"Not Responding" Error Message

[johnmw1]

Hi,
For about the last two months or so my pc has been continually hanging and I
keep getting the error message "Not Responding" This hanging happens in any
program or thing that I maybe doing at the time, ie reading emails, using
word, or just surfing the net. Anywhere Anytime. It will hang for 30 secs to
a minute or a bit more before it starts responding and doing what it's
supposed to. This is happening about every five minutes or so but really
there is no real scale to this and it just happens whenever.

I run an upto date anti virus and firewall, so I'm assuming I have no
nasties lurking anywhere.

I got the impression that my system started acting this way after an
automatic update for Windows XP but of course I would never know if that was
the true cause or not.

I had almost got to the point where I was considering doing a reformat
because I believed but was not sure that it just maybe five or six years of
crud that I have collected, and that perhaps my HDD and system just could not
handle it anymore.

Last week through the run button I ran SFC/SCANNOW which I have absolutely
no idea what that was, but it asked for my XP disc which I put in and away it
went for about 30-40 mins. I'm assuming that it restored XP back to its
original form?

Surprise surprise, suddenly I stop getting this " Not Responding" message
and the old system seems to have it's old vim and vigour back again, and it
responds and does things the way it used to. Hooray for that I'm thinking
because I won't have to do that dreaded reformat.

Friday I got 8 auto updates to download which I clicked on to update. They
seemed to take forever to download and install and I had to reboot finally
after they were all done.

You guessed it I now have this hanging problem again and cannot for the life
of me know which update could be causing me the problems. These are the
updates I got yesterday, would anyone have any ideas as to which maybe
causing me so much grief?
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB959426) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB961373) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP
(KB963027) Friday, 17 April 2009 Automatic Updates
Windows XP Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - April 2009 (KB890830)
Friday, 17 April 2009 Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB956572) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB952004) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB960803) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB923561) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates

I thankyou for any help that I may get in advance.

Cheers
John

 

[peter]

You must remember that each XP users machine is different from one another
and what makes yours
give you the Not responding message might have no effect on 99% of the
machines out there.
You will need to troubleshoot this problem yourself by uninstalling each up
date one by one and rebooting in between
and then testing.
The uninstall files are in your Windows Directory called
$NtUninstallKB#########
good luck

peter

 

[johnmw1]

Thankyou Peter,

I shall have to give it a go.

Cheers
John

 

[Gerry]

John

What is the CPU and how much RAM does the computer have? Right click on
the My Computer icon on ther Desktop and select Properties to get this
information.

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

What anti-virus and anti-spyware software is installed?


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[nass]

Hi,
For about the last two months or so my pc has been continually hanging and I
keep getting the error message "Not Responding" This hanging happens in any
program or thing that I maybe doing at the time, ie reading emails, using
word, or just surfing the net. Anywhere Anytime. It will hang for 30 secs to
a minute or a bit more before it starts responding and doing what it's
supposed to. This is happening about every five minutes or so but really
there is no real scale to this and it just happens whenever.

I run an upto date anti virus and firewall, so I'm assuming I have no
nasties lurking anywhere.

I got the impression that my system started acting this way after an
automatic update for Windows XP but of course I would never know if that was
the true cause or not.

I had almost got to the point where I was considering doing a reformat
because I believed but was not sure that it just maybe five or six years of
crud that I have collected, and that perhaps my HDD and system just could not
handle it anymore.

Last week through the run button I ran SFC/SCANNOW which I have absolutely
no idea what that was, but it asked for my XP disc which I put in and away it
went for about 30-40 mins. I'm assuming that it restored XP back to its
original form?

Surprise surprise, suddenly I stop getting this " Not Responding" message
and the old system seems to have it's old vim and vigour back again, and it
responds and does things the way it used to. Hooray for that I'm thinking
because I won't have to do that dreaded reformat.

Friday I got 8 auto updates to download which I clicked on to update. They
seemed to take forever to download and install and I had to reboot finally
after they were all done.

You guessed it I now have this hanging problem again and cannot for the life
of me know which update could be causing me the problems. These are the
updates I got yesterday, would anyone have any ideas as to which maybe
causing me so much grief?
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB959426) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB961373) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP
(KB963027) Friday, 17 April 2009 Automatic Updates
Windows XP Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - April 2009 (KB890830)
Friday, 17 April 2009 Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB956572) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB952004) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB960803) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates
Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB923561) Friday, 17 April 2009
Automatic Updates

I thankyou for any help that I may get in advance.

Cheers
John

User Profile Hive Cleanup Service:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

Go through these Cleaning steps:
1... Click start >> Control Panel >> Double Click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options, on the IE Properties window
you will see these Options:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs
| Advanced .

Click on General Tab (1st Tab on the left) and you will see a Button called
[ Clear History ..] click on it to clear your History caches, then click on
[Delete Files..] to delete Internet Files created over the time, click on [
Delete Cookies...] to delete your cookies left by visiting websites.

