Help! Computer partial freezes - Lateral thinking needed

[Bruce]

On Tue, 20 Apr 2010 233:44 +0100, John Rumm
<see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
>If so it sounds like a problem I had with Firefox after an update from
>3.6. It was getting resource hungry - swallowing 50% CPU for no apparent
>reason, and on occasion - would seem to cause a freeze like you describe
>- especially when trying to resize or move a window.
>
>After a few days of irritation the problem went away!


My experience also.

I changed to Chromium - identical in all respects to Google Chrome but
it doesn't report your browsing habits to Google.

 

[Roger Mills]

In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
<see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
> Roger Mills wrote:
>
>
>> Anyone come across anything like this, or got any ideas?
>
> Yes, recently...
>
> Something to try when it next "freezes"....
>
> Does ALT + Tab escape from the freeze? And what about CTRL+ALT+DEL
> (i.e. opening task manager)?
>
ALT+Tab cycles round the open applications, but none of them - except
Mailwasher - will do anything, or even close down - they just go into Not
Responding mode.

If task manager is already running when the freeze happens, it carries on -
showing chan ging amounts of CPU time used by each task. If it *isn't*
already running, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't start it (and no other applications
will start, either)


> If so it sounds like a problem I had with Firefox after an update from
> 3.6. It was getting resource hungry - swallowing 50% CPU for no
> apparent reason, and on occasion - would seem to cause a freeze like
> you describe - especially when trying to resize or move a window.
>
> After a few days of irritation the problem went away! The only
> significant event I can correlate with it was a message recently on
> starting FF warning that the Java Deployment Toolkit had been disabled
> for security or stability reasons. Since then it s been fine. Looking
> at the specific reasons for the block list entry of that[1] it does
> not seem to be related to the problem I was having - so may be
> co-incidence.
>
> [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558584
>
I get a similar problem with Firefox - which often used 90+ % of CPU time,
but I don't think that's the cause of the freezes - which happen even if
Firefox isn't running. [I recently updated to v 3.6.3 (after the freezes
started happening) in the hope that it reduce the amount of CPU time used -
but it hasn't!]
--
Cheers,
Roger
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[Roger Mills]

In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
<see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
> Check there are no services that have been installed and set to
> autostart as well. (Right click My Computer and select "Manage", then
> drill down to the services list).
>

Thanks. I've got the list open at the moment, but don't really know what I'm
looking for. I can't see any that are *obviously* associated with the Canon
printer.
--
Cheers,
Roger
_______
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checked.

 

[larkim]

On Apr 21, 11:53 am, "Roger Mills" <watt.ty...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm<see.my.signat...@nowhere.null> wrote:
> > Roger Mills wrote:
>
> >> Anyone come across anything like this, or got any ideas?
>
> > Yes, recently...
>
> > Something to try when it next "freezes"....
>
> > Does ALT + Tab escape from the freeze? And what about CTRL+ALT+DEL
> > (i.e. opening task manager)?
>
> ALT+Tab cycles round the open applications, but none of them - except
> Mailwasher - will do anything, or even close down - they just go into Not
> Responding mode.
>
> If task manager is already running when the freeze happens, it carries on-
> showing chan ging amounts of CPU time used by each task. If it *isn't*
> already running, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't start it (and no other applications
> will start, either)
>
> > If so it sounds like a problem I had with Firefox after an update from
> > 3.6. It was getting resource hungry - swallowing 50% CPU for no
> > apparent reason, and on occasion - would seem to cause a freeze like
> > you describe - especially when trying to resize or move a window.
>
> > After a few days of irritation the problem went away! The only
> > significant event I can correlate with it was a message recently on
> > starting FF warning that the Java Deployment Toolkit had been disabled
> > for security or stability reasons. Since then it s been fine. Looking
> > at the specific reasons for the block list entry of that[1] it does
> > not seem to be related to the problem I was having - so may be
> > co-incidence.
>
> > [1]https/bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558584
>
> I get a similar problem with Firefox - which often used 90+ % of CPU time,
> but I don't think that's the cause of the freezes - which happen even if
> Firefox isn't running. [I recently updated to v 3.6.3 (after the freezes
> started happening) in the hope that it reduce the amount of CPU time used-
> but it hasn't!]
> --
> Cheers,
> Roger
> _______
> Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
> checked.

