computer freezing too much now!!

tonyheaney

beauf wrote: »

You're installing a lot of software there. Much of which has the potential to cause issues. I would install anything you don't use. Checking you don't need any of it for features of the laptop. Then go through all the services and and startup apps and see which ones can be turned off until you need them.

LOL Its a Desktop Pc, but yes i will start doing that

shanec1928

Your amd processor is always going to be slow anyway..

beauf

tonyheaney wrote: »

LOL Its a Desktop Pc, but yes i will start doing that

Sorry I keep forgetting. There may be media buttons on your keyboard etc. Personally I would loose all the HP stuff, all the demo's, the MS live stuff. Any web apps which load at startup I would switch to only loading when started.

Last time I tested them, I thought Avast was the best compromise in terms of slowing a machine down, and detection but you might have to mess with it to get rid of the ads. Which can be a problem with it.

beauf

shanec1928 wrote: »

Your amd processor is always going to be slow anyway..

It not quick for sure, but its actually faster than my laptop, so shouldn't have problems with browsing the web. Or freezing. My laptop was getting painful till I put a SSD in it.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=128&cmp[]=927

That said if I was you, I'd start thinking of a replacement at some point.

tonyheaney

re: replacement Thats what i am thinking however there is one small issue that's holding that back. MY Wife LOL :D:D

You see we have a TV/UPC in the house but since they went to china for the summer the UPC has been turned off. I have no use for it. its really there for the kids.

the computer is the source of entertainment for me, I'm Irish my wife is Chinese and my shows are american and hers is Chinese.

I figure if i am to get a new machine i need one that can with stand the assault of being on for longer extended hours. My current PC is sometimes on for 20 days, whether its work related or family use.

correct me if i am wrong and i probably am, If i buy a gaming machine and i pump say 600/700 in to the tower alone, with high end graphics card and ram included will i be getting a worthwhile work horse of a pc we can all depend on? I more then likely wont play games on as we have an X-box 360 so the PC would be internet/downloading/uploading use only

beauf

All PCs should be able to be on extended hours. I think if you got a SSD installed in that machine you'd get another year or more out of it. if you get to the bottom of whatever is the problem with it at the moment.

tonyheaney

guys, Do you randomly get the USB disconnect sound? while i have mouse and keyboard only connected i have heard the USB disconnect sound for no good reason

cerastes

MiskyBoyy wrote: »

Could possibly be the main HDD is starting to fail. Download a program called crystal disk info to check the health of your current drive.

I've been following this thread with interest, I started a similar thread in relation to very similar problems with my laptop.
I'm going to review the thread I started and follow some of the advice here, I'd really like to pin down what's causing my very similar problems, tediously and painfully slow functioning of my laptop.
From my thread, there are a few laptops in the house, so i have a spare laptop with ubuntu on it to use, and as of today when my win 7 laptop is annoyingly unresponsive (also keeps throwing upmerror messages saying failure to run scripts which it did before the full reinstall too).
I never got the time to follow up the advice from the thread i started due to being too busy but the main laptop is just getting too slow, I did a full backup of my information to an external HDD, then did a complete reinstall, again after having some issues running the back up discs which would not initially work.

I've the free offer to upgrade to win 10 but until I resolve the current problem I see no reason to create more problems.

beauf wrote: »

I think he should image the drive to a ssd. Then do a factory reset. Remove all the software that gets preinstalled.

I've an old disk in my test PC and it crawls but only when using the disk. Once everything is loaded is quick enough.

What's the spec of this machine does it ha 4gb of ram?

Did you run crystal mark that someone suggested earlier.

I was advised in the thread I started to get an ssd, I'm thinking of that or even a replacement data HDD, and increased ram, but I'd prefer test what the problem is rather than just swapping out parts till it stops giving problems.
I've tried Ubuntu and have it on my other laptop which I hardly use as I prefer windows as much as hate to say that 😤
Ive also a small tablet which im using now but it is just useful for going online and not really doing any real work and especially not typing anything.

Bayberry wrote: »

Computers can get flakey for any number of reasons, from software to hardware. But when you've already had issues like this, I'd definitely consider that the power supply in your house isn't very smooth, and that the power supply in your PC may be damaged, or just not able to deal with the variations on the line.

Other hardware problems that can cause the symptoms that you've described are a very dusty environment, so that crud build up on the fan and heatsink, so that the CPU overheats (you've already had the case open to stick in the 2nd HDD - did you notice a lot of dust?).

Besides HDD issues, you can also have issues with RAM that only kick in when there's a bunch of stuff loading and a lot of things are being moved in and out of RAM quickly.

Unfortunately, pinning these things down can be tricky. You can get free s/w for testing both the HDD and the RAM, and you can get tools that will report on the temperature of the CPU and motherboard, if the motherboard supports that. But there really isn't any free way to test a dodgey power supply. Besides the external HDD, have you had other electronic devices in the house break, or seem to be slightly less reliable for you than they are for your friends?

