My computer just randomly freezes

Vox Populi Vox Dei

Vox Populi Vox Dei

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This problem has popped up over the past couple of weeks or so and it's become very irritating. Basically it happens when I open up a new tab in Firefox - but not all the time...it happens at random moments. Sometimes the computer freezes for a couple of seconds, or it can be up to a couple of moments.

Trying to locate the problem is a bit difficult because I can't even bring up Task Manager when the computer freezes. In fact I can't do anything besides turning it on and off.

I'm scanning for virii now (a full, in-depth one), although I doubt that is the problem as I have a daily "quick scan" on. Using FF 3.6.6 and XP SP3 btw.
 
When did the problem start ? Does it only happen when using firefox ? I've had similar problems when using Firefox. It could be due to a script inside Firefox which causes the who machine to slow down or become unresponsive.

When you say the computer freezes, does the mouse/kb stop responding ? Do you get a blue screen memory dump ? Does everything just run slower ? Does the mouse/kb lag when used ? What happens if you kill the Firefox process, does the problem stop ? Have you looked at the % of CPU usage from different app ? Perhaps Firefox running at 100% ? Look at Firefox's memory usage. FF can be a memory hog, especially when buffering (youtube) videos. My only solution in the past was to close all tabs, then reload pages again. Remember the Xmarks addon for firefox can sync (remember) your (closed) tabs, passwords and bookmarks between computers.

I've slowly but surely moved over to Google Chrome as my preferred browser. The primary reason is that every tab is it's own process in memory. The advantage is obvious. When a process/tab, malfunctions then you only need to kill the tab. That means one doesn't have to bring down your whole browser, wating a lot of valueable time and bandwidth to reload a page again. Chrome also has Firefox extension capabilites. Most Firefox addons also nowadays exist for Chrome.

Examples:
http://clip2net.com/page/m0/6715788
http://clip2net.com/page/m0/6715807

Note/Tip: A handy set of tools to control processes etc on your/remote machine is go and download PSTools. One of the command line utilities from PSTools allows one to kill a process on a remote machine. If the remotely networked machine has frozen due to some (known) issue, then one can just kill the process remotely from the commandline.
 
Have you installed the Rapport software from any of the bank websites? Just an idea as i did and since then i have been having lots of problems with my Firefox hanging often. When you can open task manager you find Rapport using up all the cpu, then out of the blue it returns to normal again. I know a number of other people have had the same problems - there is a thread on mybb somewhere.

Might not be related to your probs but worth checking.
 
gerasmus said:
When did the problem start ? Does it only happen when using firefox ? I've had similar problems when using Firefox. It could be due to a script inside Firefox which causes the who machine to slow down or become unresponsive.

When you say the computer freezes, does the mouse/kb stop responding ? Do you get a blue screen memory dump ? Does everything just run slower ? Does the mouse/kb lag when used ? What happens if you kill the Firefox process, does the problem stop ? Have you looked at the % of CPU usage from different app ? Perhaps Firefox running at 100% ? Look at Firefox's memory usage. FF can be a memory hog, especially when buffering (youtube) videos. My only solution in the past was to close all tabs, then reload pages again. Remember the Xmarks addon for firefox can sync (remember) your (closed) tabs, passwords and bookmarks between computers.

I've slowly but surely moved over to Google Chrome as my preferred browser. The primary reason is that every tab is it's own process in memory. The advantage is obvious. When a process/tab, malfunctions then you only need to kill the tab. That means one doesn't have to bring down your whole browser, wating a lot of valueable time and bandwidth to reload a page again. Chrome also has Firefox extension capabilites. Most Firefox addons also nowadays exist for Chrome.

Examples:
http://clip2net.com/page/m0/6715788
http://clip2net.com/page/m0/6715807

Note/Tip: A handy set of tools to control processes etc on your/remote machine is go and download PSTools. One of the command line utilities from PSTools allows one to kill a process on a remote machine. If the remotely networked machine has frozen due to some (known) issue, then one can just kill the process remotely from the commandline.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had Grease Monkey installed and sometimes it is the scripts inside Facebook for example. However many times it is not that - although I have noticed my computer seems to be crashing a lot with Adobe so I disabled that program from starting up because it was making my computer take a long time to finish restarting. I can move my mouse/KB although when in the browser, the cursor usually has that hour-glass sign which means I can't do anything with it. As I said, I can't kill the FF process because I can't even get onto Task Manager for some reason and therefore can also not see the % of CPU used. I've switched to Chrome, it is going fine for the moment - let's hope it stays like that.

ramar said:
Have you installed the Rapport software from any of the bank websites? Just an idea as i did and since then i have been having lots of problems with my Firefox hanging often. When you can open task manager you find Rapport using up all the cpu, then out of the blue it returns to normal again. I know a number of other people have had the same problems - there is a thread on mybb somewhere.

Might not be related to your probs but worth checking.
Click to expand...

No, I have not downloaded the Rapport software.
 
Sounds like a virus, especially with TM not starting, what AV are you using?
 
Does this also happen when running Firefox in safe-mode?
 
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