I don't think enough people have suggested removing AVG as a potential
option. I used to be an AVG fan, but I've had problems on my PC, my
fathers and my father-in-law's PCs and all of them were resolved the
minute I cleaned off AVG.

For a test period (providing you are careful) you could just uninstall
AVG and run without an AV scanner - see if that makes a difference.

Alternatively, just uninstall AVG, reboot, download and install Avast
(or MS Securuity Essentials?) for free and see if the same problems
persist.

AV would certainly by my first thought.

Matt

 

[John Whitworth]

"Roger Mills" <watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:83847pFg95U1@mid.individual.net...
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
> <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>>
>> Check there are no services that have been installed and set to
>> autostart as well. (Right click My Computer and select "Manage", then
>> drill down to the services list).
>>
>
> Thanks. I've got the list open at the moment, but don't really know what
> I'm looking for. I can't see any that are *obviously* associated with the
> Canon printer.
> --
Have you tried msconfig, to remove any programs that may be kicking in at
startup?

Start - Run - msconfig. Then select the Startup tab, and uncheck anything
that looks suspicious. Hell - untick everything, see if the problem goes
away. If it does, selectively re-introduce things.

JW

 

[Roger Mills]

In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Whitworth
<sexyjw@g_EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_mail.com> wrote:
> "Roger Mills" <watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:83847pFg95U1@mid.individual.net...
>> In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
>> <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>>>
>>> Check there are no services that have been installed and set to
>>> autostart as well. (Right click My Computer and select "Manage",
>>> then drill down to the services list).
>>>
>>
>> Thanks. I've got the list open at the moment, but don't really know
>> what I'm looking for. I can't see any that are *obviously*
>> associated with the Canon printer.
>> --
> Have you tried msconfig, to remove any programs that may be kicking
> in at startup?
>
In effect, yes.

> Start - Run - msconfig. Then select the Startup tab, and uncheck
> anything that looks suspicious. Hell - untick everything, see if the
> problem goes away. If it does, selectively re-introduce things.
>
> JW

I have a third-party Startup program in Control Panel which does the same
thing - and I've disabled anything which look suspicious in that.
--
Cheers,
Roger
_______
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

 

[John Rumm]

Roger Mills wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
> <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>> Roger Mills wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Anyone come across anything like this, or got any ideas?
>> Yes, recently...
>>
>> Something to try when it next "freezes"....
>>
>> Does ALT + Tab escape from the freeze? And what about CTRL+ALT+DEL
>> (i.e. opening task manager)?
>>
> ALT+Tab cycles round the open applications, but none of them - except
> Mailwasher - will do anything, or even close down - they just go into Not
> Responding mode.
>
> If task manager is already running when the freeze happens, it carries on -
> showing chan ging amounts of CPU time used by each task. If it *isn't*
> already running, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't start it (and no other applications
> will start, either)

OK, different problem then...

>> If so it sounds like a problem I had with Firefox after an update from
>> 3.6. It was getting resource hungry - swallowing 50% CPU for no
>> apparent reason, and on occasion - would seem to cause a freeze like
>> you describe - especially when trying to resize or move a window.
>>
>> After a few days of irritation the problem went away! The only
>> significant event I can correlate with it was a message recently on
>> starting FF warning that the Java Deployment Toolkit had been disabled
>> for security or stability reasons. Since then it s been fine. Looking
>> at the specific reasons for the block list entry of that[1] it does
>> not seem to be related to the problem I was having - so may be
>> co-incidence.
>>
>> [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558584
>>
> I get a similar problem with Firefox - which often used 90+ % of CPU time,

Have you got a single core processor? Thinking about it - I was seeing
100% loading of one core - so that would amount to pretty much full
occupancy of one core.

> but I don't think that's the cause of the freezes - which happen even if

Nope I agree, yours sounds different.