Then click on Advanced tab and scroll down to under the Browsing Option:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) uncheck this box.
= Then try to Disable the Add-Ons on your Browser somehow installed on your
browser, On how to disable the Add-ons follow this:
Click on Programs Tab and then click the Manage Add-Ons Button there Disable
the Non/Not Verified Plug-ins/Add-ons ( you need to Renable them one-by-one
later and see which is the culprit .
How to manage Add-Ons:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883256
Scan for malware from here:
SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html

Run a scan from here on-line:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
Download Avast Cleaner (off-line scanner) from here:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html

Run disk clean up then this command:
sfc /scannow

If you still have no joy try to send us the error messages from the event
viewer.
- Have a look in the Event Viewer for error messages(X) that can shed some
light and post it back in your next post by performing the following:later for this step to copy the error message on it.
Open a run command and type in:
eventvwr.msc click [OK] you will get the Event viewer control Panel.
click on each of these:
Application
System
Security
Look in the right Pane/window for error message with red (X) or Yellow
exclamation mark /!\ , double click each one to get more info about the
causer.
On the Event error properties message you will see:
Up Arrow
Down arrow
Two pages
Click on the two pages to copy the error message then bring up the Notepad
you opened earlier and right click on the first line and select Paste from
the list, this will paste the error message on a Notepad.
Please don't duplicate the error message one of each kind will be sufficient.
HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us
HTH,
nass

 

[johnmw1]

Hi Gerry,

My CPU is a P4 2.60 GHz and I have 1.00 GB of Ram.

I'm also running NOD32 Antivirus, along with Spybot SD Resident and Windows
Defender.

In Task Manager my Commit Charge Total is 569940, Limit is 2523716, and Peak
is 641700.

Don't understand what that last lot of figures are, but then again I don't
understand a lot of things.

Gerry thanks for your help, I do hope I can sort this without the dreaded
reformat, but in all honesty I think that is what is going to happen.

Cheers
John

 

[Gerry]

John

No obvious problems there.

Have a look in the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for Errors
and Warnings and post copies here. Don't post any more than 48 hours ago.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

Try HD Tune. It only gives information and does not fix any
problems.

Download and run it and see what it turns up. You want HD Tune
(freeware) version 2.55 not HD Tune Pro (not Freeware) version 3.00.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
and copy into a further message.

Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy to
Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Make sure you do a full
surface scan with HD Tune.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[johnmw1]

Hi Nass,

Thanks for all your help also. Just to let you know that your suggestions
will take me a bit of time to work on, so I shall report back later with what
I may find. I'm currently running superantispyware.

Cheers
John

:

User Profile Hive Cleanup Service:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

Go through these Cleaning steps:
1... Click start >> Control Panel >> Double Click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options, on the IE Properties window
you will see these Options:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs
| Advanced .

Click on General Tab (1st Tab on the left) and you will see a Button called
[ Clear History ..] click on it to clear your History caches, then click on
[Delete Files..] to delete Internet Files created over the time, click on [
Delete Cookies...] to delete your cookies left by visiting websites.

Then click on Advanced tab and scroll down to under the Browsing Option:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) uncheck this box.
= Then try to Disable the Add-Ons on your Browser somehow installed on your
browser, On how to disable the Add-ons follow this:
Click on Programs Tab and then click the Manage Add-Ons Button there Disable
the Non/Not Verified Plug-ins/Add-ons ( you need to Renable them one-by-one
later and see which is the culprit .
How to manage Add-Ons:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883256
Scan for malware from here:
SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html

Run a scan from here on-line:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
Download Avast Cleaner (off-line scanner) from here:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html

Run disk clean up then this command:
sfc /scannow

If you still have no joy try to send us the error messages from the event
viewer.
- Have a look in the Event Viewer for error messages(X) that can shed some
light and post it back in your next post by performing the following:later for this step to copy the error message on it.
Open a run command and type in:
eventvwr.msc click [OK] you will get the Event viewer control Panel.
click on each of these:
Application
System
Security
Look in the right Pane/window for error message with red (X) or Yellow
exclamation mark /!\ , double click each one to get more info about the
causer.
On the Event error properties message you will see:
Up Arrow
Down arrow
Two pages
Click on the two pages to copy the error message then bring up the Notepad
you opened earlier and right click on the first line and select Paste from
the list, this will paste the error message on a Notepad.
Please don't duplicate the error message one of each kind will be sufficient.
HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us
HTH,
nass

 

[johnmw1]

Hi Gerry,

Gee I did not expect an instant reply, it must be late at night for you? I
shall work through your suggestions in a few hours as I have to go out and
about for awhile.

Cheers
John

 

[johnmw1]

Hi Again Gerry,

I ran hd tune and it came up with a couple of interesting points. First up
it just would not benchmark my c drive at all telling me there was a read
error and test aborted. Next I ran the error scan test and it came back with
a result of .2% of damaged blocks mostly at the start of the scan. Health
status tells me it's OK with two lines in the yellow which are Reallocated
sector count, and Spin retry count.

Next up I have tried the event viewer but am not sure if I should be looking
at application or system because believe me there are hundreds of events in
both. Most of the events in system are errors under Source as being "disc"
Category "none" Event "7"

Have not worked out how to use clipboard yet. I can get it to show one event
when I click the little two page thing, but I cannot for whatever reason seem
to be able to copy and paste from that to here?

Seems to me that it may be my C drive if I'm reading things correctly?

Cheers
John

 

[Gerry]

John

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Right click on the Report in the
list and select Properties. In the window, which appears are three buttons
towards the top right of the window. The top one has an arrow up, underneath
is an arrow down and third is a button resembling two pages. Click the
button and close Event Viewer. It is not obvious but this action places a
copy of the report in your Clipboard. Now start your message (email) and do
a paste into the body of the message. Make sure this is the first paste
after exiting from Event Viewer.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[steve1066]

I have the exact same problem. MS should know which uodate is bad and advise.