PC frozen - help!

[Jonny2621]

One for the techies hopefully....

My laptop keeps freezing, all excpety the mouse pointer which moves freely around but cant click or select on anything.

I can hear the hard disk buzzing and making a repetitive, clicking sort of noise, thats the best way i can describe it. The hard disk icon is flickering indicating activity. If i crash the system and reboot it remains the same way.

All of a sudden everything starts working and all data / programs start where they left off, very strange.

Ive covered the obvious, virus scan through Norton Internet Security, spyware scan with adaware and microsoft antispyware. Deleted any recently installed software etc etc

Im getting fed up with it.....anyone have any ideas as to what i can do ??

Thanks in advance and muchly rep for any good soul able to help.

Jon

[MattR]

If you type msconfig in the run box (click run on the start bar menu) and when the new window opens click startup tab. This will list what is running at windows start up. Maybe you could list all that is checked on here. I'm no expert but I'm sure others can help then. Just thinking that as it's doing it right from when you boot up something is running straight away and using all the resources up. If there's something listed there that shouldn't be people here may know what to do. Just an idea.

[Jonny2621]

IGFXTRAY
APOINT
EZSP-PX
ICO
RUNDLL32
HKSERV
SPMGR
SWITCHER
CCAPP
URLSTCHK
SNDMON
QTTASK
DRAGDIAG
REALSCHED
ONSPEEDCORE
GCASSERV
DRST
ONSPEED

Whatever the hell they are!

[Jonny2621]

Anybody got any clues, pretty please ? :doh

[markwales]

I would suggest doing a search on ALL the above tasks on google.co.uk

The top results for all of them will be from www.liutilities.com

Read what it has to say about each of them.

For example :

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/SNDMon/

SNDMon - SNDMon.exe - Process Information
Process File: SNDMon or SNDMon.exe
Process Name: Symantec Security Drivers

Description:
SNDMon.exe is a process associated with Norton Antivirus application from Symantec. This process should not be removed to ensure that your system security is not breached.

Go through your whole list and see what it says.

[Jonny2621]

Nice and easy then, oh my,

thanks Mark, ill give it a go

[Profit Seeker]

In my task manager there's a proces called svchost, there's about 5 of them, some are LOCAL SERVICE, some NETWORK SERVICE and some SYSTEM whatever that means. But looking it up on that site Markwales posted, it says it's a virus. scvhosts asks to access the internet on my firewall though for various things....any ideas?

edit: My mistake, I typed scvhost, not svchost. The slightest changes to hide viruses :rolleyes:

[GlosRFC]

svchost is not a virus - it's an essential part of Windows that controls the various processes that you have up and running. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314056
Because it's such an important part of the operating system it is subject to attacks by virus writers which is why it's vital to keep your OS up-to-date with the latest downloads from Microsoft. Don't delete svchost.exe or your system won't work.

The reason it's asking to access the internet is because you have set your time options to automatically update from an internet server. Right-click on the clock in your status bar, select Adjust Date/Time, select Internet Time tab and turn the feature off if you're concerned about it. My advice is not to be.

As for Johnny's problem, my thoughts are two things:

1. Yes, you might be loading processes into the background that are having a detrimental effect on your PC. The standard approach is to use MSCONFIG to turn them off one-by-one to see if this makes it run smoothly. If so, you'll know which program was causing the problem. I'd start by looking at the rundll32 process as it's pretty unusual to have that in your start-up list. If you have XP Pro you can open up a command prompt window and type:
tasklist /m /fi "IMAGENAME eq rundll32.exe" >C:\rundll32.txt

Check the contents of the rundll32.txt file for any processes you don't recognise by doing a search on Google. It might be some kind of spyware that's running.

Most of the rest of your processes look to be okay....the majority are installed by Sony as aids to using a laptop. CCTASK and I think URLSTCHK are part of Norton, QTTASK is the bit that loads Quick Time but that should be removed as it's not required to be loaded in start-up, GCASSERV is part of the Microsoft anti-spyware software.

The ones that might be responsible for slowing up your PC are REALSCHED - see this page under Evntsvc / Realsched which explains why
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist_e.htm
and the other is DRST which can also slow a PC down on start-up. See this page:
http://flr.free.fr/spip/article.php?id_article=56

2. Excessive "ticking" by your hard disk might indicate that it's on the way out or that it's struggling to allocate sufficient space to create a virtual drive. Try clearing space and doing a defragmentation.

Hope that helps.

[Win2Win]

I'd go into SAFE MODE at Boot-up, and do a SYSTEM RESTORE.

[Jonny2621]

Just got home from work, i shall ahve a dabble with your suggestions, keep you posted in an hour or so hopefully Ooo , thanks guys
Jon

[Merlin]

My laptop keeps freezing

Jon

Take it out of the icebox Jon....:laugh

[Win2Win]

My laptop keeps freezing
It's not on a Cypriot airplane is it? :yikes:

[Jonny2621]

Right, an update:

1. Removed Rundll32, REALSCHED, DRST and QTTASK from startup using Msconfig

2. Drefragmented disk, but the problem arose half way through so had to try to do this twice :doh , eventually OK.

3. Found mention on the net of Anti-Leech plugin for Explorer which may be a problem so removed this also.

4. Page file size was set at 765meg so changed to be set automatically.

Hasnt crashed this morning yet so fingers crossed thats worked. Thank for all the suggestions.

While on the subect i looked back over any software i have downloaded or installed recently and the only one i can remember was that i had to download a later version of Java to use a tennis scoreboard for a recent event in Poland. I think thats when my problems started. Ive looked in add/remove programs and nothing listed there. Any ideas as to whether this is the problem ?

cheers
Jon

[Win2Win]

I installed the latest Java last week, and had to uninstall as it was crashing my system!!!

[Jonny2621]

Thats it then, i have the culprit, its too much of a coincidence. Anyone recommend a good uninstaller program or disk doctor type thingy ?

[GlosRFC]

Not at all sure why Java could be causing a problem but removing it is fairly simple. Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, look for any Java related programs, e.g. J2SE Runtime Environment or Java Runtime Environment, highlight them and click Remove.

[MarcusMel]

Just to add a stupid thought :D if the hard drive has developed a bad cluster (area holding data) you might experience that same sort of problem and symptoms. Especially if it was trying to load from the area. The software will keep trying to read the bad area until it gets a sucessful read, this would cause a the PC to freeze.

Need to run a programe to check for and mark bad clusters that may be on you hard drive.

[Jonny2621]

Just one crash today, 15 yesterday so im definitely on the right track, removing these bits and pieces.

I downloaded PCDoctor recommended by a couple of pals, and it found 687 errors on the disk, now repaired OK.

Watching brief for now til it goes again, certainly startup and close down now working ok, much quicker and no frozen screens thus far.