Computer "freezing" or "hanging"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tess
  • Start date Start date
T

Tess

I have a newish 'puter that is just only 2 months old.
I am very impressed with XP's features.
However, I am extremely dissapointed in its performance.
From the word go it has continually "hung" in the middle
of common things such as word processing, scanning,
playing games (even simple ones such as Solitare).
I know it is not hardware. I have re-installed 5 times
trying different setups. I have got all the driver
updates. I am constantly updating the drivers, fixes etc.
As an experiment I installed Linux Mandrake 9.1 and it
worked beautifully - not a single thing wrong. As I am a
teacher, and 95% of my home computer use is for school
work I need Windows, Word and Publisher. My school has
only Microsoft products.
I really like the features but it is not really usable if
it hangs up to 15 or more times in 2 hours.
Does anyone else have this problem? Is it the software?
Are there any fixes? I am getting to the end of my tether.
 
First, be sure your antivirus software has the latest definitions and run a
virus scan.

If your system is clear of viruses, open Control Panel, open System, go to
the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery, remove the
check from "Automatically Restart" under System Failure. This will cause
the system to blue screen instead of restarting on errors and the
information on the blue screen may give a clue as to the source of the
issue.

Open Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, open Event Viewer, look for
errors corresponding to the crash, double click the error, the information
contained within may give a clue as to the
source of the problem.

Assuming you have an XP CD and not a recovery CD, place the XP CD in the
drive, when the setup screen appears, select "Check System Compatibility,"
the report it generates may point to problem hardware or software on your
system. If you do not have an XP CD, you can download this application
known as the Upgrade Advisor from the following site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp
Note: If you have access to a broadband connection it might be best to
download using that as this is a rather large download.
 
I have:
- updated my anti-virus defs. and scanned
- unchecked the Automatically restart under System
Failure
- done the "Check System Compatibility"

This is the report:

**********************************************************
Windows XP Upgrade Compatibility
**********************************************************

Windows XP upgrade check found no incompatibilities or
problems.
==========================================================

Unfortunately it is still hanging.

Mostly in Word and Publisher when I am using a lot of
graphics, autoshapes, textboxes, etc.

Do you think that any system files may be corrupted from
it hanging?


Thanks for your help anyway,

Cheers,

Tess :)
 
My xp is doing the same - the thing freezes up even if
just sitting idle. I am doing some more research to see
if I can find the cause. If anyone can find a solution
please post.

(other option is to get windows 2000 - that thing is solid
as a rock)
 
Did you check out event viewer as specified in my post:

Open Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, open
Event Viewer, look for
 
Yeah,
I performed the event viewer check (there are heaps of
errors - lots of which are "application hang".
It most often hangs in Word (as I use it the most). I was
also using Omnipage as well (yes I downloaded XP drivers
for my scanner - its 6 months old). This is when it hung.

Sorry, but I'm not quite sure I understand what the
report says. Here is an example of what it says, from
this morning:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 10/11/2003
Time: 7:05:56 AM
User: N/A
Computer: RAPHAEL
Description:
Hanging application omnipage.exe, version 9.0.0.1, hang
module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 6f 6d 6e 69 70 61 omnipa
0018: 67 65 2e 65 78 65 20 39 ge.exe 9
0020: 2e 30 2e 30 2e 31 20 69 .0.0.1 i
0028: 6e 20 68 75 6e 67 61 70 n hungap
0030: 70 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e p 0.0.0.
0038: 30 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66 0 at off
0040: 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 30 set 0000
0048: 30 30 30 30 0000


Thanks for your help

Cheers,

Tess :)
 
I'd start with Omnipage. According to the error message, you are using
version 9 and they are now up to version 12. It is either not XP compatible
or updates to XP and various driver updates have put it out of compliance.
Because of the way Omnipage integrates, I believe allowing you to run OCR
directly from Word, it might be the problem you are having with word. I'd
start by removing Omnipage and see if the problem goes away. If Omnipage
came as part of a software bundle with the scanner, I'd complain to the
scanner manufacturer. Given the scanner is only 6 months old, it would seem
they should have supplied a later version. Another thing to consider.
Omnipage is OCR (optical character recognition) software. This allows the
user to scanned text into editable text. If you don't have the need for
that, you might want to consider running without it.

Next, be sure your other applications are XP compatible (I know, the
compatibility check didn't turn up anything but given the errors you are
having you should check) and be sire to check for any updates for those
applications. As the system and drivers are updated, this changes the
environment and you may need to update applications as well. Check the
product website for downloads.
 
Yeah, then it was re-formatted each time it was re-
installed.
I think that XP Home is unfortunately dodgy, even though
it has great features- doing a basic search in this group
I have found that many (too many)are having similar
problems with it.
 
What else would you expect to find in this group?

