PC freeze out

[Profit Seeker]

Wonder if anyone can help. Lately my pc has been completely freezing after it's been on a few hours. It's regularly cleared of spyware etc and I have a good anti virus. When it freezes, nothing moves, ctrl-alt-delte has no effect, reset is the only way. It's peeing me off now as it likes to do it everytime I've got a cracking hand playing poker! Thanks

[GlosRFC]

Could be a number of things. As a starter, what OS are you using? Have you installed anything recently that might've caused the freeze-up? Is there a TSR that's loaded in your Startup group?

When did you last defragment your HD? This can also cause your PC to freeze if your HD becomes heavily fragmented.

[Profit Seeker]

XP. Recently installed Morpheus but it's not been used much. I'll try a defrag, hasn't had one for a while, thanks. What's a TSR?

[GlosRFC]

TSR = Terminate & Stay Ready program. It's an old term from the days of DOS. Nowadays it refers to programs that load into memory and stay there, usually because they're in the Startup group and most of them sit in the System Tray although not all.

Other things to consider:

Do you get any beeps before the PC freezes? Depending on the number of beeps, it could be that your PC is running too hot, the PSU might be on the way out, or there's a glitch with one of your memory modules. The first one, heat, can really mess a computer up so check if it feels hot to the touch when it's been running for a bit. Are the vents blocked or clogged with dust? Is it too close to the wall or desk?

Have you added any hardware such as an extra HD or CD that might require a heavier PSU?

[GlosRFC]

Sorting out a PC freeze is a bit of a problem without physically being able to observe the symptoms but I can give you some general advice that might help.

A PC freeze is caused by one of two things - a program that's misbehaving (usually by not handling memory pages properly), or a hardware fault. In the first instance you need to check the following:

1. What have you installed that now makes the PC freeze?
2. If you uninstall it does the freezing stop?
3. Have you downloaded something that's causing your PC to freeze? E.g. virus, spyware, etc.
4. Can you do a system restore and does this solve the problem?

On the hardware front:

1. A build-up of heat is the primary cause of most PC hardware freezes.
2. Check the fans and the air outlets. Are the fans rotating normally or the ducts blocked?
3. Is there sufficient airflow around the PC or does it feel warmer to the touch?
4. Are the Power Supply Units capable of handling the power required by the PC? Have you added anything that might be causing an additional drain on the power supply?
5. Do you get any strange noises prior to the freeze? E.g. unusual whining noises from the disk drive(s) or diagnostic beeps from the PC. Beeps are helpful but whining suggests that a moving part is failing or has failed.

Sometimes you get a combination of both software and hardware failure:

1. Do you have a RAID setup with more than one hard disk? Sometimes the RAID software can fail.
2. All versions of Windows require greater or lesser amounts of HD space to perform quite basic tasks, e.g. for slaving memory to the HD when you've insufficient physical memory. How much space do you have left on your HD and does a defrag resolve the problem.

As I said, these are just the first questions I'd ask myself but, without seeing the PC in question, it's a bit difficult to resolve from a distance. Hope it helps though.

[Profit Seeker]

Reading your suggestions, I'm quite positive there isn't a hardware fault, pc is fairly enclosed but not round the back where it gets it's air, and it's luke warm so there's no overheating. I'm starting to think it's a memory problem as I get a lack of virtual memory pop up now and then and all the icons on my desktop will flash now and then, and closing things takes ages sometimes.
Thanks for the help.

[sparkyminer]

Depending on the number of beeps, it could be that your PC is running too hot, The first one, heat, can really mess a computer up so check if it feels hot to the touch when it's been running for a bit. Are the vents blocked or clogged with dust? Is it too close to the wall or desk?


This was a problem with mine. It didn't feel hot to touch. Checked the processor cooling, all the vanes were made up with dust, cleaned that and slight improvement, tried everything to sort it to no avail. Bought a new processor fan from PC World, £4.50, It now works perfectly.
Well worth checking, even if it dont feel hot. Be very careful if you dismantle the processor cooling assembly, anti-static precautions etc, etc

[Profit Seeker]

When your pc is processing something, whatever it is, it could be just opening a file, the light flickers and it makes that computer noise. I can't think of anything to relate that noise to, kind of like a train flying along its tracks or something, I dunno :geek Well anyway, when I'm not on the pc or if I am but just reading a page or playing poker or whatever, sometimes, out of nowhere, it starts working like a carthorse as if it's downloading a 50gb file. Then when I want to click on things as normal, everything takes ten times longer, intil it eventually finishes what the hell its doing. Just what IS my pc doing? It always happens, I think it's a standard thing but it drives me crazy, I'm so intrigued to know what it's doing!

[GlosRFC]

It does sound as if you've got a process that's operating in the background. And the flickering light means that it's accessing the hard drive.

First thing I'd do is wait for it to happen again and then hit CTRL-ALT-DEL. Check what processes you've got running. More importantly which ones are running that you didn't know about. It may well be benign. Perhaps you (or your supplier) has set your PC up so that it does housekeeping tasks automatically like clearing temp files or defragging?

You say you've checked it for spyware etc? In that case you're probably okay but take a look in your start folder just in case. Something's definitely using your HD and I wouldn't be happy until I found out what it was. And it's that activity that's causing your PC to freeze which makes me think that defragging may well be the culprit.

[Profit Seeker]

When analysing before defragging it says defragging is not needed. Looking at the task manager, I don't have a clue what all the different processes are, like wdfmgr.exe or nvsvc32.exe and all the rest.

[GlosRFC]

Do a search and you'll find plenty of sites like this one:
http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/

Don't forget to look in the applications section too when you press CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Even though the defrag applet tells you that when you start it, that doesn't mean it isn't set to defrag automatically, say every week or so. I'm not saying that is the culprit but it's known for defrag to freeze the PC and, if it hasn't finished its scheduled defrag it'll start all over again next time you switch on.


Take a look in Start, Control Panel, Scheduled Tasks to see if you've got anything in there that's scheduled to run automatically

[Profit Seeker]

Just checked the scheduled tasks, there's some symantec netdetect crap scheduled daily but the log says could not start :doh

[GlosRFC]

Have you installed that lately, i.e. have the freezing problems occurred since you put it on? It might be that but it's hard to say from here.

[Profit Seeker]

I don't ever recall installing it. Whatever it is I've just uninstalled it!! There's stil an icon in the control panel which seems undeletable. Well I'll see how things go now, thanks Glos

[GlosRFC]

You might find it's part of your AV software but, if you say it's crap, then it obviously isn't required :D

Best of luck with sorting it out.

[Stewards enquiry]

Re the fan. My computer man told me that the fan on the computer should be cleaned and possibly changed every year bcause so much dust builds up inside the computer that it can cause problems. Also give the whole thing a good clean and get the dust out every year.