So I've finally snapped. For over a year now I've been enduring this god forsaken problem, dismissing and ignoring it as much as I could whenever it reared its ugly head. I can take it NO MORE. My patience has run out!
Now, as much as I like to think I'm good with computers, there's quite a few things way above my head, I'll admit, but I'll try to explain as clearly as possible what exactly is my problem. The most basic explanation is this: my computer likes to hang every few minutes or so, for a various amount of time, then returns to normal. Sounds like a mild problem? It is, but after a long session of computer use, the innumerable hangs become unbearable. Now to elaborate...
This is a problem more noticeable when I'm browsing the Internet with Firefox, since it's the application I use the most frequently. Sometimes I'll click a link or scroll down a page and it will just hang. Sometimes there is no activity at all and it still hangs. What it does exactly varies quite a bit.
- My mouse cursor turns to the blue spinning wheel and everything becomes unresponsive. I can still move the cursor just fine but I cannot click on anything within the website or the application (in this case Firefox) or scroll up and down, and doing so only seems to worsen the lenght of the hang. However, I can minimize the application or access other programs running in the background (but cannot do anything there either). It also usually says "no response" in the title bar of the application. After some time (can be between a short 3 seconds to a full minute), things come back to normal.
- Sometimes there is a hang within a hang... if that makes sense... It will do the same as described above but then, just for a fraction of a second, it seems to unstuck but ends up hanging again. During the brief time it was unfrozen the mouse cursor often changes to the arrow or hand, giving the impression it's back to normal but really, IT'S A TRAP.
- Occasionally, there's multiple hangs within a short period of time. I think this occurence is the most infuriating because I'm pretty much there with my arms crossed for a good 10 minutes waiting for my computer to stop flipping out. It also likes to do this when I have something urgent to, like bid on something on eBay with 2 minutes remaining. Evil I say.
- Sometimes, the entire application becomes greyed out, if you get what I mean? Or sometimes in minimize itself without me having done anything to that effect, and then maximize itself back up. Sometimes it really hangs to the point where my cursor also becomes unresponsive. All kinds of crazy shenanigans like that...
This is also not limited to my web browser, but also other programs that I use like Photoshop or even games.
- What it will often do in Photoshop is, whenever I'm draw, say a line, it will briefly hang while I still have my finger holding the mouse button down, and the effect of the hang is the same as me letting go of the button, meaning the line just stops. A result I clearly did not intend.
- In games it's usually brief freezes of a few seconds (graphics stop moving, etc) but they are not as intrusive as other applications and they are few and far between.
Now for things that I've tried to fix this problem.
- Ran my Anti-virus (AVG) for viruses. Nothing.
- Cleaned my computer of all unwelcomed maleware using Spybot and Malewarebytes.
- Cleaned my registry.
- Defragmented my hard drive.
- Physically cleaned the inside of my computer to remove dust to prevent overheating.
- Updated all of my drivers.
- Updated Windows 7.
- Turned off and removed from boot multpiple applications that were needlesly running in the background.
- I think I updated my BIOS too, it's been a while.
- Emptied every possible cache I could think of.
Things that I still need to investigate or try.
- I ran the event viewer but I can't really make sense of anything I'm reading. Is there a way to copy paste this here? Anyways, I'm seeing lots of stuff that turn up errors or warnings: Kernel-Power (in critical, is that bad?), Kernel-EventTracing, Service Control Manager, Security-SPP, Wininit, SQLBrowser.
- Performance Monitor has turned up 2 peripheral that couldn't be loaded properly: Microsoft ISATAP and Microsoft Terredo Tunneling Adapter. When I try to update them it says the drivers are already up-to-date, but they still can't boot correctly. I'm wondering if I couldn't simply deactivate them... I don't think it has anything to do with my problem however.
- Repair Windows 7.
- Completely reformat my computer. Absolute last resort option.
- Suggestions?
My computer specs:
Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium - with SP1
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2,33 GHz
4 Gb RAM
NVidia Geforce 9800 GT
Asus P5P43TD Pro Motherboard
Thanks for any input anyone can provide to this thread. Lets put an end to my torment!
