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Window 7 64bit programs "Not Responding" problem.I have a maddening problem with my Windows 7 64bit pro PC. It works fine except for the maddening problem of it intermittently "Not Responding". For example: I start the PC. It works fine for 5 minutes. Then I go to launch a program and nothing happens. It doesn't launch. Then everything freezes for a minute or two and it all starts working perfectly.
Let's say I am using Chrome to browse for example. All of a sudden I get the dreaded "not responding" message on top of the browser. Then...at that time....I click on XYexploer (for example) and if I click to launch it nothing happens. It doesn't launch. Then I click it a couple of more times. Nothing happens. It still won't launch. Then....after waiting a minute or two......the program (any program but for the sake of this discussion XYexplorer) launches three times. In other words three (or however many times I clicked on the icon originally) programs open one on top of the other so I have three XYexplorers open at the same time. It took one to two minutes for the computer to respond to me clicking on the icon three times to open.
Then I can go along for several minutes or more and it happens again. It's killing my productivity. Have to wait a minute or two between these pauses or " not responding" situations is killing me.
I have 12 gigs of ram.
I have Norton 360 and no viruses have been detected. I have uninstalled Norton and tried other virus scanners thinking that might be the problem. It wasn't. I ran malwarebytes.....nothing detected. Check disk runs with no errors found.
I am at a complete loss as what to do.
If anyone here can help I would be profoundly grateful.
Thank you. |
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taoman
Premium Member
join:2013-09-13
Seattle, WA |
taoman
Premium Member
2014-Feb-21 3:00 pm
Sounds like your CPU is being pegged by something. I would open task manager and check the option to be "Always on top." Then when it happens again you should be able to see the program/process that is maxing out your CPU. |
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 Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA |
Wily_One
Premium Member
2014-Feb-21 4:14 pm
And if not CPU then I'd suspect HDD lock up. Perhaps idle timeout, or a problem with the drive itself. Are your ears sensitive enough to hear it when it spins up? If so, do you hear it crank up during these microfreezes? (Does not apply to SSD obviously.) |
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rfnut
Premium Member
join:2002-04-27
Fisher, IL |
to Bon Scott
I'll go along with Wily_One  . Replaced or installed a new drive recently? I had an issue a couple of years ago where the HDD power saving programming in its firmware was causing the same behaviour. Seagate drive if I recall and it was just a secondary HDD. Removed the drive and all was better. The problem with the drive even followed it to a second computer, both identical Dells. I threw the drive out and never did pinpoint the exact issue, but it seemed as though there was a firmware update for the drive that mainly affected specific RAID controllers. |
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to Bon Scott
Another place I would look is in the Event Viewer, (eventvwr.msc) under the Window Logs, application and system for any anomalies that may explain the lockup.
As far as the drive is concerned, the power plan could be checked, and changed to leave the drive always powered up, and see if that eliminates the lockups. |
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Many thanks for all the ideas. I'll check them out when I get home. I'm at work right now.
My PC specs are posted below if that helps:
CUSTOM DESKTOP COMPUTER, Core™ i7 2-way SLI® DDR3 24GB Performance
ANTEC, Performance One P183 Black Mid-Tower Computer Case, ATX, No PSU
ANTEC, Signature 650 Power Supply, 650W, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, One 6-pin + One 8-pin PCIe, SLI Certified
ASUS, P6T Deluxe V2, LGA1366, Intel® X58, 6400 MT/s QPI, DDR3-2000 (O.C.) 24GB /6, PCIe x16 SLI CF /3, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /6, HDA, GbLAN /2, FW /2, ATX, Retail
INTEL, Core™ i7-920 Quad-Core 2.66GHz, LGA1366, 4.8 GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm, 130W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail
NOCTUA, NH-U12P Copper CPU Cooler, Socket 1366
CORSAIR, 12GB (6 x 2GB) XMS3 PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.65V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
GIGABYTE, GV-N96TSL-1GI, GeForce® 9600 GT 650MHz, 1GB GDDR3 1800MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, VGA+DVI, HDMI, Retail
WESTERN DIGITAL, 150GB (WD1500HLFS) WD VelociRaptor™, SATA 3 Gb/s, 10000 RPM, 16MB cache
WESTERN DIGITAL, 1TB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD1001FALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
LITE-ON, iHDS118 Black 18x48x DVD-ROM Drive, SATA, OEM
LITE-ON, iHAS324 Black 24x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ Smart Erase, SATA, Retail
SILVERSTONE, SST-FP35 Black Internal 30-in-1 Card Reader & I/O Panel Device , 3.5" Bay, USB
MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Edition, OEM
