My computer................. seems to work OK for....................... about 30 seconds and................................ then all off a sudden pauses..................... for a second. Not allowing...................... me to do anything.......................... .

 

Music............. stops playing.......... videos stop for a................second and if I'm...................... typing the cursor stops ........................ moving and the mouse freezes..............

 

Its nothing..................... major as everything.......................... works but as you can probably................................ tell its really annoying and.................................... anything that is done real time................................... music, videos playing games.............................. it makes it unusable.

(I think you get the point now. ;))

 

Any ideas what it could be? My friend reckons some sort of Motherboard timing problem. It think it is somethign trying to access the internet or something. Virus checker uptodate and reads clean. Fire wall is doing its job.

 

Any one have any ideas?

 

Stuart

 

P.S.

What about a PC problem page for the forum?

How much memory have you got?

When it pauses, does the hardrive light show lots of activity?

How much stuff have you got loading up at startup?

if you've got XP, you can 'take it back' to last known good configuration (or uninstall recently installed programs).

 

If you think it's something trying to access the internet, you could disable your connection in control panel, then you should get an error message from the application trying to access!?!

 

HTH...

Could be a virus! I have the MacAfee Virus Scan and a few of my customers are using Norton. We have gone to their sites for the most up to date scan data file, and have them installed. Doing a check showed all systems to be virus free, but our systems were still slow.

 

Our I.T. muppet suggested downloading a free checker from http://www.grisoft.com We did this and it found at least 10 worms and diallers on each P.C. that Norton & MacAfee said were clean!!

 

Worth a try.......

I have 512mb.

 

The HDD light is on nearly all the time and I dont know why. :(

 

Its that which is causing the problem for some reason, and I dont know what it is doing.

 

Here is the list of what is currently running and the Startup menu is empty.

 

The Icons I have at the bottom near the clock (TCRs) are firewall, messenger, Norton Antivirus and sound settings.

 

Any ideas?

 

Stuart

Originally posted by x-biker

Could be a virus! I have the MacAfee Virus Scan and a few of my customers are using Norton. We have gone to their sites for the most up to date scan data file, and have them installed. Doing a check showed all systems to be virus free, but our systems were still slow.

 

Our I.T. muppet suggested downloading a free checker from http://www.grisoft.com We did this and it found at least 10 worms and diallers on each P.C. that Norton & MacAfee said were clean!!

 

Worth a try.......

 

 

I am suspecting a virus too, but norton says it is clean but I dont believe it.

 

This happened to my XP installation. Samething but got unbearable to use so I went back to Win2000 ( A previous installation on another HDD) and about a week later this has started to do it.

 

 

 

[Edit]

 

Im downloading that program now. Thanks

How much free disk space do you have on the drive with your swap file on? How big is your swap file? Is it a fixed size, or can windows change it when it sees fit?

Swap file is automatic, according to the page file its about 500mb.

 

 

I have 2 HDDs. Both have nearly 20gb free.

 

Just thought.

 

The other HDD has Linux on. Can that cause the problem. But I dont think it will as I am sure it was doing this before I installed Linux onto the other HDD.

Originally posted by SRRAE

Swap file is automatic, according to the page file its about 500mb.

 

I have 2 HDDs. Both have nearly 20gb free.

Unlikely to be that then. You could try using a fixed swap file of 1GB and change it back if it makes no difference.

If it wasn't doing it before you installed Linux and it is doing it now, I suspect it's something to do with this installation.

 

Easiest way to check is to turn off and unplud the HDD with Linux on it and then see if the PC boots OK without the problem.

 

BTW what OS?

 

Cheers - Gio

The Linux is Red Hat 9 and the Windows is Win2000

 

I also have all the updates for windows installed.

Dual boot can be a real PITA. Have a look at some of these

 

http://jaeger.morpheus.net/linux/ntldr.php

http://www.zdnet.com.au/itmanager/technology/story/0,2000029587,20265546,00.htm

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue38/veselosky.html

 

I don't know whether you will get away with this 'cos you've got it on a 2nd HDD. But certainly having 2 OSes on the same PC scares the willies out of me.

 

If you do unplug the 2nd HDD and the problem is still there, then I would strongly recommend curing that before trying to troubleshoot 2 OSes.

 

Good luck matey - Gio

Thanks Gio.

 

 

I have never had any problems with dual boot. Its not really dual boot as the different boots are on different HDDs and they dont connect to each other. I change the boot via the bios and tell it which HDD to boot from.

 

 

I am currently running that virus checker that X-Biker suggested and it has found 2 viruses which Norton Anti Virus didnt find. :mad:

 

Change the its found 5 and its not finished yet. :mad: :mad:

 

That was a waste of £30 for Norton then

 

Stuart

May be a silly question, but how often do you defrag the HDDs?

Originally posted by SRRAE

I am currently running that virus checker that X-Biker suggested and it has found 2 viruses which Norton Anti Virus didnt find. :mad:

 

Change the its found 5 and its not finished yet. :mad: :mad:

 

That was a waste of £30 for Norton then

 

Stuart

 

Looks like our I.T. drone has finally come up with something useful!!!!:eek: :eek: :D Now I am convinced that he EARNS EVERY PENNY OF HIS EXTORTIONATE SALARY!!LOL!:D :D

I have had similar problems with lots of USB gadgets all plugged in at once. Try removing a few to see what happens.

I have also had a few USB devices which would turn off half way through using them.

 

 

Thanks guys looks like that Virus checker did the business. It found those 5 viruses cleaned 3 deleted 2 and after a reboot. The all is back to normal.

 

I am now completeing a scan of all 3 HDD I have and 2 on my Dad's computer.

 

Stuart

I decided to give that virus checker a go myself and found 33 infected files! It was a virus that's at least a year old too :o

I am using Norton 2003 and it's updated daily and does a full scan whenever the PC is idle.

 

I've had problems recently on clients sites where McAfee didn't pick things up but trying Norton's did... just shows neither are totally safe even though they are the biggest names!

Stuart - ah OK now I understand what you were doing. A bit.

 

I'd better toddle of to grisoft and start the download!

 

Cheers - Gio

Originally posted by Gio

Stuart - ah OK now I understand what you were doing. A bit.

 

I'd better toddle of to grisoft and start the download!

 

Cheers - Gio

 

 

Yeah I have 3 HDD. 1 is pure data, one had win 2000 and one was Linux. Each installation was not effected by the other as they where on their own drive.

 

 

I was surprised that the virus checker found everything as my Norton said I was clear and it was those viruses causing the problems as all is working well.

 

 

Stuart

Glad you got it sorted. Something always goes wrong with mine just when I am too busy!

 

Last time was when the Blaster virus was going round. It just started to freeze and crash randomly. MS updates, Norton updates, scan, apply the fixes etc etc. Hours and hours. Nothing found, still crashes.

 

Take the side off, re-seat the video card: all fixed! (Till the next time...)

 

Cheers - Gio

Has your vid card not got one of those clips at the back to stop it popping out.?

 

But I do know your problem.

 

I bought a new Barton chip really fast, but encoding Raw pics to Jpegs would crash it all the time, but worked fine with my old chip. It turned out to be a faulty hard drive. :confused:

 

Stuart