop but no response after that, But the mouse cursor did work.

A new/old drive fixed it and it is still running today 5 years later.

I just fired up one of my older machines and it seemed a bit sluggish as well and it never used to be.
The transfer rate on that drive is very good at about 42Mbs but it is noisy so I expect that one to fail sometime soon as well.

I suspect the drive because it is a 2.8Ghz P4 with HT and my 2.4Ghz P4 with no HT was performing way better as far as responsiveness goes.

I will try to find the hard drive tester that I use that tells me the hits and misses as this will tell you how bad it is.

You only need to back up the data that is on your OS 200GB drive as it is the only one of concern the rest are not effect as the are just holding data.

Adrive.com is another method that you can use as you can have 50GB of free online storge per account at one email address per account.
Upload is slow but it is free and for free you are limited to 2GB's Per file I just uploaded 5GB's of files last night and it took 5 hours to do so.

 

[loopylulu]

I have been running the computer now for fifteen minutes and it is not doing what it was, it seems to still freeze but for much less time, I am on ted.com watching some videos and it freezes for a short while, it also switches from high def to low resolution over and over which is strange. This is after I did what you said about the usb power and I also turned on windows firewall.

Any thoughts?

It seems to be better than it was but not back to normal.

Yes, you will have mouse cursor control as it is not the CPU that is freezing up.

Are you using a USB mouse?

If so go into device manager and make sure that your USB ports power is not going onto Hibernation mode.

I had issues of a intermittent mouse actions and had fought this problem for quite some time.
I don't know what caused it maybe some sort of virus or something.
Even with a fresh install of the OS it eventually kept coming back.

Then I tried the USB power thing and it seemed to have fixed it self.

Since then I have done several re-installs and have never had to change the USB power settings also I don't think that I am using the same hard drive either.
So I really never found out exactly what the cause was anyhow.

Sometimes I could just run Complete Systems Care and the problem would go away as well......For a little while.

Also make sure that your motherboard is free from any dust build up as I have one machine that would BSOD and lock up on me when it got to heavy around the rams.
And a good cleaning fixed it every time.

In fact that very machine was running fine and would not boot up or give anything kind of sign of life the next day the last time I used it.
I had failed to see the cake of dust around the ram slots,So now I am scrounging to find all of the parts to put it back together and give it another try.

But as I had mentioned, I had one that was doing what you described and it just got worse until it quit!
And when I did the last reboot it wouldn't reboot at all or a few times it would give me a desktop but no response after that, But the mouse cursor did work.

A new/old drive fixed it and it is still running today 5 years later.

I just fired up one of my older machines and it seemed a bit sluggish as well and it never used to be.
The transfer rate on that drive is very good at about 42Mbs but it is noisy so I expect that one to fail sometime soon as well.

I suspect the drive because it is a 2.8Ghz P4 with HT and my 2.4Ghz P4 with no HT was performing way better as far as responsiveness goes.

I will try to find the hard drive tester that I use that tells me the hits and misses as this will tell you how bad it is.

You only need to back up the data that is on your OS 200GB drive as it is the only one of concern the rest are not effect as the are just holding data.

Adrive.com is another method that you can use as you can have 50GB of free online storge per account at one email address per account.
Upload is slow but it is free and for free you are limited to 2GB's Per file I just uploaded 5GB's of files last night and it took 5 hours to do so.

 

[loopylulu]

Well it is freezing again so now what?

I tried running hijackthis to post a log on the internet but after it scans it had a problem with the hosts file, said I had abnormally large number of hijacked domains and could not find the log file to create. I tried running advanced features of windows firewall and it says the same thing when I try to run event viewer, it says MMC could not create the snap in.

Any ideas?

thanks again, sorry to bug you so much but this is extremely frustrating.

Yes, you will have mouse cursor control as it is not the CPU that is freezing up.

Are you using a USB mouse?

If so go into device manager and make sure that your USB ports power is not going onto Hibernation mode.

I had issues of a intermittent mouse actions and had fought this problem for quite some time.
I don't know what caused it maybe some sort of virus or something.
Even with a fresh install of the OS it eventually kept coming back.

Then I tried the USB power thing and it seemed to have fixed it self.

Since then I have done several re-installs and have never had to change the USB power settings also I don't think that I am using the same hard drive either.
So I really never found out exactly what the cause was anyhow.

Sometimes I could just run Complete Systems Care and the problem would go away as well......For a little while.

Also make sure that your motherboard is free from any dust build up as I have one machine that would BSOD and lock up on me when it got to heavy around the rams.
And a good cleaning fixed it every time.

