Or as many as want to answer. My computer every few minutes freezes up. Everything stops moving, mouse cursor won't move, music stays stuck on the note it was on, and then a few seconds later everything is back to normal. A friend of mine who knows a lot about computers said my power supply might be bad. That the voltage has dropped just a bit so that it still runs but the processor messes up when it dips down too low. This makes some sense to me, but I thought I'd see what others had to say.

Check your task manager and make sure nothing is hogging your memory. Sounds like you have a process that is eating all your memory and CPU.

Check your task manager and make sure nothing is hogging your memory. Sounds like you have a process that is eating all your memory and CPU.

System Idle Processes bounce anywhere from 30 to 98 percent on CPU. only uses 16k of memory. Things using up the most memory are iexplore.exe, explorer.exe, and the LiveUpdate program for Symantec.

Also, I have 1GB of memory and coming no where close to using it all.

Also, I have 1GB of memory and coming no where close to using it all.

What OS are you running?

What OS are you running?

XP.

Check your task manager and make sure nothing is hogging your memory. Sounds like you have a process that is eating all your memory and CPU.
I had this problem a while back and it was exactly that. Too many processes running. I called Dell and they told me which ones to shut off and which to leave running and that fixed it.
My question now is how do I know which processes I can shut down and not affect the operation of the computer? Most of their names leave no clue as to what the processes do. I figured that the ones with Canon could be shut down while the ones with AVG (my antivirus) had to be left running.
I have 2 laptops, one with XP Home and the other with XP Pro. Thanks.

I had this problem a while back and it was exactly that. Too many processes running. I called Dell and they told me which ones to shut off and which to leave running and that fixed it.
My question now is how do I know which processes I can shut down and not affect the operation of the computer? Most of their names leave no clue as to what the processes do. I figured that the ones with Canon could be shut down while the ones with AVG (my antivirus) had to be left running.
I have 2 laptops, one with XP Home and the other with XP Pro. Thanks.


LiUtilities Windows Process Library (http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/)

The home of Spybot-S&D! (http://www.safer-networking.org)

LiUtilities Windows Process Library (http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/)

:high5:

I had the same problem last year running Windows Vista Home Premium. I used the Task Manager to selectively shut programs and process down and nothing seemed to fix the problem. The computer came packaged with XP and I finally reinstalled that and the problem has not returned. Since you are already running XP, I guess that won't work for you.

You might try running the System Recovery routine and see if that fixes anything.

Couple of things:
When the slowdown happens, look intently at the hard drive light. Is it flashing, or is it on steady as a rock? If it's on solid, you could have a failing disk drive. Listen to it closely. Does it thunk thunk thunk? Run a disk diagnostic, even chkdsk.

How much free space do you have on the drive? If you're running out of space, you may have problems with hesitation. Even if you have lots of memory, you still need space for the swap file. Swap files must have contiguous space available.

When was the last time you did a defrag?

My knee jerk thought is spyware... power supply, no... you will work until something fries from the power supply simulating a brown-out (voltage drops, amperage raises, components fry...) switching power supplies, they either work or not.

Download a copy of Spybot Search and Destroy and give it a whirl... or some other SpyWare tool.

I like GWGuy's angle of a defrag... and ItalianScallion's thought of pairing down processes at boot. Both are highly plausible. :yay:

Freeze ups could be a multitude of things, have you tried any of the freebie diagnostic programs like XP Medic or Registry Patrol?

Ran check disk and Norton Disk doctor at start up and found no errors, surface test passed. Defragged the disk 3 days ago and have run Ad-Aware2008 by LavaSoft finding only cookies. Ran a full scan with Norton Anti Virus and found nothing. The only thing close to having a virus was a rootkit that Norton removed from the system.

Yes, the HD activity light stays on when it freezes up.

I had the same problem last year running Windows Vista Home Premium. The computer came packaged with XP and I finally reinstalled that and the problem has not returned. Since you are already running XP, I guess that won't work for you.
I was told by dell to reinstall the OS earlier this year and, after all that hassle, it didn't help because it still had too many processes running.
The problem was that I didn't get a knowledgeable tech support person until after the first dummy from dell had me unnecessarily reinstall it!
Thanks Gwydion and the others for the advice. I'll try it this week. :yay:

Ok, I have 26% of free space on my drive and it still does this thing, where do you go to look at and change your virtual memory options?

Ok, I have 26% of free space on my drive and it still does this thing, where do you go to look at and change your virtual memory options?
Right-click on My Computer / Properties. Hit the Advanced Tab, then Performance Settings, then Advanced, then Virtual Memory Change.

Tip: to speed up a computer, when you are in the Performance Settings tab, Click the Adjust for Best Performance. It will change your visual settings to plain vanilla, but it will run faster.

That didn't change anything and I no longer think it's the OS or the disk.

That didn't change anything and I no longer think it's the OS or the disk.

Ok, try this: Open the Task Manager and select the Performance tab. Leave it open. When the PC "freezes", check the display and see if the CPU has gone to 90% or more. If yes, and it doesn't show up in the Processes tab, you may have a system service that has gone nutz or more likely, some malware (virus, adware, spyware...). If no, you may have a hardware problem. If you have a diagnostic disk, you can run extensive diagnostics overnight.

Ok, try this: Open the Task Manager and select the Performance tab. Leave it open. When the PC "freezes", check the display and see if the CPU has gone to 90% or more. If yes, and it doesn't show up in the Processes tab, you may have a system service that has gone nutz or more likely, some malware (virus, adware, spyware...). If no, you may have a hardware problem. If you have a diagnostic disk, you can run extensive diagnostics overnight.

Yep, it froze and then showed 100%. Seen it randomly bounce up to 81% and 94% but only froze at 100%. The only process that shows numbers this high is System Idle Processes.

The last time it froze, I noticed the system process was at 75%

Yep, it froze and then showed 100%. Seen it randomly bounce up to 81% and 94% but only froze at 100%. The only process that shows numbers this high is System Idle Processes.

Sounds like you've got some malware that is running a hidden system process. If you can see your network jack or the port in your router, when it goes 100%, look at the lights to see if it's transmitting/receiving at a very high rate. If yes, you have a bug than needs to be removed. Run your antivirus, SpyBot, AdAware, etc.... Some malware simply cannot be removed no matter what you do, and a wipe/reinstall might be needed.