Now, as much as I like to think I'm good with computers, there's quite a few things way above my head, I'll admit, but I'll try to explain as clearly as possible what exactly is my problem. The most basic explanation is this: my computer likes to hang every few minutes or so, for a various amount of time, then returns to normal. Sounds like a mild problem? It is, but after a long session of computer use, the innumerable hangs become unbearable. Now to elaborate...
This is a problem more noticeable when I'm browsing the Internet with Firefox, since it's the application I use the most frequently. Sometimes I'll click a link or scroll down a page and it will just hang. Sometimes there is no activity at all and it still hangs. What it does exactly varies quite a bit.
- My mouse cursor turns to the blue spinning wheel and everything becomes unresponsive. I can still move the cursor just fine but I cannot click on anything within the website or the application (in this case Firefox) or scroll up and down, and doing so only seems to worsen the lenght of the hang. However, I can minimize the application or access other programs running in the background (but cannot do anything there either). It also usually says "no response" in the title bar of the application. After some time (can be between a short 3 seconds to a full minute), things come back to normal.
- Sometimes there is a hang within a hang... if that makes sense... It will do the same as described above but then, just for a fraction of a second, it seems to unstuck but ends up hanging again. During the brief time it was unfrozen the mouse cursor often changes to the arrow or hand, giving the impression it's back to normal but really, IT'S A TRAP.
- Occasionally, there's multiple hangs within a short period of time. I think this occurence is the most infuriating because I'm pretty much there with my arms crossed for a good 10 minutes waiting for my computer to stop flipping out. It also likes to do this when I have something urgent to, like bid on something on eBay with 2 minutes remaining. Evil I say.
- Sometimes, the entire application becomes greyed out, if you get what I mean? Or sometimes in minimize itself without me having done anything to that effect, and then maximize itself back up. Sometimes it really hangs to the point where my cursor also becomes unresponsive. All kinds of crazy shenanigans like that...
This is also not limited to my web browser, but also other programs that I use like Photoshop or even games.
- What it will often do in Photoshop is, whenever I'm draw, say a line, it will briefly hang while I still have my finger holding the mouse button down, and the effect of the hang is the same as me letting go of the button, meaning the line just stops. A result I clearly did not intend.
- In games it's usually brief freezes of a few seconds (graphics stop moving, etc) but they are not as intrusive as other applications and they are few and far between.
Now for things that I've tried to fix this problem.
- Ran my Anti-virus (AVG) for viruses. Nothing.
- Cleaned my computer of all unwelcomed maleware using Spybot and Malewarebytes.
- Cleaned my registry.
- Defragmented my hard drive.
- Physically cleaned the inside of my computer to remove dust to prevent overheating.
- Updated all of my drivers.
- Updated Windows 7.
- Turned off and removed from boot multpiple applications that were needlesly running in the background.
- I think I updated my BIOS too, it's been a while.
- Emptied every possible cache I could think of.
Things that I still need to investigate or try.
- I ran the event viewer but I can't really make sense of anything I'm reading. Is there a way to copy paste this here? Anyways, I'm seeing lots of stuff that turn up errors or warnings: Kernel-Power (in critical, is that bad?), Kernel-EventTracing, Service Control Manager, Security-SPP, Wininit, SQLBrowser.
- Performance Monitor has turned up 2 peripheral that couldn't be loaded properly: Microsoft ISATAP and Microsoft Terredo Tunneling Adapter. When I try to update them it says the drivers are already up-to-date, but they still can't boot correctly. I'm wondering if I couldn't simply deactivate them... I don't think it has anything to do with my problem however.
- Repair Windows 7.
- Completely reformat my computer. Absolute last resort option.
- Suggestions?
My computer specs:
Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium - with SP1
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2,33 GHz
4 Gb RAM
NVidia Geforce 9800 GT
Asus P5P43TD Pro Motherboard
Thanks for any input anyone can provide to this thread. Lets put an end to my torment!
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