If you've done factory installs more than once, and the problem persists, it's probably not a software issue, (and likely not a HDD issue).

What free test software are you talking about? Where to get it?

beauf

cerastes wrote: »

I...I was advised in the thread I started to get an ssd, I'm thinking of that or even a replacement data HDD, and increased ram, but I'd prefer test what the problem is rather than just swapping out parts till it stops giving problems...

Swapping out parts IS a test. Crude, but quick. Its basic problem solving. Split the problem in half, then half again.

SSD will make the most difference to most people. Unless you are doing something specialized or have some other requirement.

A lot of people on these threads, want to take the longest route to fix problems. I have no idea why.

Bayberry

cerastes wrote: »

What free test software are you talking about? Where to get it?

Most HDD manufacturers provide some testing tools, but they are usually tied to their own drives. This article provides links to a number of different drive testing tools.

For RAM testing, Memtest or Memtest86+ are the standard tools.

Bayberry

beauf wrote: »

A lot of people on these threads, want to take the longest route to fix problems. I have no idea why.

Buying hardware and swapping it in and out IS the longest route to fix problems, unless money is no opbject, in which case you're better off just buying a new laptop.

There's an argument to be made for replacing a HDD with an SSD even if you don't have problems (as long as you don't need all the space on a large HDD), but it takes time to migrate data between drives, and if it turns out that the problem is a software issue, it's just wasted time.

cerastes

beauf wrote: »

Swapping out parts IS a test. Crude, but quick. Its basic problem solving. Split the problem in half, then half again.

SSD will make the most difference to most people. Unless you are doing something specialized or have some other requirement.

A lot of people on these threads, want to take the longest route to fix problems. I have no idea why.

The problem with swapping out parts to test is that it's not targeted enough based on testing , id prefer try determine where the problem is, it means I could buy a hard drive and still have a perfectly functioning one removed, it costs and might not improve things.

I can see I likely will end up buying a hard drive and/or ram but if I only need one, I don't want to have to buy the other uneccesarily, as much as I don't want to have useful parts laying around as the cost.
I see a ssd is mentioned a lot, if I end up going the route of replacing the hard drive is an ssd any better than a replacement sata HDD? Assuming any diagnostics can at least identify or point towards the HDD As the problem?
If any diagnostics don't point to a problem then I will has no choice to resort to dealing out parts.

Bayberry

cerastes wrote: »

I see a ssd is mentioned a lot, if I end up going the route of replacing the hard drive is an ssd any better than a replacement sata HDD?

A properly configured SSD is much, much faster than a HDD, especially a laptop HDD. But you will get less capacity for your Euro - a 128GB SSD will cost as much or more than a 500GB HDD.

beauf

Why would the OP need to buy hardware? A live CD is a free download, and he the OP already has a 2nd hard drive he can use.

beauf

cerastes wrote: »

The problem with swapping out parts to test is that it's not targeted enough based on testing , id prefer try determine where the problem is, it means I could buy a hard drive and still have a perfectly
functioning one removed, it costs and might not improve things....

You are missing the point entirely. I didn't say buy a drive to test.

You remove HD as an issue by using Live CD. Or using another drive if you have one. (The OP has one). You remove software as an issue by using different software. The live CD. This is an issue that should be fixed in under an hour. The point about the SSD is that a SSD is a great upgrade to most machines.

Bayberry

beauf wrote: »

You are missing the point entirely. I didn't say buy a drive to test.

You remove HD as an issue by using Live CD. You remove software as an issue by using different software. The live CD.

You're missing the point - you remove BOTH the HDD and the current software as an issue when you use a LiveCD, so it doesn't tell you anything about whether the problem is due to the HDD or the current software configuration.

tonyheaney

beauf wrote: »

You are missing the point entirely. I didn't say buy a drive to test.

You remove HD as an issue by using Live CD. Or using another drive if you have one. (The OP has one). You remove software as an issue by using different software. The live CD. This is an issue that should be fixed in under an hour. The point about the SSD is that a SSD is a great upgrade to most machines.

I found this very useful guys: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404258,00.asp

beauf

Bayberry wrote: »

You're missing the point - you remove BOTH the HDD and the current software as an issue when you use a LiveCD, so it doesn't tell you anything about whether the problem is due to the HDD or the current software configuration.

Just leave it you're not getting it. Its already been explained.

beauf wrote: »

What I'm suggesting is not testing the hard drive. Rather the opposite. Its testing the rest of the hardware with a different OS....

