WinXP question - applications becoming non-responsive

I have this curious issue here. When I am running an application in Windows XP - FrontPage, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2, a folder I'm opening, etc. - the program or whatever will frequently become non-responsive or partially non-responsive. By partially, I mean that, for example, in Firefox I will be able to navigate or click on websites, but be unable to close or minimize the window. The mouse is able to keep moving and has never "frozen".

If I turn on Windows Task Manager and switch to a particular program, then it will be responsive again.

Now, here's the weird thing. This was occurring before, so I just freshly reformatted and reinstalled the OS and everything else. And it's still doing it!!

Ideas are appreciated. Thanks!!!!

See if your RAM is good http://www.memtest86.com/

Make sure your CPU heatsink is attached firmly

Watch for CPU spikes

- http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/process-meter/procmeter.html

- http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/CPUMon/dencpumon.html

Firefox 3x is pretty issue-laden from what I hear/see/read.

But what you describe - you know it sounds like what happens to me when my wireless mouse battery is getting lowish, or I've got it too far from the USB transmitter. Sometimes some clicks/tasks will work, some don't, very similar to what you've described.

One other idea - when you did the reinstall, did you first do all the Windows updates before re-loading your programs? If not, you might deinstall the programs, do any remaining updates if any, then reinstall. Including any mouse drivers.

Educated guessing followed by trial and error - the only true way to fix a PC....

I did do the Windows updates before re-loading the programs, yes.

Okay. There's a free download on that site, but not much information about it. Does it work, or do I purchase the $10 CD-ROM? Not entirely sure what those different choices mean or offer either. Thanks.

Sounds like a possibility of memory problems:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1565

Download the ISO and you can burn it with free http://cdburnerxp.se

Thanks. At about the same time you posted this, I saw another site making mention of memtest86 saying to do something very similar or identical. I'll figure this out tomorrow after I have a friend print the instructions. I have a feeling that your first inclination is right...bad memory. Thanks, Phait, and everyone else who is helping out!!!!

if you want peace in your humble life

get a Mac..... eeeeh a violoncello

or even better, nothing

Yeah, cause we all know that Macs just work.

You can be more creative than this, Angelo.

Oh, I was gonna say Get a Mac, too, but "Rudy" beat me to it.

I'm actually leaning toward a hangup on something like a drive or other hardware, too. When's the last time you did a chkdsk? Better to know earlier than later if something is starting to go south with a drive. That said, doing a system install is pretty HDD intensive. Did that go OK?

Having found that a bad memory stick was causing my weird Mac problems, I'd say try that first.

Also, Internet Explorer 8 was a Pandora's box for me. Went back to IE7 and things were much happier.

I had this problem when the fan on CPU unit failed. It could stop and start over again and when it stopped I had this.

Give Chrome a shot...The newest version is pretty good, but the most recent update of Firefox seems much better than the earliest 3.x flavors.

I just did the Memtest-86 v3.5 test. It seems to run the same test over and over, right? It went on for almost 2 hours, running the same test over and over again, passing the test over and over again.

ALL applications, no matter what they are, even if they are a dialogue box in which I simply click OKAY, have been freezing, so it's a "global" problem with the computer.

Given that I've reformatted the HD and completely reinstalled everything and the problem is just as bad as ever, I'm probably gonna have to take this to a technician.

Yeah, sounds now more like a controller card or even MB issue. But the oddest things can halt a computer - CD/DVD drives for one...video cards...virus software...etc

One thing I do when I can't isolate the problem is to run the computer with as minimal a configuration as possible. Similar to running in Safe Mode.

Which I assume you've tried? Safe Mode?

Just in case you haven't, if your problem goes away in safe mode, then you can do successive reboots into Safe Mode giving the ok to the various drivers on at a time. First time the problem zombies back into action, there's your clue.

Other likely candidates are virus packages that check every bloody thing constantly. Turn those suckers totally off, too.

Does your keyboard start to do the "overloaded key buffer beep" once the freeze up starts? That's usually a processing log jam, points away from a hardware issue.

Does your hard drive entirely stop making any little grunts and snorts when it freezes up? Or does it seem to be alive to some degree?