In fact that very machine was running fine and would not boot up or give anything kind of sign of life the next day the last time I used it.
I had failed to see the cake of dust around the ram slots,So now I am scrounging to find all of the parts to put it back together and give it another try.

But as I had mentioned, I had one that was doing what you described and it just got worse until it quit!
And when I did the last reboot it wouldn't reboot at all or a few times it would give me a desktop but no response after that, But the mouse cursor did work.

A new/old drive fixed it and it is still running today 5 years later.

I just fired up one of my older machines and it seemed a bit sluggish as well and it never used to be.
The transfer rate on that drive is very good at about 42Mbs but it is noisy so I expect that one to fail sometime soon as well.

I suspect the drive because it is a 2.8Ghz P4 with HT and my 2.4Ghz P4 with no HT was performing way better as far as responsiveness goes.

I will try to find the hard drive tester that I use that tells me the hits and misses as this will tell you how bad it is.

You only need to back up the data that is on your OS 200GB drive as it is the only one of concern the rest are not effect as the are just holding data.

Adrive.com is another method that you can use as you can have 50GB of free online storge per account at one email address per account.
Upload is slow but it is free and for free you are limited to 2GB's Per file I just uploaded 5GB's of files last night and it took 5 hours to do so.

 

[ddpruitt]

No offense but I've found that most people running any sort of Torrent software have a lot of malware on their systems.

If someone were paying me to fix the system I would boot of an anti-virus rescue disc and scan the system first (memories fuzzy but I believe Microsoft Security Essentials is available for XP, it's to use and it covers most items).

Second thing I'd do is update everything

Finally, leave the firewall on, it's there for a reason.

These steps may not fix the problem but they'll get rid of a lot other possibilities quick.

 

[geraldfryjr]

Yes. the very reason that I only use linux when on the Bit Torrents.

The other day I was using windows to just search around on one and miss clicked on something and I found 3 or 4 files that some how got installed.
These three or so files were causing my CPU usage to go through the roof and averaged above 50% with no apps running!

In my case I have never used the firewall or virus software or anything.
I have the firewall that is built into my router and that is it.

If for any case that I start having issues I just reload the OS.
Yes it is a PITA but it is easier than dealing with the problems or trying to figure them out.

The only time that I do use a antivirus software is to clean the system as a last resort and if it works I take it back off and go with it.
I am using some older machines so I don't have the extra horsepower to not notice them running.

I'm not ruling out any hardware issues but it does sound like it is more of a software problem.

I had the same problems for almost two years with two or three different machines and the two things that did help was the USB power setting and sometimes running Complete Systems Care from IOBit.

Now recently I am running those very same machines and the very same software and the very same version of XP that I have been using on all of them and the intermittent mouse lockups have not occurred yet in over a year or two now.

Lately I have also reloaded them many many many time since then as well, do to swapping out different hardware and drives as I believe in a clean install after I have chosen a certain configuration.

I am no programmer but I do know that there is no software of any kind that can take out some of those malwares and rootkits once they do get installed..

Anyway I never found out what it was causing the issues I had and it seems that you are having the same one I had went through as well.

The one machine that I have that I mentioned seems to maybe have the very same issue, and, is the only one I have not started from square one because it has Adobe Premier Pro 2 installed on it.
It is the only program that will run my Matrox video digitizer card and I don't have the master cd's for it.

When I got that machine it was 100 times worse with the symptoms that we are describing and some how with a lot of patients and probing I had somehow brought that machine back to life again to a working order.
I don't use it much so I had forgotten about that it might just have the same issues that we are discussing.

As I had mentioned that the transfer rate on that drive is great but it is noisy so I wrote it off as a failing drive but it still works.

I have had many other drives in that machine and it performs as it should otherwise.
The person I got it from had it on Torrents as well and it was very ill when I got it.

I just recently got a copy Adobe PP2 so if I can get it to work in another machine then I can still use my Matrox card.
Only then I will start that machine from scratch and until then that drive has to stay untouched for now.
As I would like to get back in there and see if I can find out what is causing these problems as well.
I have about 8 machines that I mess with every step of CPU's along the way from the very first Intel's to AMD's to some more recent ones, Also is the reason I am swapping stuff once in a while.

I have also used Super Anti Spyware too it works pretty good.
You may have to use a few different ones in order to solve the problem,but the idea is to find out what it is that is causing it in the first place.
As the only place this seems to be going is do a fresh install in order to see if the drive is even bad at all!


jer