XP suddenly crawls to a halt, not frozen, then cannot run Task Manager, have to logoff then on again

[Tony]

Hi All

I have a problem here, that ultimatly I will clean install, but I would
REALLY love to find the cause

Symptoms:

XP stops responding, but it isnt locked or frozen.
Task Manager will not start, except to the Shut Down or Log Off screen, it
will not show processes etc
It will shut down and log off, albeit slow as it slowly endtasks some
processes.
A re Login from a Log Off as above is fine and back to normal
Alt-Tab works, showing each process icon, but slecting any will not do
anything
I get no blue screens or fatal error mesages
System is entirely stable otherwise
I thought it was ICQ, but that is uninstalled and registry removed
This problem has occured when starting a video program, i.e. WMP, starting
video on ICQ etc
WMP will not play wmv files
WMP will not play some digital camera avi files
All these movie files play fine in Power DVD player
Appears to be random, but naturally there will be a reason
No viruses
Spybot and Adaware run with no improvement
When this happened last nite IE would not star, but ok after re login
No network here
No overheating problem

Any ideas?

 

[Malke]

Hi All

I have a problem here, that ultimatly I will clean install, but I
would REALLY love to find the cause

Symptoms:

XP stops responding, but it isnt locked or frozen.
Task Manager will not start, except to the Shut Down or Log Off
screen, it will not show processes etc
It will shut down and log off, albeit slow as it slowly endtasks some
processes.
A re Login from a Log Off as above is fine and back to normal
Alt-Tab works, showing each process icon, but slecting any will not do
anything
I get no blue screens or fatal error mesages
System is entirely stable otherwise
I thought it was ICQ, but that is uninstalled and registry removed
This problem has occured when starting a video program, i.e. WMP,
starting video on ICQ etc
WMP will not play wmv files
WMP will not play some digital camera avi files
All these movie files play fine in Power DVD player
Appears to be random, but naturally there will be a reason
No viruses
Spybot and Adaware run with no improvement
When this happened last nite IE would not star, but ok after re login
No network here
No overheating problem

Any ideas?

Since you say you know your computer is virus and spyware-free and there
is no overheating but that the problem is random, I would still look to
hardware for the cause. I'm not sure what "no network here" means
unless you mean that your computer is standalone but still connected to
the Internet.

Try testing your RAM with Memtest86 from www.memtest86.com. If your
memory is faulty, replace it. Otherwise, do some extensive hardware
diagnosis, stripping the machine down to the mobo and video card and
moving on from there, swapping out parts for known-working ones as
necessary in a deductive, methodical way. If this is not something you
want to do, take the machine to a good local repair shop (not a BestBuy
or CompUSA type of store) for testing.

Malke