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11-03-2009, 07:42 PM
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Location: Gilbert, AZ
164 posts, read 741,126 times
Reputation: 199
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On my laptop (IBM Thinkpad T42, XP/SP3) when I'm using the touchpad mouse every once in a while it "sticks" or "freezes" for a second..... also seemed to happen last night when I had a USB mouse plugged in.......
Another symptom, probably related, is that when I'm playing movies/music they'll also tend to *stop* for a split second...... these are movies and CD's on my hard drive so it's not a CD player issue......
Any ideas? Let me know if more information is needed......
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11-03-2009, 09:45 PM
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Location: Matthews, NC
14,693 posts, read 23,412,703 times
Reputation: 14344
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Sounds more like the PC itself is freezing. When it happens, do any other keys respond? For instance, if you hit ctrl + alt + delete can you get to the Task Manager?
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11-04-2009, 06:56 AM
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2,893 posts, read 5,344,138 times
Reputation: 1978
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Something is causing a CPU spike. Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del, click Task Manager), click on the Processes tab. Sort them by CPU use twice (click on the column header) to sort the processes by processor use from greatest to least.
Sit and watch for something that sudden jumps up to the top at the same time your mouse/video freezes. If you recognize it and can do without it, get rid of it. If you don't recognize it, write it down and come back here and we can try to figure out what it is and how to control it.
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11-04-2009, 08:54 PM
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Location: Gilbert, AZ
164 posts, read 741,126 times
Reputation: 199
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OK here's some more info.....
You were right that it's something causing a CPU spike. Just sitting and watching with 2-5% CPU usage, about every minute or so it spikes to >50% two quick times consecutively. Pretty consistent in timing..... I also watched the processes running to see if anything jumped to the top with more CPU usage, but if it did it happened so fast it didn't register. BTW.... is it normal for Firefox to be using 100,000K of memory? Screen print is below......
Is it possible that it's a bad RAM card? When I bought the thing the shop said they had upgraded the RAM but I'm questioning that as well......
Sorry if I'm not being more helpful but I'm not a *computer person*......
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11-05-2009, 08:32 AM
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2,893 posts, read 5,344,138 times
Reputation: 1978
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Yes, Firefox uses a lot of memory. That is normal. It is the CPU spikes you are interested in.
In the pic above you have them sorted by Memory Usage. What do you see when you sort them by CPU?
By those processes your system looks pretty clean. Not much using much memory. My gut instinct is going with the mcshield process, which is McAffee anti-virus. I've experienced CPU spikes and hogging with them before, but I don't know how they are in their latest versions.
You may try disconnecting from your network, then end the mcshield process. Play around with your PC for a while and see if the spikes have gone away. If so, mcShield either needs more memory, better configuration, or to be replaced with something less intensive. If you kill the process and still get freezes, it is something else.
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11-05-2009, 07:20 PM
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Location: Gilbert, AZ
164 posts, read 741,126 times
Reputation: 199
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Thanks for the info. I sorted them by CPU, and did notice that mcshield seems to pop up when the spikes occur..... I've also noticed that a svchost.exe file comes up occasionally. Side question: I see multiple svchost files running. Is this legit?
Thanks again for all the help everyone!
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11-06-2009, 07:03 AM
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2,893 posts, read 5,344,138 times
Reputation: 1978
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svchost is fine. That's the process(es) that manages all of the .dll files windows needs to do its things.
Sounds like mcshield is the problem.
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11-06-2009, 08:13 AM
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Location: WV and Eastport, ME
11,778 posts, read 11,327,890 times
Reputation: 7718
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You may look in the settings and see if you can lower the priority of the McAfee products.
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11-06-2009, 02:42 PM
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Location: Gilbert, AZ
164 posts, read 741,126 times
Reputation: 199
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OK this is weird now....... my computer is acting normally again.
The ONLY thing that's different is that McAfee did it's daily update just as I was logging on. Yes, I know everyone's opinion about McAfee, but thinking about it objectively, is it possible that a previous update (probably including something to do with mcshield) was the cause of the problem?
Ever since I logged on today I've had no issues at all...... no spikes in CPU usage, no frozen mouse......
For now I'm gonna call it good...... THANK YOU to everyone who helped out!!!!!!!
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11-10-2009, 07:53 AM
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Location: United Kingdom
339 posts, read 1,150,050 times
Reputation: 180
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It may well have been the problem.
Glad you got it solved.
If this happens again, please don't hesitate to post back and we will be happy to help you uninstall McAfee and recommend a different product, if this is the route you choose to take.
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