PC Intermittent "Not Responding" episodes.

[Pleasehelp]

I had a custom built Windows 7 Pro 64 bit PC built about 4 years or so ago by AVA computers. It's been a great machine.......however......in the past several months I have been having "not responding" problems. For example: I will be using Adobe Lightroom and after working for anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours without any problems the PC will freeze. At the top left of the Lightroom program (on the bar that runs across the top of the program) the words "not responding" will appear. Then nothing on the PC works. It just freezes. I can't click on anything. Nothing happens if I try to launch another program, if I hit control alt delete nothing happens. The cursor will still move around but clicking on anything gets nothing in return. After a minute or 2 or 3 if I click back on the screen in Lightroom it turns a see-through white color. From experience that tells me that it will be unfreezing in a few seconds or up to a minute or more. Then everything comes back to normal until the next "not responding" situation hits. Could be 20 minutes. Could be 3 hours. Could be 3 minutes. It's completely random when these things hit. It happens every single day several times a day. (incidentally....remember when I said I clicked on programs and hit control alt delete and nothing happened?.....well.....when the PC comes back to life all those things I clicked on a few minutes back now engage and "come on" all at the same time......it's like if one of the things I clicked on was Google Chrome browser then that will come on....albeit 3 minutes after I clicked on it) . By the way......I mentioned Lightroom as an example above but the problem happens with ANY software.*
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Waiting for these random "not responding" freezes to un-freeze can be maddening...especially when working on things that really matter. I have tried everything I know might help. I'm using Norton AV, Malwarebytes, I have run numerous diagnostic checks on the RAM, HD and system. Everything checks out OK. I have cut and pasted my PC build from AVA computers below.*
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I will do whatever it takes to fix this problem. If I need new hardware then I'll replace the parts. If anyone here can help me I would be extremely grateful to you. This thing is driving me out of my mind.
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**note** All my drivers are absolutely up to date. No problems with out of date drivers.*
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+ CUSTOM DESKTOP COMPUTER, Core™ i7 2-way SLI® DDR3 24GB Performance Series System
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ANTEC, Performance One P183 Black Mid-Tower Computer Case, ATX, No PSU
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ANTEC, Signature 650 Power Supply, 650W, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, One 6-pin + One 8-pin PCIe, SLI Certified
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ASUS, P6T Deluxe V2, LGA1366, Intel® X58, 6400 MT/s QPI, DDR3-2000 (O.C.) 24GB /6, PCIe x16 SLI CF /3, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /6, HDA, GbLAN /2, FW /2, ATX, Retail
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INTEL, Core™ i7-920 Quad-Core 2.66GHz, LGA1366, 4.8 GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm, 130W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail
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NOCTUA, NH-U12P Copper CPU Cooler, Socket 1366
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CORSAIR, 12GB (6 x 2GB) XMS3 PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.65V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
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GIGABYTE, GV-N96TSL-1GI, GeForce® 9600 GT 650MHz, 1GB GDDR3 1800MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, VGA+DVI, HDMI, Retail
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WESTERN DIGITAL, 150GB (WD1500HLFS) WD VelociRaptor™, SATA 3 Gb/s, 10000 RPM, 16MB cache
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WESTERN DIGITAL, 1TB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD1001FALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
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RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
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LITE-ON, iHDS118 Black 18x48x DVD-ROM Drive, SATA, OEM
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LITE-ON, iHAS324 Black 24x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ Smart Erase, SATA, Retail
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SILVERSTONE, SST-FP35 Black Internal 30-in-1 Card Reader & I/O Panel Device , 3.5" Bay, USB
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MICROSOFT, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Edition, OEM

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Check drives for errors. You also might check the task manager for possible software issues such as utilities stealing focus.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Check drives for errors.

This. That's a classic symptom of a HDD or SSD failing. After 4 years, it's about time, too, to replace them.

Check your SMART data for your HDDS. (HDTune free can do it, as long as you are running Microsoft drivers for the HDDs.)

You also might check the task manager for possible software issues such as utilities stealing focus.

Seems unlikely.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

This. That's a classic symptom of a HDD or SSD failing. After 4 years, it's about time, too, to replace them.

Check your SMART data for your HDDS. (HDTune free can do it, as long as you are running Microsoft drivers for the HDDs.)

You also might check the task manager for possible software issues such as utilities stealing focus.

Seems unlikely.

I have an ASUS utility that checks for driver/BIOS/firmware updates. When it starts, whatever I'm doing stops and minimizes to the taskbar.

 

[Pleasehelp]

This. That's a classic symptom of a HDD or SSD failing. After 4 years, it's about time, too, to replace them.

Check your SMART data for your HDDS. (HDTune free can do it, as long as you are running Microsoft drivers for the HDDs.)


Seems unlikely.

I checked the HD for errors with HDtune. No problems with the drive according to HDtune. Hmmmm......

 

[VirtualLarry]

What's your RAM usage in Task Manager when this happens? Specifically "Commit Charge"?

