Laptop stalls out

[gf4200isdabest]

Having some issues with a laptop stalling out intermitently. Most frequently when playing games but also other apps, watching youtube movies, etc. Video will freeze for 5-20 seconds and then often will freeze again after recovering for a split second...then when it recovers again it will go for a while longer before it happens again.

When it "freezes" I am able to:

1) Hear sound, use skype in the backround
2) Move the mouse cursor

...so it doesn't seem like it's completely frozen up, but it certainly makes it impossible to play a game.

I've tried to troubleshoot a bit with performance monitors but the only lead I've gotten from those is that the freezes are usually associated with 100% hard disk active time.

Any suggestions on what is the likely culprit or how to troubleshoot further?

 

[Ken g6]

I've tried to troubleshoot a bit with performance monitors but the only lead I've gotten from those is that the freezes are usually associated with 100% hard disk active time.

I suspected as much. Have you tried disabling swap on the laptop? You shouldn't get freezes, but you might get "out of memory" error dialogs instead.

Assuming that's the problem, how much RAM do you have on the laptop? Can you upgrade to more? An SSD would also help, though not as much, and constant swapping, if you can't get enough RAM, could wear it out.

 

[wirednuts]

without knowing the laptop or internal temperatures, im going to bet its the gpu overheating. just a guess tho

 

[mfenn]

I've tried to troubleshoot a bit with performance monitors but the only lead I've gotten from those is that the freezes are usually associated with 100% hard disk active time.

Any suggestions on what is the likely culprit or how to troubleshoot further?

If you aren't swapping (leave the Task Manager open on the Performance tab and check to see if Physical Memory gets close to 100%), then I suspect one of two things:
- Your drive is spinning down and the pause is waiting for it to spin up. Try disabling that power management feature.
- Your drive has bad sectors and is hanging while trying to read from or write to one.

 

[gf4200isdabest]

The laptop has 4gb of ram and disabling the swap file had no impact on the freezes.

How would i try to figure out if it's the gpu or hd?

 

[wirednuts]

The laptop has 4gb of ram and disabling the swap file had no impact on the freezes.

How would i try to figure out if it's the gpu or hd?

download SIW www.gtopala.com and see if it can find your cpu and gpu temps. might give you an idea

 

[mfenn]

The laptop has 4gb of ram and disabling the swap file had no impact on the freezes.

How would i try to figure out if it's the gpu or hd?

Did you check to see if the drive is set to spin down?