G
Guest
I've got Vista RTM (x86) installed on a reasonably beefy systen (Athlon 64
4200 X2, 2G RAM). Everything initially works fine after boot, but after a
while (sometime 5 mins, sometimes 2 hours) the system grinds to a near halt.
At this point most windows are unresponsive, but some still work to a
certain degree. For example, if I have a Task Manager window open, then it
will often (but not always) continue to update the processes being displayed
(although it is not responsive if I try to kill a process). Similarly, if I
have the performance tool window displayed, it will usually continue to
update it's stats. If I have a "simple" app like notepad open, then I can
often continue to edit the text. In most cases, however, "complex" apps like
IE, Outlook, etc will be mostly frozen. They'll sometime show brief signs of
life, but are basically unusable.
A few other symptoms of the system when it is in this state is that my USB
memory drive (1G) that I have enabled for ReadyBoost stops being used. That
is, it stops flashing like mad as it usually does when being used. (Note that
if I don't use this memory drive at all the problem still occurs.)
Also, if I disconnect the PC from the network it usually springs to life for
a little while. That is various things I'd clicked on previously suddenly
have their affect, commands I'd tried to run suddenly do run, etc, but this
episode of working well doesn't last very long.
Also, some seemingly simple commands are also frozen during this problem
time. For example, I've tried to run "netstat -no" from an existing command
window and that remains frozen (although the command cursor does blink).
I've not yet found any way to get out of this state except for a reboot
(which often needs to be a hard reboot since I can't get enough response from
the system to do a soft one).
Note that during this period the mouse is perfectly responsive, I can
usually drag around most windows (including full Aero effects), even Alt-Tab
and/or Widnows-Tab often work (although not always).
Interestingly, despite the seeming responsiveness of the UI, I can't do
things like bring up the Start menu, or bring up a new Task Manager
(Ctrl-Shift-Esc). Even Ctrl-Atl-Del doesn't work correctly. What happens is a
few minutes after a Ctrl-Alt-Del is that the screen goes darker and a window
comes up saying it can't show the security window/screen (sorry I don't have
the exact error message).
One last bit of info is that I've never seen any processes with particulary
high CPU usage or memory usage during these instances. I've also not found
anything interesting in the even logs (although with all the new logs I'm not
quite sure where to log).
Has anyone else seen this or have any suggestions for diagnosing the root
problem?
4200 X2, 2G RAM). Everything initially works fine after boot, but after a
while (sometime 5 mins, sometimes 2 hours) the system grinds to a near halt.
At this point most windows are unresponsive, but some still work to a
certain degree. For example, if I have a Task Manager window open, then it
will often (but not always) continue to update the processes being displayed
(although it is not responsive if I try to kill a process). Similarly, if I
have the performance tool window displayed, it will usually continue to
update it's stats. If I have a "simple" app like notepad open, then I can
often continue to edit the text. In most cases, however, "complex" apps like
IE, Outlook, etc will be mostly frozen. They'll sometime show brief signs of
life, but are basically unusable.
A few other symptoms of the system when it is in this state is that my USB
memory drive (1G) that I have enabled for ReadyBoost stops being used. That
is, it stops flashing like mad as it usually does when being used. (Note that
if I don't use this memory drive at all the problem still occurs.)
Also, if I disconnect the PC from the network it usually springs to life for
a little while. That is various things I'd clicked on previously suddenly
have their affect, commands I'd tried to run suddenly do run, etc, but this
episode of working well doesn't last very long.
Also, some seemingly simple commands are also frozen during this problem
time. For example, I've tried to run "netstat -no" from an existing command
window and that remains frozen (although the command cursor does blink).
I've not yet found any way to get out of this state except for a reboot
(which often needs to be a hard reboot since I can't get enough response from
the system to do a soft one).
Note that during this period the mouse is perfectly responsive, I can
usually drag around most windows (including full Aero effects), even Alt-Tab
and/or Widnows-Tab often work (although not always).
Interestingly, despite the seeming responsiveness of the UI, I can't do
things like bring up the Start menu, or bring up a new Task Manager
(Ctrl-Shift-Esc). Even Ctrl-Atl-Del doesn't work correctly. What happens is a
few minutes after a Ctrl-Alt-Del is that the screen goes darker and a window
comes up saying it can't show the security window/screen (sorry I don't have
the exact error message).
One last bit of info is that I've never seen any processes with particulary
high CPU usage or memory usage during these instances. I've also not found
anything interesting in the even logs (although with all the new logs I'm not
quite sure where to log).
Has anyone else seen this or have any suggestions for diagnosing the root
problem?