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 Msradell
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
Louisville, KY |
to Bon Scott
I'm having the same thing happen on my laptop that's running windows 7x64 home premium, i3 4th generation processor, 16 gigabytes RAM.... It seems to happen randomly lasts for a couple minutes then goes away. How often it happens also seems to be random, sometimes it will happen quite often and other times it will happen very seldom. |
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to Bon Scott
said by Bon Scott:It took one to two minutes... It is a long shot, but one thing that takes one to two minutes sometimes is network timeouts. Does that XYexploer check for updates at launch? I sometimes get that two minute hang at work when there are network problems with programs that connect to the network, including Windows explorer with mapped network drives. |
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said by Frodo:said by Bon Scott:It took one to two minutes... It is a long shot, but one thing that takes one to two minutes sometimes is network timeouts. Does that XYexploer check for updates at launch? I sometimes get that two minute hang at work when there are network problems with programs that connect to the network, including Windows explorer with mapped network drives. I just used XYexplorer as an example. Happens with all software. |
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dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio |
to Bon Scott
It's probably choking on its own vomitI have an aged laptop that sometimes hangs; it's a disk or disk controller issue, and the effect is that there's a long timeout waiting for a disk response that never comes. An error is recorded in the system event log when this happens to me. I second Frodo 's suggestion to look there. |
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to taoman
said by taoman:Sounds like your CPU is being pegged by something. I would open task manager and check the option to be "Always on top." Then when it happens again you should be able to see the program/process that is maxing out your CPU. I have been running the task manager like you suggested and during a "not responding" episode in the processes and performance tabs nothing looked like it was maxing out my CPU. Evereything looked normal. |
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| Bon Scott |
to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:And if not CPU then I'd suspect HDD lock up. Perhaps idle timeout, or a problem with the drive itself. Are your ears sensitive enough to hear it when it spins up? If so, do you hear it crank up during these microfreezes? (Does not apply to SSD obviously.) During my latest "Not Responding" episode I didn't hear anything unusual coming out of the HDD. Sounded normal. It not SSD btw. |
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| Bon Scott |
to dave
said by dave:It's probably choking on its own vomit
I have an aged laptop that sometimes hangs; it's a disk or disk controller issue, and the effect is that there's a long timeout waiting for a disk response that never comes.
An error is recorded in the system event log when this happens to me. I second Frodo 's suggestion to look there.
During my last "Not responding" episode I looked in the event viewer and no critical errors or warnings were present. |
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Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA |
to Bon Scott
Did you check your Power settings? Do these events correlate with any idle timeout you may have set? |
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 BlackbirdBuilt for Speed
Premium Member
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN |
to Bon Scott
Did the problem suddenly/abruptly start happening in mid-session one day, after starting a new day's operation, or after some particular event you might recall (installing something, updating something, sudden power failure, etc)? Did it appear at some point in time and gradually worsen, or has it been consistent at its present level of occurrence? |
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to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:Did you check your Power settings? Do these events correlate with any idle timeout you may have set? What do you recommend my power settings be set at? |
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| Bon Scott |
to Blackbird
said by Blackbird:Did the problem suddenly/abruptly start happening in mid-session one day, after starting a new day's operation, or after some particular event you might recall (installing something, updating something, sudden power failure, etc)? Did it appear at some point in time and gradually worsen, or has it been consistent at its present level of occurrence? The problem is intermittent. It has been consistent for many weeks. Nothing installed caused it as far as I know. No power failures or other unusual things happened. |
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Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA |
to Bon Scott
First I'd like to know how you have it set now, and if these periods of microfreezes correspond to when the HDD is in idle mode.
