XP Hangs Expectingly

[Banwari]

HI All,

I have a very strange problem. I have installed Windows XP Pro for last
few months. It was working great till last month. From last month, it
hangs all of a sudden.

Initially I couldn't understand anything but as this all went on, I
noticed that 95% of the time it hangs while opening a popup-menu. Size
of the menu really doesn't matter. If I go to programs-menu and move
mouse all over the menu, its for sure that it will hang. It hangs in a
way that, the screen along with mouse cursor is just frozen. Yet
another sure hanging-condition is when I install Britannica
Encyclopaedia 2005. As Install screen appears, it hangs.

I have formatted partition containing XP and re-installed XP. I have
verifiedmy room's power-supply. Also, I have tried exchanging Hard-Disk
and RAM. So its not the problem related to these two at-least.

Any inputs are invaluable, i will really appreciate those.

Thanking you all.

 

[Malke]

HI All,

I have a very strange problem. I have installed Windows XP Pro for
last few months. It was working great till last month. From last
month, it hangs all of a sudden.

Initially I couldn't understand anything but as this all went on, I
noticed that 95% of the time it hangs while opening a popup-menu. Size
of the menu really doesn't matter. If I go to programs-menu and move
mouse all over the menu, its for sure that it will hang. It hangs in a
way that, the screen along with mouse cursor is just frozen. Yet
another sure hanging-condition is when I install Britannica
Encyclopaedia 2005. As Install screen appears, it hangs.

I have formatted partition containing XP and re-installed XP. I have
verifiedmy room's power-supply. Also, I have tried exchanging
Hard-Disk and RAM. So its not the problem related to these two
at-least.

Any inputs are invaluable, i will really appreciate those.

Thanking you all.

By "popup-menu" I assume you mean the right-click context menu. Problems
with the system locking up, being slow, etc. when right-clicking are
most often caused by third-party programs putting extensions into the
context menu. Use the free ShellExView utility to disable all non-MS
entries in the context menu for troubleshooting:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

And here are some other links that may help you:

Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm

Right click causes an error and crashes Explorer.exe after installing
Windows XP SP2 - http://www.winxptutor.com/sp2/divxcrash.htm

Manage the context-menu entries for folders, drives and Namespace
objects - http://windowsxp.mvps.org/context_folders.htm

Malke

 

[Banwari]

Thanks Bob,

Bob, I am using the drivers provided by Windows Xp only and I had no
problem with these drivers. This problem arose suddenly when I came
back from office, my friend told me that system hanged few mins back. I
was shocked when I saw my xp hanged for the first time

thnx again, I will try updating drivers.

 

[Banwari]

Thnx Malke to respond.

By "popup-menu" I assume you mean the right-click context menu.

Actually, I was pointing to anytype of menu generated by the system,
not just the context-menu opened by clicking right click.

Let me explain the problem in more details. My xp may hang if,

1. I goto Programs Menu and try to go inside some sub-menu as
Accessories.
2. If I right click on desktop and point to New.
3. If multiple windows are opened, while switching-over.
4. While installing some heavy application (e.g. Bratannica) but not
when I was reinstalling windows itself

etc.

I hope u got the prob in more detail.

thnx

 

[Malke]

Thnx Malke to respond.


Actually, I was pointing to anytype of menu generated by the system,
not just the context-menu opened by clicking right click.

Let me explain the problem in more details. My xp may hang if,

1. I goto Programs Menu and try to go inside some sub-menu as
Accessories.
2. If I right click on desktop and point to New.
3. If multiple windows are opened, while switching-over.
4. While installing some heavy application (e.g. Bratannica) but not
when I was reinstalling windows itself

Since you know it's not the RAM (and presumably you have at least 256MB
of RAM - if not, that could be the problem) and the hard drive, what
are the hardware specs on the computer? What video card and what
processor speed? Is the computer old or new? Is the power supply
adequate?

Malke

 

[Banwari]

Thanks once again Malke,

I had 128MB of RAM (I had tried with adding another 128MB but in vain),
20GB 7200RPM Seagate HD and Intel-based 815 MotherBoard(Its not
Genuine-Intel, rather it has Intel-chipset.). I had tried replacing
hard-drive as well. Processor Speed is 800MHz (PIII)

I didn't opened cabinet to see which graphics card i have, but it shud
be some standard on-board card. Xp is providing standard Intel 815
graphics driver to it.

I will fetch a PCI-VGA card tonight and try with it, lets see what
happens

thnx again

 

[Z]

I hope u got the prob in more detail.

What does Task Manager > Performance report for used and available
physical memory?

 

[Banwari]

What does Task Manager > Performance report for used and available

physical memory?

Its Normal, as usual. around 90 MB memory is used and processor
utilization is also low(e.g. 4-5% when system is idle)

The very first thing, I am unable to know is whether this problem
relates to hardware or software

thnx n regards

 

[Z]

Its Normal, as usual. around 90 MB memory is used and processor
utilization is also low(e.g. 4-5% when system is idle)

Does the total in Task Manager show all your physical memory?

Have you run any memory diagnostic tests?