Not Responding

[Paul T, Houston Texas]

I have a Dell Inspiron , 1g ram..XP updgraded to Vista Ultimate, Office 2007
suite.. stand alone computer not connected to a network.
Upgraded 1 yr ago and everything was fine until recently programs stall out
and I see (Not Responding) at the top of the screen. I thought it was an
Outlook problem because I use it the most. But now it happens in Pub, Excell,
MSN and just about every program. It occurs with just one program open or
several at a time. It runs fine for a few minutes then it has to catch its
breath (not responding) once it does it runs agian for a few minutes and is
out of breath again. very frustrating. Of course Dell says the computer is
fine..discussion groups in Office Suite have nothing to suggest.... anyone
here have any ideas? Thank you

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You are probably seeing some form of resource limitation. Checking for mail
will do that in some applications with three times the Ram you have. I would
turn off your mail check and see what changes.

 

[solon fox]

I have a Dell Inspiron , 1g ram..XP updgraded to Vista Ultimate, Office 2007
suite.. stand alone computer not connected to a network.
Upgraded 1 yr ago and everything was fine until recently programs stall out
and I see (Not Responding) at the top of the screen. I thought it was an
Outlook problem because I use it the most. But now it happens in Pub, Excell,
MSN and just about every program. It occurs with just one program open or
several at a time. It runs fine for a few minutes then it has to catch its
breath (not responding) once it does it runs agian for a few minutes and is
out of breath again. very frustrating. Of course Dell says the computer is
fine..discussion groups in Office Suite have nothing to suggest.... anyone
here have any ideas? Thank you

First of all, I wouldn't recommend running Vista least of all Ultimate
edition with anything less than 2GB RAM. I have to believe that your
RAM is all used up and that caching to the hard drive is slowing
everything down. When an application hangs with 'not responding' its
usually because the system is busy.

There are probably a couple of things going on here. Since you've been
using your machine for over a year, you are undoubtedly using up more
space on your hard drive. When was the last time that you defragmented
your hard drive? Your applications and files may be strewn all over
the drive. How much free space do you have left on the drive?

My suggestions are to free up space on the drive, defragment and
definitely consider upgrading RAM to at least 2GB and more if you can
afford it.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to scan the drive for errors, run a full anti-
virus scan and check for Windows updates.

-solon fox

 

[Paul T, Houston Texas]

I mistated the ram -= sorry it is 2 gig of Ram...does that still apply to
your suggestion?

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Absolutely. As solon fox pointed out correctly, you should look at your VM
capacity, and other ways resources might be taxed. Opening Task Manager may
show you something running, like defrag, or indexing. I mentioned mail.
There are a lot of variables in the mix.

 

[Ralph]

I'd jump in, in agreeing with a resource cause.
I suppose physical memory could also cause it, but you'd see errors, not
just pauses.

1 gig of RAM with Vista Ultimate, the 2007 suite, and whatever security and
scanning software you have will tax the machine.
I'm guessing the Inspiron also uses on-board graphics, and with all that
going on, you'll get pauses.

MS Outlook in 2007 also uses Word for its editor, then you get your security
software scanning, etc.

Try to keep startup programs to a minimum, and space free for the work you
need to do.

 

[Paul T, Houston Texas]

Thank you all for your resonces...I incorrectly stated the ram it is 2 gig of
Ram...

I have done the defrag, error check, disk cleanup and everything else I can.
An interesting problem .... I have closed all program - and yet the CPU
meter shows 100% at times...when I open task manager it shows nothing
running...sometimes it has shown Microsoft SQL server - I don't know what
that is or what it does..I am not connected to any servers as this si a stand
alone machine.

 

[C.B.]

I have a Dell Inspiron , 1g ram..XP updgraded to Vista Ultimate, Office
2007
suite.. stand alone computer not connected to a network.
Upgraded 1 yr ago and everything was fine until recently programs stall
out
and I see (Not Responding) at the top of the screen. I thought it was an
Outlook problem because I use it the most. But now it happens in Pub,
Excell,
MSN and just about every program. It occurs with just one program open or
several at a time. It runs fine for a few minutes then it has to catch its
breath (not responding) once it does it runs agian for a few minutes and
is
out of breath again. very frustrating. Of course Dell says the computer is
fine..discussion groups in Office Suite have nothing to suggest.... anyone
here have any ideas? Thank you

I would suggest more RAM. You'll experience much better performance
with 2GB of RAM. 3GB would be even better.

C.B.

 

[Charles W Davis]

I have a Dell Inspiron , 1g ram..XP updgraded to Vista Ultimate, Office
2007
suite.. stand alone computer not connected to a network.
Upgraded 1 yr ago and everything was fine until recently programs stall
out
and I see (Not Responding) at the top of the screen. I thought it was an
Outlook problem because I use it the most. But now it happens in Pub,
Excell,
MSN and just about every program. It occurs with just one program open or
several at a time. It runs fine for a few minutes then it has to catch its
breath (not responding) once it does it runs agian for a few minutes and
is
out of breath again. very frustrating. Of course Dell says the computer is
fine..discussion groups in Office Suite have nothing to suggest.... anyone
here have any ideas? Thank you

Paul,
1. Run the Task Manager and determine which program is causing the high
usage.
2. Have you checked your Virtual Memory size. Go to Help and Support and
search on "virtual memory" (without the quotes). Set it to allow Windows to
manage.

 

[solon fox]

Well, if the CPU is pegged at 100% when this happens, then I would
suspect that you have some task out there running that you aren't
aware of. Which antivirus suite do you use? I'd be looking to see if
maybe there is a scan or update running and hogging the machine. I
think the SQL server (compact version) is now normal. It seems that
some of the bells and whistles now rely on SQL server.

It's a little bit hard to track all the processes using just Task
Manager. You can kind of see where the CPU is going in the Processes
tab and sometimes Resource Monitor can help (found on the Performance
tab of Task Manager).

There is a free download from Microsoft called 'Process Explorer' that
I have found to be helpful in finding that rogue process.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

But, all of this will only help you to find the culprit, not fix the
problem. Once you find the process that is causing the problem, you
have to decide what to do about it; remove it, disable it, uninstall,
replace it with an alternative, look for an update, or just suffer? It
all depends on what 'it' is once you've isolated it.

It could even be a symptom caused by something else, like a bad
graphics card or a driver problem.

I hope that you can find it. Maybe, if you find the thing that is
sucking up the CPU, you will post it back here.

Good luck,

-solon fox