Aside from new computers, most of the PCs on which XP is installed weren't
designed with XP in mind. Second. Most of the people who move to a new
operating system don't do any homework or simply assume it will be backward
compatible. That was a big mistake with Windows 9x, it is practically a
system killer with XP because XP is radically different from any previous
version of Windows. It's not as though this wasn't highly publicized. All
periodicals and help on the subject, information at Microsoft's website and
information conveyed throughout these newsgroups instructed users to make
sure all their hardware and software was compliant and if they had a system
from a major manufacturer to check with them about any updates necessary to
help deal with compatibility issues.

Many of the PCs from major manufacturer's are highly proprietary and while
they will often post information and updates in relation to their systems
and a new OS, in every case except where the system was released just prior
to the release of a new OS or in anticipation of a new OS, installing a new
operating system voids the warranty on your setup. While that is done to
relieve the OEMs of responsibility for providing tech support it is also
done to discourage users from moving to new operating systems for which
their machine was not even designed.

Now, that doesn't speak to your specific issue and if you've had such
problems from the very beginning, you should return the computer while it's
still under warranty as it sounds as though you may have a bad system, Linux
notwithstanding since it's demands and requirements are quite different from
those of Windows XP. We know nothing of what is installed on your system,
what applications, what versions and whether or not these came with the
computer or you installed them later but if your system was "dodgy" right
out of the box with nothing attached to it except what came with it and no
other applications installed besides the bundle with which it was shipped
that's a warning something's not right and the computer should be returned
and exchanged for something else.

If you have a CD burner and you used your own burning application such as
Easy CD Creator or Nero, if these weren't updated for XP, they can cause
exactly the problems you've described. In the case of Easy CD Creator even
though version 5 can be brought into compliance, if the user has installed
the full suite as opposed to doing a custom install, even with the updates
from Roxio, this will make the system unstable as the Take Two component is
not compatible with XP, a fact stated at the Roxio website.

If you have a scanner and installed the full software package that came with
the scanner, many such bundles have components that are not compatible with
XP but many people install them because they want all the features of that
original software.

Previous versions of many firewalls, antivirus software and almost all
system utilities will cause XP to tank as they are not compatible with XP.
By the way, when you compared Linux were all of the same applications
installed on the Linux setup as on the XP setup? Aside from the two systems
being radically different, if you didn't have the same applications
installed, it's an apples and oranges comparison.

If you don't fall into any of these categories, maybe you just got a bad
system. You generally aren't going to find "feel good stories" on boards
such as these. These are peer to peer support boards and while many people
may experience the same symptoms, that don't necessarily extrapolate out to
the same cause because there are so many different hardware configurations
and so many different setups based on what software is installed.

Is XP the root of all this...Well, "kinda sorta" in that it changes the
operating environment in which most users function. Even with a brand new
system, as soon as users start installing their previous software or
previous peripherals such as printers, scanners, cameras, mass storage
devices, even with updated drivers, they run the risk of breaking the setup.
Drivers are entirely the responsibility of the device manufacturer. They
all have a chance during beta testing of the operating system to use that
base of testers to test their own driver updates but they rarely take
advantage of the opportunity. Given the much smaller test bed they use for
drivers, it can take a few version updates before they fully work out the
bugs. In the meantime systems start crashing and some manufacturer's never
get the bugs worked out and simply introduce new hardware to replace the
previous versions.
 
What size is your computer, CPU and Memory.
XP should have at least 256 mgb to run good.
Hope tis helps.
Carl
 
If a "brand new computer" went "bananas, into BIOS and setup modes" the very
first time you turned it on, then that is a problem for your OEM to fix.
Like everything else that doesn't work the very first time you turn it on,
the manufacturer has an obligation under their warranty to make it good.

Rocky

Wayne said:
Greetings!

After a year of dealing with this phenomena and spending endless hours of
Click to expand...
talking with MS tech support, you will learn how to simply do "restores" and
"reformating and re-installing Windows XP. I go through this every few
months. Who knows why? Some techs blame it on "hotfixes," some on viruses
and hackers, some on downloads from the internet. I actually think it might
be the weather.
I just received a brand new computer with Windows XP. When I turned it on,
Click to expand...
it went bananas, into BIOS and setup modes. Then things got worse. I called
for help and got the normal answer: Let's reformat the hard drive and
reinstall Windows XP.
 
Did you find a solution

I had the same problem
I found out ( beleive it or not) that removing (uninstalling) the following hotfixes
Q31727
Q81149
KB82414
solved the problem. My computer has not froze a single time after this
 
Hi

Uninstalling KB824146 may have introduced a security threat to your system. Try WU again to download the latest version of that Hotfix.

--

Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User


| Did you find a solution!
|
| I had the same problem.
| I found out ( beleive it or not) that removing (uninstalling) the following hotfixes:
| Q317277
| Q811493
| KB824146
| solved the problem. My computer has not froze a single time after this.
|
|
|
 
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