One last thing to try if you have the time and resources. If you have an old hard drive sitting around, you can format and do a clean install on it and see if the problem still occurs using the different drive. If it goes away, then obviously HD issues are quite likely. If it still occurs, then you've very most likely got a hardware issue and the news may not be good.

nat whilk ii

Another thing you might try is downloading and running SpeedFan. It will tell you if anything in your computer is overheating, which can cause all sorts of issues. Fortunately, overheating problems are usually pretty cheap/easy to solve.

The thing to keep in mind too about overheating is that some software will overheat faster than others, depending how CPU intensive it is. So switching to another program may actually cool down the CPU at least for awhile. Heat issues really can seem really random (and yes, I unfortunately speak from experience ).

No, I actually haven't done this. I just figured it was choked with viruses, and did a clean reinstall. I'll try Safe Mode tomorrow.

I have AVG Free. I can try shutting this down to see if that does the trick.

No, it never does this.

No, it never seems to do this either.

I don't have an extra HD lying around. Great suggestion, but no, I don't have this. Yes, I know that you can somehow take a HD from an external HD and put it in the computer somehow, but that's far beyond what I am comfortable doing.

Thanks!

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Lee, I've already downloaded the SpeedFan thing.

Fan1 and Fan2 are at 0 RPMs. That's not right, is it?

Fan3 and Fan4 are at `490 and 1300 RPM approximately.

Temp1 is 49C, which seems really high, and it has a red checkmark by it. The other temperatures have blue arrows pointing down next to them.

For now, gonna shut this down...I am running over to my parents to hang out!!! Thanks!! Greatly appreciated!!!!!

Obviously you're got a hardware problem. You've eliminated the mouse, keyboard, printer and all other USB or other peripherals?

If you know what brand of hard drive you have you can download their diagnostic programs and try that.

I've replaced a number of motherboards over the years because they will eventually fail.

When you get all back into working order, I would recommend a free virus protection package called Avast rather than AVG. AVG was great early on, I used it on all the computers, but it has gotten slow and neurotic in it's old age. Can really slow a PC down bigtime.

Maybe some other folks know other anti-virus programs to recommend, too.

nat whilk ii

It could be anything really. In order of what I would suspect:

1) Processor overheating/ Bad fan

2) Hard Drive going out

3) Processor or MB going out.

If it was me, I would check the fans first, then if that seemed ok, I would go out and buy a brand new HDD. You can never have enough storage really so even it you end up having to buy another MB and/or processor, you still have another HDD.

You are probably OK. Temp1, Temp2 etc. are usually the temperature sensors that are on the motherboard. Most manufacturers jack up the sensor a few degrees so that there's no question of the machine ever getting hot enough to cook the processor. So long as your actual core temps, HD temp etc. are OK, it's probably fine.

Just to double check, though, try running some processor intensive software while SpeedFan is running, and run it for awhile. The temps will go up, which is normal, but let's see by how much.

Also, try removing the case cover and fire up the puter, then examine all your fans and make sure they all still work (I don't know how many you have). Besides the CPU fan, there should be a fan on the power supply, and a case exhaust fan. Some machines also have a fan on the video card and/or hard drive.

As others have mentioned, you should also try unplugging any peripherals you have attached, and also swapping out the keyboard and mouse. Fans, keyboards and mice are cheap and easy to replace and they cause a lot of these type of problems, so best to eliminate them as possibilities first.

Yeah... IE8 is the first MS application I've had in a long time that's a serious memory leaker -- but it is. It is virtually banned from my machine. Ironic that the first version of that browser that has good standards compliance is, at least on my machine, a near-unusable POS. (Kiss off 40-60 MB or more never to be seen again [until reboot] when it loads.) I don't know what the hell is going on in Redmond these days. They better not muff Win 7 like they've been muffing everything else. And for heaven's sake, please, MS, hire a new ad agency... those adverts are humiliatingly bad. I feel icky just watching them.

Popped the top. Can see two fans. One fan over the motherboard which goes to the front, another fan in the back. Both are working.

In SpeedFan, there is a box that can be checked for "Automatic Fan Speed". It is currently unchecked. Should this be the case?

In either case, I moved the computer to increase ventilation, and have replaced the mouse (I don't have another keyboard to replace currently). Right now, the computer is working correctly, so I am opening additional apps to see if I can replicate what was happening before.

Thanks!!