Really odd and I'm having trouble pinpointing anything in particular, could really use some help diagnosing what the issue is from the very knowledgeable folks here. It's a DIY-built system that I've been fairly meticulous about keeping clean.
Win7 x64, up-to-date on Windows Updates
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H mobo
Core i5-3570K @ stock speed/voltage
8GB DDR3 RAM @ stock speed/voltage
eVGA GTX 670 @ stock speed/voltage
240GB SSD is C: with Windows on it
DVD-RW is D :
640GB HDD (Western Digital if that matters) is E:
No problems exhibited until this weekend. It will start into Windows and be ok for several minutes. But at some point, all applications, one-by-one, go into "Not Responding" mode, even the generic Explorer task, which means not even the Start button is responsive. The mouse cursor never freezes (it always moves when I move it) but clicking in applications that have stopped responding doesn't do any good (obviously). The Task Manager never shows any spiked CPU usage (idle process hovers between 98-99) nor spiked memory usage, but if I don't already have Task Manager open when whatever happens happens, CTRL-ALT-DEL is unresponsive as well and I'm unable to get Task Manager open. Any applications that were open when The Event happens go to "not responding", and trying to open any new applications is ineffectual (though the mouse cursor still moves and to a certain extent I can still task-switch through the taskbar). The only thing I've been able to do is hard-reset with the power switch. Rinse, repeat.
I noticed there was an Ad-Aware process (GFI Antimalware something) that was taking up 158MB of RAM (the most of any process, followed by another Ad-Aware process and an Avast AV process using 20-30MB each), but I'm not sure if that's something new or if it had always taken up that much and I never noticed because I wasn't seeing any symptoms. On one startup I immediately exited Ad-Aware to see if that was the cause, verified that all Ad-Aware processes were gone, but the same symptoms happened in about the same time period. Tried to update Ad-Aware (to v11.x from v10.x) but the installer couldn't finish what it was doing before The Event happened and the installer froze.
Tried to run a full Avast scan immediately after another fresh boot, the scan started, I saw filenames zipping by, the progress circle was at 0% but "moving"; walked away for 30 minutes, came back and it was stuck on a single filename and still at 0% and "not responding".
I can Explore into C: or E: to my heart's content, navigating folders and opening files on either, for a period of about 5-7 minutes, at which point, "not responding".
I just got done running 4 passes of MemTest v4.20 (it's been a while since I burned it/needed it, so maybe that's an old version), 0 errors.
Next step (barring revelations/suggestions from you all) will be to disconnect the internal HDD and boot back up without it, see if Problem Still Exists, and go from there. But maybe first I'll try to see if it'll make it through a HijackThis run before The Event?
Appreciate in advance any suggestions!
JT
Win7 x64, up-to-date on Windows Updates
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H mobo
Core i5-3570K @ stock speed/voltage
8GB DDR3 RAM @ stock speed/voltage
eVGA GTX 670 @ stock speed/voltage
240GB SSD is C: with Windows on it
DVD-RW is D :
640GB HDD (Western Digital if that matters) is E:
No problems exhibited until this weekend. It will start into Windows and be ok for several minutes. But at some point, all applications, one-by-one, go into "Not Responding" mode, even the generic Explorer task, which means not even the Start button is responsive. The mouse cursor never freezes (it always moves when I move it) but clicking in applications that have stopped responding doesn't do any good (obviously). The Task Manager never shows any spiked CPU usage (idle process hovers between 98-99) nor spiked memory usage, but if I don't already have Task Manager open when whatever happens happens, CTRL-ALT-DEL is unresponsive as well and I'm unable to get Task Manager open. Any applications that were open when The Event happens go to "not responding", and trying to open any new applications is ineffectual (though the mouse cursor still moves and to a certain extent I can still task-switch through the taskbar). The only thing I've been able to do is hard-reset with the power switch. Rinse, repeat.
I noticed there was an Ad-Aware process (GFI Antimalware something) that was taking up 158MB of RAM (the most of any process, followed by another Ad-Aware process and an Avast AV process using 20-30MB each), but I'm not sure if that's something new or if it had always taken up that much and I never noticed because I wasn't seeing any symptoms. On one startup I immediately exited Ad-Aware to see if that was the cause, verified that all Ad-Aware processes were gone, but the same symptoms happened in about the same time period. Tried to update Ad-Aware (to v11.x from v10.x) but the installer couldn't finish what it was doing before The Event happened and the installer froze.
Tried to run a full Avast scan immediately after another fresh boot, the scan started, I saw filenames zipping by, the progress circle was at 0% but "moving"; walked away for 30 minutes, came back and it was stuck on a single filename and still at 0% and "not responding".
I can Explore into C: or E: to my heart's content, navigating folders and opening files on either, for a period of about 5-7 minutes, at which point, "not responding".
I just got done running 4 passes of MemTest v4.20 (it's been a while since I burned it/needed it, so maybe that's an old version), 0 errors.
Next step (barring revelations/suggestions from you all) will be to disconnect the internal HDD and boot back up without it, see if Problem Still Exists, and go from there. But maybe first I'll try to see if it'll make it through a HijackThis run before The Event?
Appreciate in advance any suggestions!
JT
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