> Firefox isn't running. [I recently updated to v 3.6.3 (after the freezes
> started happening) in the hope that it reduce the amount of CPU time used -
> but it hasn't!]

I am not sure what fixed it for me - tried various things which made no
difference, but then it worked again - that seemed to co-inside with
that plug-in blocking but I can see no reason why it should have had
that effect. I have seen the same effect (and cure) on three of my
systems as well.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

 

[John Rumm]

larkim wrote:
> On Apr 21, 11:53 am, "Roger Mills" <watt.ty...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm<see.my.signat...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>>> Roger Mills wrote:
>>>> Anyone come across anything like this, or got any ideas?
>>> Yes, recently...
>>> Something to try when it next "freezes"....
>>> Does ALT + Tab escape from the freeze? And what about CTRL+ALT+DEL
>>> (i.e. opening task manager)?
>> ALT+Tab cycles round the open applications, but none of them - except
>> Mailwasher - will do anything, or even close down - they just go into Not
>> Responding mode.
>>
>> If task manager is already running when the freeze happens, it carries on -
>> showing chan ging amounts of CPU time used by each task. If it *isn't*
>> already running, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't start it (and no other applications
>> will start, either)
>>
>>> If so it sounds like a problem I had with Firefox after an update from
>>> 3.6. It was getting resource hungry - swallowing 50% CPU for no
>>> apparent reason, and on occasion - would seem to cause a freeze like
>>> you describe - especially when trying to resize or move a window.
>>> After a few days of irritation the problem went away! The only
>>> significant event I can correlate with it was a message recently on
>>> starting FF warning that the Java Deployment Toolkit had been disabled
>>> for security or stability reasons. Since then it s been fine. Looking
>>> at the specific reasons for the block list entry of that[1] it does
>>> not seem to be related to the problem I was having - so may be
>>> co-incidence.
>>> [1]https/bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558584
>> I get a similar problem with Firefox - which often used 90+ % of CPU time,
>> but I don't think that's the cause of the freezes - which happen even if
>> Firefox isn't running. [I recently updated to v 3.6.3 (after the freezes
>> started happening) in the hope that it reduce the amount of CPU time used -
>> but it hasn't!]
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> Roger
>> _______
>> Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
>> checked.
>
> I don't think enough people have suggested removing AVG as a potential
> option. I used to be an AVG fan, but I've had problems on my PC, my
> fathers and my father-in-law's PCs and all of them were resolved the
> minute I cleaned off AVG.
>
> For a test period (providing you are careful) you could just uninstall
> AVG and run without an AV scanner - see if that makes a difference.

I would suggest before going that far - to try disabling the AVG add ons
in the browser...

> Alternatively, just uninstall AVG, reboot, download and install Avast
> (or MS Securuity Essentials?) for free and see if the same problems
> persist.

Avast would be preferable to the MS one - its currently outperforming
AVG anyway in tests[1] apart from on false positives where it is a bit
worse.

[1] Current performance of an AV product is not always a good reason for
change since they all have good and bad phases and take a little
"learning" to work out which aspects of performance they hit most.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

 

[Roger Mills]

In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
<see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
> Have you got a single core processor? Thinking about it - I was seeing
> 100% loading of one core - so that would amount to pretty much full
> occupancy of one core.
>

Yes - the computer in question is 7 or 8 years old - I'm not sure that
multi-core systems had been invented at the time!
--
Cheers,
Roger
_______
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

 

[Roger Mills]

In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
<see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
> larkim wrote:
>>
>> For a test period (providing you are careful) you could just
>> uninstall AVG and run without an AV scanner - see if that makes a
>> difference.
>
> I would suggest before going that far - to try disabling the AVG add
> ons in the browser...
>

I hesitate to say this . . . but, since making a couple of changes
yesterday, the system has run ok all day today without freezing at all. The
two changes were:
* Disabling an auto-starting Canon printer-monitoring program called
MyPrinter (relating to a printer which is not physically present, 'cos it's
at my 'other' property
* Running the Fix-it thing which someone mentioned, and allowing it to
disable a couple of video codecs which it thought might cause problems

