Annoying Computer Question

[Mikey]

Hi Guys,

Been having an annoying thing happen to my computer for the last month or so and I can't figure it out.

First, I have a very old Dell and i'm using XP

I regularly run Security Essentials, Spybot and Malwarebytes --- even though I probably don't need too because I dont go on "bad' sites.

Anyway, here's the problem ...

At least once a day at different times my computer freezes and wont do anything ... I can hear the computer tower thinking.
If I let it could go on for a half hour or more.
When it finally finishes the tower makes a buzz sound and it's done.

It's NOT downloading anything because I would see it on my toolbar.

I tried hitting CTL ALT DEL to see what's happing.
It dont work --- it will just show Example : Mego Museum or whatever site i'm on.

Sometimes it's so long I need to physically shut off and restart the computer before it finishes -- I hate doing this though.

Soooooooo,
My question is, does anyone know how I can figure out what's doing this ?

Thanks

[Jshack]

Couple of things come to mind...is your hard drive close to capacity and have you defragmented it recently? Sometimes a clean install will fix "lagging" computers.

[Mikey]

It's not near capacity and I just defragged a week ago and it didn't help

[Jshack]

Do you have anything set to autoback up. happens at work...documents autoback up every 15 minutes...so the computer will just "hang" for a few seconds and then resume...just another thought. Good Luck!

[Brazoo]

Wait - the whole computer is freezing, like Windows and everything, or just your browser?

Like, when you hit alt+control+delete a window pops up right away, or it takes until it's done grinding to pop up?

[Mego Magyar]

Also, how much RAM do you have and with nothing open when you hit alt+control+delete how many processes are running? If you have a lot of things running in the background on startup and limited RAM that can slow things down once you get on the web. Also, what's your processor speed?

[Adam West]

Possibly a hard drive gone bad? Does it sound like it is the hard drive making the sound or somewhere else in the tower?

[Brad]

Start with the easy stuff. If you aren't already using this then download and run CCleaner. It is free and will repair registry and other errors/problems. After you run this restart your computer and see how it runs. You would be surprised how many register errors that can pop up.

CCleaner - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

As mentioned having programs running in the background doesn't help so you can also do some selecting of what you want to run at start up. Adobe is one that is famous for loading on start up and you don't need it to. When you try to open a pdf file then it will load as needed once you remove it from automatically running at start up. Also as mentioned the amount of RAM you have can be an issue. anymore, especially with some websites, 2 GB of RAM would be my min and it's a cheap and easy upgrade. Once the RAM is full then the info goes to the hard drive which is a much slower process. There is so much more but those are a couple basics that I do on all our PCs here at work to make sure they run as smoothly as possible.

[Mikey]

Wait - the whole computer is freezing, like Windows and everything, or just your browser?

Like, when you hit alt+control+delete a window pops up right away, or it takes until it's done grinding to pop up?

Just the browser freezes

Hitting alt+control+delete works, but it doesn't tell me whats running so there's nothing to stop

[Brad]

Just the browser freezes

Hitting alt+control+delete works, but it doesn't tell me whats running so there's nothing to stop

Clicking on control-alt-delete once should bring up the box to choose the task manager from. Once you click on the task manager then click on processes and look at the CPU column. It will show a number (%) of which program using the CPU resources. Here's what it should look like.

[ctc]

>Just the browser freezes

If you're using an older system sometimes what happens is the internets get beyond your computer. (Especially if you hit a lot of nerdly sites.) All them little widgets and ads and whatnot use programs that an older system doesn't know what to do with. Sometimes it gets confused and tanks.

Don C.

[Toy Talk]

Yeah, the older browser and/or OS not running newest patches can cause browser lockup issues. In fact, that is likely your problem. Be sure you are running the newest versions of Flash and your chosen browser. In addition, go into your browser add-ons and disable anything you don't need.

[ctc]

>the older browser and/or OS not running newest patches can cause browser lockup issues

....and sometimes if you're running the mew ones, they won't work so good on your old system. Or they'll fight with any older software you got on your computer.

Don C.

[Mikey]

It did it again.

I hit Ctl Alt Del and hit processes

The top one says wuauclt.exe

I did a little internet searching but don't know what to make of it.

Is it good or bad ?