Also I'd re-echo what someone mentioned above about checking for HDD errors. Get CrystalDisk Info - the Portable version (to avoid adware.) |
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1 edit |
said by Wily_One:First I'd like to know how you have it set now, and if these periods of microfreezes correspond to when the HDD is in idle mode. How can it be in idle mode? It happens while I am actively using the computer. |
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Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA
1 edit |
Wily_One
Premium Member
2014-Feb-24 1:29 am
The setting I'm talking about is buried; it's under advanced power settings. The boot drive is (pretty much) always active - that doesn't mean all the drives are. Is there any commonality to the programs that lock up for you? (I don't know what you have where on your system.) As for your SMART status all yours report Good, which is, well, good.  |
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said by Wily_One ] Is there any commonality to the programs that lock up for you? (I don't know what you have where on your system.)
[/bquote : Commonality? I dont know. Their all on the C drive if that helps. |
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Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA |
Wily_One
Premium Member
2014-Feb-24 1:37 am
said by Bon Scott:Commonality? I dont know. Their all on the C drive if that helps. Yeah that's what I was after. I suspected a HDD issue but that doesn't look to be the case here. Sorry, I'm stumped. |
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Here are my advanced power settings. |
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Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA |
Wily_One
Premium Member
2014-Feb-24 1:49 am
If your lockups occur in <20 min intervals then that's not the problem. (Just for grins you might want to increase that.)
So HDDs are fine, and nothing in Event Viewer. (You checked both System and Application logs, right?) Strange. |
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to Bon Scott
Another shot in the dark. You could check out task manager and see what tasks are being fired off. There was a lot of tasks I shut off the first week I got this box. |
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rfnut
Premium Member
join:2002-04-27
Fisher, IL |
to Bon Scott
I am following this closely, as I think we may have the same symptom. Since the cursor continues to move and a modal box pops up saying "not responding" I believe the issue is not within windows, or the programs. It has to be lower level, as the delay is known by windows (error message) and is not run away memory use or locked process which would likely cause the cursor movement to be a problem. (process viewer / monitor verified). I still believe this is hardware I\O related and in my case is directly related to my hard drive configuration.
I have a samsung HD753 and an old maxtor 300. Both extensively used in other systems and in various RAID environments before my personal use here. The Maxtor has been solid as a rock for years and years ( and years). The Samsung was pulled from a RAID 5 array a few years ago (all 12 were pulled and replaced) due to intermittent and inconsistent drive issues within the raid. Specifically a fix to force the drive to use SATA 150 instead of 300, because HDD firmware had issues with our controller.
In my case I am not implying the seagate or the maxtor are individually bad as they both test OK, but the combination has been an issue on this machine. I believe it to be HDD controller bug(?) in the BIOS, subjecting windows to a long wait on an Interupt request. But I have not troubleshot as it is not high on my list and only minor inconvenience when the kids play with the system. |
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to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:So HDDs are fine, and nothing in Event Viewer. (You checked both System and Application logs, right?) Strange. I'm no expert with the Event Viewer. Exactly what should I be looking for and where in the Event Viewer Window? Thank you for all your help. |
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BlackbirdBuilt for Speed
Premium Member
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN |
said by Bon Scott:...I'm no expert with the Event Viewer. Exactly what should I be looking for and where in the Event Viewer Window? ... One thing I suggest (since it's worked for me in tracking down a few behavior oddities) is to pay close attention to the system while you're using it, and note the exact time when things start acting odd. Then go into the Event Logs and nose around in the Application, Security, and System specific logs at/before the misbehavior time-point... see what last things occurred at or just before the act-up point, especially things showing "Errors" and even "Warnings". If you can repeat this process for several misbehaviors, there may be something that keeps correlating just at or before each episode. |
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to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:And if not CPU then I'd suspect HDD lock up. Perhaps idle timeout, or a problem with the drive itself. Are your ears sensitive enough to hear it when it spins up? If so, do you hear it crank up during these microfreezes? (Does not apply to SSD obviously.) It's not an SSD. During the last freeze which took place about 30 minutes ago and lasted about 1 minute (while I was doing my tax return of course)......I could hear the hard drive make a kind of crinkling or jingling sound right when the PC unfroze. What can that indicate? |
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Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA |
Wily_One
Premium Member
2014-Feb-27 1:35 pm
So did this happen after returning to your PC after 20 mins or more? If so, then it could be related to your Power settings; you can try increasing that 20 min HDD timeout.
How old is the drive? We checked for SMART errors and it was clean, so that's a good sign. You can also try running a low-level diagnostic using your HDD manufacturer's diagnostic software. (Just be careful of any tests that overwrite data.) |
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