Time will tell whether this action has really fixed the problem, or whether
this is just a temporary respite!
--
Cheers,
Roger
_______
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

 

[John Doue]

On 4/21/2010 1:53 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
> <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>> Roger Mills wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Anyone come across anything like this, or got any ideas?
>>
>> Yes, recently...
>>
>> Something to try when it next "freezes"....
>>
>> Does ALT + Tab escape from the freeze? And what about CTRL+ALT+DEL
>> (i.e. opening task manager)?
>>
> ALT+Tab cycles round the open applications, but none of them - except
> Mailwasher - will do anything, or even close down - they just go into Not
> Responding mode.
>
> If task manager is already running when the freeze happens, it carries on -
> showing chan ging amounts of CPU time used by each task. If it *isn't*
> already running, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't start it (and no other applications
> will start, either)
>
>
>> If so it sounds like a problem I had with Firefox after an update from
>> 3.6. It was getting resource hungry - swallowing 50% CPU for no
>> apparent reason, and on occasion - would seem to cause a freeze like
>> you describe - especially when trying to resize or move a window.
>>
>> After a few days of irritation the problem went away! The only
>> significant event I can correlate with it was a message recently on
>> starting FF warning that the Java Deployment Toolkit had been disabled
>> for security or stability reasons. Since then it s been fine. Looking
>> at the specific reasons for the block list entry of that[1] it does
>> not seem to be related to the problem I was having - so may be
>> co-incidence.
>>
>> [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558584
>>
> I get a similar problem with Firefox - which often used 90+ % of CPU time,
> but I don't think that's the cause of the freezes - which happen even if
> Firefox isn't running. [I recently updated to v 3.6.3 (after the freezes
> started happening) in the hope that it reduce the amount of CPU time used -
> but it hasn't!]


--
John Doue

 

[Huge]

On 2010-04-21, Roger Mills <watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion, John Rumm
><see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>>
>> Have you got a single core processor? Thinking about it - I was seeing
>> 100% loading of one core - so that would amount to pretty much full
>> occupancy of one core.
>>
>
> Yes - the computer in question is 7 or 8 years old - I'm not sure that
> multi-core systems had been invented at the time!

Well, not in consumer level equipment, anyway.

--
Politicians always run out of other people's money.
email me, if you must, at huge {at} huge (dot) org <dot> uk]

 

[the wharf rat]

In article <835i59FigfU1@mid.individual.net>,
Roger Mills <watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote:
>* Mailwasher (which I have permanently open on one of the monitors)
>continues to scan for emails and displays any new ones it finds. It even
>responds to mouse clicks to zap any emails I don't want - but it's virtually

Try turning off mailwasher.

The symtpoms sound like mailwasher is monopolizing the cpu or waiting
for some kind of event that doesn't happen. The machine isn't hung because
mailwasher still responds.

 

[Roger Mills]

In an earlier contribution to this discussion, the wharf rat
<wrat@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <835i59FigfU1@mid.individual.net>,
> Roger Mills <watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> * Mailwasher (which I have permanently open on one of the monitors)
>> continues to scan for emails and displays any new ones it finds. It
>> even responds to mouse clicks to zap any emails I don't want - but
>> it's virtually
>
> Try turning off mailwasher.
>
> The symtpoms sound like mailwasher is monopolizing the cpu or waiting
> for some kind of event that doesn't happen. The machine isn't hung
> because mailwasher still responds.

When it hangs, closing Mailwasher makes no difference. Everything else
continues not to work.

Fortunately, as reported a couple of days ago, the system hasn't hung since
I made a couple of other changes - so I'm hoping that I've fixed it!
--
Cheers,
Roger
_______
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

 

[the wharf rat]

In article <83h92sF8dmU1@mid.individual.net>,
Roger Mills <watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>When it hangs, closing Mailwasher makes no difference. Everything else
>continues not to work.

sure, because whatever thread the program spawned is still off
monopolizing resources. gotta stop it before it gets to that point.