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Computer recently formatted, freezes randomly

M

maxiteto

Junior Member
I am somewhat new to fixing my computer myself.

PROBLEM:
The mouse pointer sometimes stops for a moment and the screen freezes. During these freezing events 'ctrl+alt+del', 'Num Lock', 'Caps Lock' and 'Alt+Tab' don't work (LED's don't go on or off) and of course the mouse pointer doesn't work at all either. Also, when this freezing events happen and the computer unfreezes, there is a little red line hovering right besides the cursor at all times, till it freezes again. Oh yeah I forgot: Most of these problems happen while using Firefox, but even after I close Firefox the problem persists.

Aspects that I have checked already
I have checked all my drivers, which are up to date.
I have also scanned my computer with AVG and SuperAntiSpyware to make sure there isn't any viruses.

I accessed the BIOS to check core temperature and such, all good, running at around ~57degrees.

The computer is not overclocked and since it was recently formatted it has 380GB unused memory out of 465GB of memory...

System Info:
Processor:
3.30 gigahertz Intel Core i5-2500
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
6144 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (4 total)
Not hyper-threaded
Main Circuit Board:
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. Z68X-UD3H-B3
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. F10 10/12/2011
BUS Adapters
Marvell 91xx SATA 6G Controller
Etron USB 3.0 Extensible Host Controller (2x)
Etron USB 3.0 Extensible Root Hub (2x)
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C26
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D
DISPLAY:
Intel(R) HD Graphics Family [Display adapter]
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti [Display adapter]
DRIVES:
500.00 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
408.44 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

DTSOFT Virtual CdRom Device [Optical drive]
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS70 ATA Device [Optical drive]
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS70 ATA Device [Optical drive]

ST500DM002-1BD142 [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, s/n Z2AG04PV, rev KC44, SMART Status: Healthy
 
And it gave me this:



Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk
The type of the file system is NTFS.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
274944 file records processed.
File verification completed.
572 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
2 EA records processed.
60 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
341536 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
274944 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
33297 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
34310304 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

488282111 KB total disk space.
84120428 KB in 175336 files.
132264 KB in 33298 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
390511 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
403638908 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
122070527 total allocation units on disk.
100909727 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Windows\system32>
 
yessir.
Using them at the moment.

I dont know how this is relevant I really hope I'm not being played for a fool...🙄

But yes, I am using another keyboard and mouse now.

The computer has not 'frozen' since the last post.... that is about 4hrs so far (and using mozilla firefox + skype all along)
 
Ok so far, no constructive advice on what to do.

I need to understand why is my computer acting like this. I run cinema 4d, photoshop and they work fine, except when the freezing starts (always while using mozilla). After that I can close mozilla or keep it open the freezing will still occur intermitently till the problem forces me to reboot.
 
I would run a full disk check rather than a teeny tiny one. chkdsk driveletter: /f /r
It'll take about an hour I think.

OP - I assume you mean '465GB of hard disk space', as that would be rather a lot of memory 🙂

Anything in the event viewer? Start > Run > eventvwr
Windows logs > System

Any warnings or errors in the last session that had a freeze-up?
 
maxiteto said:
Ok so far, no constructive advice on what to do.

I need to understand why is my computer acting like this. I run cinema 4d, photoshop and they work fine, except when the freezing starts (always while using mozilla). After that I can close mozilla or keep it open the freezing will still occur intermitently till the problem forces me to reboot.
Click to expand...
🙄you post before it when fine for 4 houre.you could do chkdsk/f/r but if it only doing this when using firefox then make sure firefox is all up to date.or change for chrome.
 
to mikeymikec:
This:
"Anything in the event viewer? Start > Run > eventvwr"
Didn't even knew it existed. Wowzers. I have found tons of info which I help me dig deeper and understand more. Tons of error messages and 'stuff' that I still don't understand and I will post here as I digest it so we can continue this conversation which will definitely prove beneficial for others with the same strange problem.
Also, I will do a full disk check and post answers later on today (I didn't even knew about dskchk a couple of days ago, now I know)

to Corkyg:
Yeah, I think it is firefox but whats the issue? The forum gives very poor answers and I havent found anything satisfactory. Also the average mozilla user and forum poster seems kinda uneducated in contrast to people in forums like this one. Mozilla "experts" love to tell people to reset every damn thing to zero and think that is the holy grail of solutions. But there has to be underlying issues and I would like to know them. :whiste:
 
Oh yeah I forgot: Most of these problems happen while using Firefox, but even after I close Firefox the problem persists.
Click to expand...
It's possible that say hardware acceleration in FF is causing problems, but if FF isn't running when the computer freezes (sometimes), the likelihood of it being caused by FF drops sharply.

Try switching off HA in FF:

Firefox menu > Options
Advanced > General
untick 'use hardware acceleration when available'.

If it's not caused by the HA option, then the likelihood of a computer completely freezing because of FF, especially if it does it when FF isn't open, drops to almost zero. After HA is disabled, Firefox is just another app, it's like saying "my computer freezes when I'm running Notepad... ahha! Must be Notepad's fault, buggy software!"

As for the event viewer, just examine time spans during the session (or time) that the computer froze up. Any errors or warnings might point you in the right direction. Feel free to post a few event sources and error IDs of ones you're wondering about (though a quick google should answer your question).

I'm not a fan of 'nuke it from orbit' advice either, though one thing you could try is creating a new Firefox profile without nuking the old one, perhaps import your bookmarks into it or anything else you desperately need and run with that for a while. If the problems still occur, you know it's not profile related.

You could also try using another browser instead for a while and see whether that makes any difference.

A scan with Malwarebytes might be an idea (download it for free from malwarebytes.org, don't enable the trial version when installing, run a full scan).

What security software do you have installed on the machine? Are there any other weird symptoms that the machine has?
 
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