There’s a number of ways that you can use Ubuntu to diagnose hardware problems, but the first is really obvious once you think about it—just boot off the Live CD, and start running some applications and test out all the hardware from a working Linux environment. If the system works fine in Linux, the problem is probably a Windows issue.

beauf

tonyheaney wrote: »

I found this very useful guys: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404258,00.asp

A SDD is just a lot faster. Which is useful for fast startup and shut down. Also loading applications, anything it reads from the HDD. Any app (like a web browser) which caches to the disk a lot will also be a lot faster. Some apps can avoid this adding a lot of RAM but some will cache to the HDD anyway. So RAM won't help them.

To be honest all you need to know is its a lot faster. But is expensive vs a HD for the same amount of space. So people usually use the SSD for the OS and a few apps they want to run fast, say games, or perhaps their development/work environment. Then store all their big data like media on a 2nd HDD.

But none of this is really that important. If your PC has damaged its motherboard, perhaps due to a power surge, or you are loading some software that is hogging 100% of your CPU. Then all this is irrelevant. You need to find and fix that problem before looking a SSD's.

Bayberry

Tony, there's no point in beauf and I discussing our philosophical differences over debugging techniques in your thread. Rather than continuing to give you conflicting advice, I'll just bow out at this point.

beauf

Ditto. Good luck with it Tony.

tonyheaney

cheers guy thanks for the help thus far

cerastes

Its been a few months and I didnt have the time to attend to the problem I mentioned in this thread, my laptop is so slow now that it makes doing anything very very long, at times it can be ok for a few moments, but it can lock up for ages and the task manager is maxed out or very close for CPU and physical memory usage, even now its locked up a few times with the Win7 circle (egg timer) always coming on when its thinking about if it will process information, I get time out errors for scripts. Its gotten to the point that its unuseable where changing tab can lock everything up,
I think Im just going to try order an SSD, look into taking an image of the current HDD and try instal Win7 and see how it goes, any recommendations on SSD make, place to buy, drive capacity, cost??

kodistar

cerastes wrote: »

Its been a few months and I didnt have the time to attend to the problem I mentioned in this thread, my laptop is so slow now that it makes doing anything very very long, at times it can be ok for a few moments, but it can lock up for ages and the task manager is maxed out or very close for CPU and physical memory usage, even now its locked up a few times with the Win7 circle (egg timer) always coming on when its thinking about if it will process information, I get time out errors for scripts. Its gotten to the point that its unuseable where changing tab can lock everything up,
I think Im just going to try order an SSD, look into taking an image of the current HDD and try instal Win7 and see how it goes, any recommendations on SSD make, place to buy, drive capacity, cost??

Hi there,

Run crystal disk find out if it your hardrive then run msconfig and try knocking off programs,then run a defrag on hardrive will take a while to do then restart computer and see if it speeds up if not i suggest upgrading your operating system and start from scratch again.hope i helped.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Just taking a look back through the thread and the one thing I can suggest is getting rid of uTorrent. Many will ask why?, but it's problematic to a lot of users who do not know how, or do not want to, scan for viruses on the software they downloaded.

My father is having the same issues on his PC regarding lockouts on Chrome, TBH Chrome has gone to the dogs over the past years. I use FireFox on the same machine and it's fine. My OH also has chrome on her PC and it sucks monkey balls, yet FireFox works perfectly.

What extension or addons do you have for Chrome? I suggest getting rid of everything you don't need.

Failing this, I would back up your essential files (not the downloaded movies etc) and format the drive. See how that goes before buying new hardware.

cerastes

kodistar wrote: »

Hi there,

Run crystal disk find out if it your hardrive then run msconfig and try knocking off programs,then run a defrag on hardrive will take a while to do then restart computer and see if it speeds up if not i suggest upgrading your operating system and start from scratch again.hope i helped.

Every bit helps, I didnt want to have no access via laptop and didnt really have the time, so it was on the long finger for a longtime but its so bad (while at the moment its ok, it can just lock up completely and take ages to do anything), I just need to get it sorted as I want to use a drawing application and consider this will just have a large draw on processing resources.

I'll run that crystal disk.
I've already backed everything up to an external drive, made discs for the original OS and reloaded it, but it wnet back to being slow and locking up again, and that didnt take long after reloading the OS.
There were suggestions of SSD and I was thinking of upgrading the RAM.

kodistar

cerastes wrote: »

Every bit helps, I didnt want to have no access via laptop and didnt really have the time, so it was on the long finger for a longtime but its so bad (while at the moment its ok, it can just lock up completely and take ages to do anything), I just need to get it sorted as I want to use a drawing application and consider this will just have a large draw on processing resources.

I'll run that crystal disk.
I've already backed everything up to an external drive, made discs for the original OS and reloaded it, but it wnet back to being slow and locking up again, and that didnt take long after reloading the OS.
There were suggestions of SSD and I was thinking of upgrading the RAM.

Hi there,

I recommend starting of from scratch so dont put anything on hardrive accpet the operating system and see if it fast,if it is you have to much stuff on hardrive r you have fail hardrive,then start gradually adding your stuff back on and see if it works.

If it still same upgrade your computer.