OS briefly "pauses" frequently

[heybrakywacky]

Basic configuration: Dell Dimension 8250 with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4
processor, 1 GB of memory, Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80 GB hard drive,
Windows XP Professional SP2.

I'm having a problem where my system seems to randomly hang for about
half a second before continuing with whatever I was doing. This
happens anywhere from every 30 seconds to every five minutes; it's very
random. I've had this happen with no programs open (NOD32 anti-virus
is about the only thing that runs resident), just moving the mouse
around the desktop screen. The cursor will just stop where it is for
half a second, then pick up again. If I'm playing an MP3 in Windows
Media Player, this behavior will coincide with the song hanging on the
note where it pauses, then picking up again.

This started happening after a local computer shop reinstalled the OS
because of some driver corruption for one of the CD-ROM drives. So
there's very little that's been installed (or is currently running) on
the system. I tend to think it must be some kind of hardware problem,
since a) the entire system is affected at the time, and b) the task
manager shows no real change in activity in the processor, processes,
or memory at the time of the freeze. I'm just not sure how to
troubleshoot it past that point.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[Guest]

Check the event log.

--PA

 

[heybrakywacky]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that. The event log has nothing around the
times that it happens...nothing unusual at all, for that matter.

That's what also leads me to believe it's some kind of hardware
problem: the complete lack of logging or process evidence around the
problem. Does anyone know of any utilities that would be good for
testing bus integrity for sustained hard drive access? It seems like
it would almost have to be something hard drive related (or somewhere
between the motherboard and the hard drive). I figure memory errors
would simply result in random application and system crashes, which
hasn't happened. And video hardware errors are not likely to cause
songs to stutter or the whole system to momentarily pause, at least not
without some application running that would trigger it.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[Guest]

If it started after reloading by the local pc shop and little else has
changed, take it back.

 

[marty]

Basic configuration: Dell Dimension 8250 with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4
processor, 1 GB of memory, Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80 GB hard drive,
Windows XP Professional SP2.

I'm having a problem where my system seems to randomly hang for about
half a second before continuing with whatever I was doing. This
happens anywhere from every 30 seconds to every five minutes; it's very
random. I've had this happen with no programs open (NOD32 anti-virus
is about the only thing that runs resident), just moving the mouse
around the desktop screen. The cursor will just stop where it is for
half a second, then pick up again. If I'm playing an MP3 in Windows
Media Player, this behavior will coincide with the song hanging on the
note where it pauses, then picking up again.

This started happening after a local computer shop reinstalled the OS
because of some driver corruption for one of the CD-ROM drives. So
there's very little that's been installed (or is currently running) on
the system. I tend to think it must be some kind of hardware problem,
since a) the entire system is affected at the time, and b) the task
manager shows no real change in activity in the processor, processes,
or memory at the time of the freeze. I'm just not sure how to
troubleshoot it past that point.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

I had the same freezing problem and it had to do with the drivers from
my logitech mouse....like yours it gave no indication in the event log
that something it wrong. My advice is to make sure that you have all of
the latest drivers for every piece of hardware you have.

 

[heybrakywacky]

Thanks Marty. I hadn't considered the driver angle. I'll give that a
try, and let you know how it goes.

Kevin

 

[Bob I]

For video cards "the very latest" may not always be best. Sometimes it's
a bad version, so be prepared to try more than one.

 

[heybrakywacky]

I think the driver path was the right way to go. I noticed when going
through the device manager and matching against actual hardware, the
wrong device drivers had been installed for the integrated sound. So
far, since updating the drivers to reflect the proper hardware, I
haven't noticed the issue again (knock on wood).

Thanks, everyone, for your comments and help!

Kevin