Computer hangs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason
  • Start date Start date
J

Jason

I am starting another thread here.
Hi,
I am using Windows XP with all the latest critical
updates installed. However, it has been happening quite
frequently that my computer will stop responding(hangs)
at unexpected times, be it in the middle of a game, or
installing a certain program or surfing the internet, or
just moving my mouse across the screen. This problem
happens quite frequently and has reoccured even after i
format my hard drive. my hard drive has no problems after
i gone through a hard drive diagnostics test. So can
anyone help me in this problem? Thank you.

Thanks for all the replies. But i'm not really an
expert so some of your suggestions only confuse me more.
Sorry. Anyway, i looked into the event viewer, which has
three sub sections, Applications,security and system. Is
this the place to look out for problems? My computer
hangs again at about 9.20-25am. I can't confirm. But
there's an entry with event ID 4354 that writes about
some COM+ Event system that is of type "WARNING" at
9.21am under Application. There is nothing wrong under
security section. But under "System", the latest entries
are 2 type "ERROR" entries with event ID 7000 and 7009
with source "Service Control Manager" at 9.20am followed
by a type "WARNING" entry with event ID 1007 with
source "DHCP" at 9.19am. All these make no sense to me.
But does it help in letting you all understand the
problem better?
And finally when my computer hangs, the screen just
freezes and i can't move my mouse cursor or anything
else, let alone look into Task manager.
This problem existed even before i perform a fresh XP
install.
I'm using a 2GHz pentium Compaq notebook, with 448MB of
RAM witha 26G HD. Are these information enough?
Thanks a lot everyone. I really appreciate your help.

After "hanging" for another three more times, i think i
have zoom the problem to event ID 7000 of type error at
section SYSTEM. The description is as follows:
"The Ati HotKey Poller service failed to start due to the
following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control
request in a timely fashion."

So can anyone offers a solution? Thanks.
 
On the surface, it looks like a video driver problem. Laptops are a bit on
the odd side. It may be that the video driver need to be updated. You may
need to get the driver from the laptop mfr's web site. A word of warning--
ATI recent drivers usually require that the previous verson be properly
uninstalled, and the system to be updated be using the "standard VGA"
drivers when the update is installed.
It's also possible that laptop unique software apps supplied by the mfr are
at fault. This often happens with such things as special key drivers and a
newer version of windows than was originally suppled.
 
Jason said:
However, it has been happening quite
frequently that my computer will stop responding(hangs)
at unexpected times, be it in the middle of a game, or
installing a certain program or surfing the internet, or
just moving my mouse across the screen.
Click to expand...

May be a result of the mouse driver and the video driver arguing over
which controls the pointer. It is easy to check on - Control Panel -
Display - Settings, Click Advanced, and on the Troubleshoot page reduce
the acceleration slider one notch or two. If one does it, there is
negligible loss of performance: if two are needed look for updated video
drivers from the maker's site.
 
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