PC randomly freezes for about 20 seconds

[Jimbob]

Hello,

My PC has started to randomly lock up for about 20 seconds. This only
started last Friday after no issues what so ever, no new software or
hardware were installed prior to this.

I did think it was my harddrive as the LED would stay on during the
lockups but i ran Crystal Disk h/d tool and didn't pick up any errors,
even during a lockup. :/

I then ran the Win7 memory tester and this didn't find any issues
either, also ran Prime to test CPU but no lockups happened during the
testing.

My Specs:

Quad core 6600
Win 7
Maxtor 250GB hd
2 gb ram

Anyone have any idea what could be the cause? Googling hasn't really
helped..

Ta.

 

[Paul]

Hello,

My PC has started to randomly lock up for about 20 seconds. This only
started last Friday after no issues what so ever, no new software or
hardware were installed prior to this.

I did think it was my harddrive as the LED would stay on during the
lockups but i ran Crystal Disk h/d tool and didn't pick up any errors,
even during a lockup. :/

I then ran the Win7 memory tester and this didn't find any issues
either, also ran Prime to test CPU but no lockups happened during the
testing.

My Specs:

Quad core 6600
Win 7
Maxtor 250GB hd
2 gb ram

Anyone have any idea what could be the cause? Googling hasn't really
helped..

Ta.

Is Event Viewer showing any interesting entries ?

An entry might show a direct effect (message from kernel,
begging for help). Or you may see an indirect effect (one subsystem
compromised by another, unknown subsystem).

Freezing or stalling can be hard to diagnose, so it's not like
you can wave a magic wand and get an answer.

If you use a utility such as HDTune, you can review the SMART
statistics output from the drive. A couple of the indicators
there, might be handy. (Reallocated Sector Count or
Current Pending Sector.) There is a free version of HDTune
on hdtune.com (version 2.55).

You can test from a Linux LiveCD, as a means of seeing whether
another operating system, also sees the problem.

You can do "simplification" style testing, removing
extraneous stuff until the problem stops. Maybe it was
some new piece of hardware and associated driver that
caused the problem.

Driver updates can come in from Windows Update, in which
case you might want to see if anything was added recently.
On my computer, updates are done manually, and I review
them before installing. I accept security updates, but
no driver updates from Microsoft.

Another thing that would be good to know, is whether
the Win7 computer is using "shares" or not. You know
more about the unique config of your machine than we do,
so look for anything which is out of the ordinary.

Paul

 

[Flasherly]

Hello,

My PC has started to randomly lock up for about 20 seconds. This only
started last Friday after no issues what so ever, no new software or
hardware were installed prior to this.

I did think it was my harddrive as the LED would stay on during the
lockups but i ran Crystal Disk h/d tool and didn't pick up any errors,
even during a lockup. :/

I then ran the Win7 memory tester and this didn't find any issues
either, also ran Prime to test CPU but no lockups happened during the
testing.

My Specs:

Quad core 6600
Win 7
Maxtor 250GB hd
2 gb ram

Anyone have any idea what could be the cause? Googling hasn't really
helped..

Without some sort of binary backup of a known good OS state for
comparison, (I'm not a fan of MS restore), it's difficult to rule out
that something other than a new hard/software install, i.e. changed
Windows settings, aren't sufficient reason;- as if really there's
much to reason after a successful binary backup, simply then to walk
away from whatever the issue. . .after being on the Internet for
awhile -- usually when feeling that fuzzy, green glowing feeling is
coming on -- I run binary backups for as much a matter of principle.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hello,

My PC has started to randomly lock up for about 20 seconds. This only
started last Friday after no issues what so ever, no new software or
hardware were installed prior to this.

I did think it was my harddrive as the LED would stay on during the
lockups but i ran Crystal Disk h/d tool and didn't pick up any errors,
even during a lockup. :/

I then ran the Win7 memory tester and this didn't find any issues
either, also ran Prime to test CPU but no lockups happened during the
testing.

My Specs:

Quad core 6600
Win 7
Maxtor 250GB hd
2 gb ram

Anyone have any idea what could be the cause? Googling hasn't really
helped..

Ta.

I would still consider something with the storage system the prime
suspect. It could be in the disk controller, though.

 

[GMAN]

I would still consider something with the storage system the prime
suspect. It could be in the disk controller, though.

I just had similar issue on my main PC wher it would start taking longer and
longer to boot, somewhere up to 8 minutes to finally boot into XP sp3.

It also would take forever for IE8 to come up, or would hesitate fo 0-30
seconds on everything i would click on or do.

I kept blaming the kids for installing crap under their profiles as the
culprit, maybe introducing unknown viruses in the process. Turned out that the
Hitachi drive i had in there as a boot drive was slightly dying. It didnt even
develope any SMART failure messages at all. After replacing it with a Seagate
7200 RPM drive, all is well.