Your pagefile might be thrashing, due to low RAM, and being stuck with a mechanical HDD. Since the pagefile is on the OS drive, when it starts thrashing, it could cause your apps to not repond.

 

[Pleasehelp]

What's your RAM usage in Task Manager when this happens? Specifically "Commit Charge"?

Your pagefile might be thrashing, due to low RAM, and being stuck with a mechanical HDD. Since the pagefile is on the OS drive, when it starts thrashing, it could cause your apps to not repond.

I performed MEMTest on the RAM and it passed. Seemingly no problems with the RAM according to the test.

RAM usage is within normal limits. I am unfamiliar with the term "commit charge". There's 12 gigs of RAM on that machine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

RAM usage is within normal limits. I am unfamiliar with the term "commit charge". There's 12 gigs of RAM on that machine.

Commit Charge is shown on the Task Manager's Performance tab. It is the total amount of virtual memory in use. If that number goes higher than your RAM (12GB), then you may be thrashing the pagefile.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Are you running the newest version of Norton and Malwarebytes? What happens if you un-install both of them, do the pauses go away?

 

[Pleasehelp]

Commit Charge is shown on the Task Manager's Performance tab. It is the total amount of virtual memory in use. If that number goes higher than your RAM (12GB), then you may be thrashing the pagefile.

OK. Yes. I have kept an eye on that and it never maxes out the RAM.

 

[Pleasehelp]

Are you running the newest version of Norton and Malwarebytes? What happens if you un-install both of them, do the pauses go away?

I did uninstall Norton and Malwarebytes. Didn't make a difference.

 

[VirtualLarry]

When you used HDTune, did you do a surface scan on both drives? Try doing a benchmark, of each drive, and post screenshots here. (Use an image-hosting site, and use <IMG> </IMG> tags, except use the square brackets rather than the angle brackets for the tags.)

 

[Pleasehelp]

When you used HDTune, did you do a surface scan on both drives? Try doing a benchmark, of each drive, and post screenshots here. (Use an image-hosting site, and use <IMG> </IMG> tags, except use the square brackets rather than the angle brackets for the tags.)

OK. I'll do a surface scan right now. I'll post a screenshot when completed. Thank you VirtualLarry

 

[Pleasehelp]

Looking at HDtune is did not see any function that said "surface scan"

 

[Underclocked]

Have you checked the event viewer to see if there any time corresponding events that might provide a clue?

Run "sfc /scannow" from an administrative command prompt - (no quotes)

 

[Pleasehelp]

Have you checked the event viewer to see if there any time corresponding events that might provide a clue?

Run "sfc /scannow" from an administrative command prompt - (no quotes)

Event viewer shows nothing unusual. I have run "sfc /scannow a few times recently. PC behavior remains the same.....freezes still occur. Very frustrating.

 

[VirtualLarry]

OK. I'll do a surface scan right now. I'll post a screenshot when completed. Thank you VirtualLarry

No, do a surface scan (last tab), and then do a benchmark. Of both drives. Screenshot each benchmark, and post them. I want to see if there are any performance anomalies in the benchmark screenshots, which could indicate bad spots on the drive.

Basically, if you do the benchmark, and you see any really severe dips that go down towards the bottom of the screen, then you could have bad spots on the drive. Especially if you do the benchmark multiple times, and the dips are there every time. (There will be medium-sized occasional random dips if you are running the benchmark within Windows on the OS drive, because it has to service an OS drive request and that slows the benchmark down some.)

 

[Pleasehelp]

I must be using the wrong crystaldiskinfo. There are no "tabs". See the screenshot? Where are the tabs?

 

[Burpo]

Disconnect the VelociRaptor & try it.. a 5yr old 10,000 rpm drive could well be your problem..

 

[Pleasehelp]

Whoops.....I see I posted the results for crystaldiskinfo instead of HDTune. Running HDTune right now. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Underclocked]

How much space is available on the 150GB drive?

Try running temp file cleaner - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/tfc/

Then defrag.

 

[Pleasehelp]

How much space is available on the 150GB drive?

Try running temp file cleaner - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/tfc/

Then defrag.

40gigs of free space left on the drive. Already defragged and did the file cleaner thing. Neither worked.

Keep in mind......the PC runs perfectly when it's not frozen. It can run for hours without problems. But when it freezes it's locked up completely. Even cntrl alt delete doesn't work when it's froze. It'll freeze at least twice a day.

 

[Underclocked]

This might sound odd, but you might try a new cmos battery just for grins. I've seen some extremely strange behavior from computers that have weak cmos batteries. In any case, it's a cheap experiment and you are probably getting close to needing a new one anyway.

 

[Pleasehelp]

This might sound odd, but you might try a new cmos battery just for grins. I've seen some extremely strange behavior from computers that have weak cmos batteries. In any case, it's a cheap experiment and you are probably getting close to needing a new one anyway.

Never knew a CMOS battery existed.

 

[Pleasehelp]

Screen shots from HDTune per request of VirtualLarry:

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