I hope you can help, very annoying issue that I can't get sorted

[cantankerous]

Hi everyone,

system is exactly as in sig. I'll get to my problem off the bat as I tend to ramble. I am having a very, very annoying issue that I just can't seem to track down, and it seems to be getting worse. The problem is with the system halting, yet not completely locking up. Let me explain. At random times, though occurring more frequently now, the system will halt whatever it is doing. The strange thing is, this isn't a complete system lockup. The mouse cursor still moves and if anything is already open I can use that freely (browse webpages via firefox etc) however I can't open anything new. Clicking on a new icon to open just has the hourglass sit there forever and nothing actually opens. This happens regardless of what I try and open. I notice my torrents via utorrent stop as well and no transfers happen up or down. A reboot of the system manually will remedy this as if it never happened. I cannot shut down via start button as either the option won't show up or clicking the shutdown/reset option won't net any results. This is extremely annoying as it interferes with whatever I am doing. Encoding a movie, downloading, just idling etc causing me lost work and having to reboot and start again. The strange thing is this never happens in games. I can game for hours without an issue. I ran Orthos blend test, priority 4 for 12.5 hours yesterday and it passed without issues. Multiple runs/loops of any of the 3DMarks works fine as does Windows Memtest to 1000%+. I thought perhaps it was a hard drive issue as I have 4 of them connected to the onboard Nvidia Raid Controller. 2 X 150GB Raptors in Raid 0 and 2 X 250GB Hitachi T7K250 on their own for backups/downloads etc. I have ran the full diagnostics on all the drives via their respected manufacturers tools and they always come up clean. Does anyone have any clue as to what is going on? It has been happening for awhile and I have lived with it but not having an answer is killing me. It is getting to the point that I feel like trashing this system and buying a whole new one from the ground up. Not a very cheap move considering my system in sig is quite capable to todays standards and shouldn't need to be swapped out due to this issue. My 4800+ is clocked at 2.84ghz, my ram at 237mhz 2.5-3-2-5. Again Orthos, Memtest etc stable.

If anyone has any clue what is possibly going on or what would cause a system to halt with the mouse cursor still moving and not a complete system freeze please do share your thoughts, I would be extremely grateful like you wouldn't believe. I am running latest bios 406BTA if that helps.

Sorry for my rambling, I knew I would. I just like to be as thorough as possible to help get a possible, quick answer.

EDIT.. I have latest cpu, chipset, video and sound drivers installed. I also have latest AMD Dual Core Optimizer software installed. I have latest updates to all games/programs installed. I am running no antivirus in the background so I don't think anything should be interfering. A thing to add is this happens even after a format/reinstall which is leading me to think it is either a hardware issue, bios setting issue or a software issue on something I keep installing each time I format.

Thanks again.

[K404]

virus? bad windows install? The hardware will probably be fine, but possibly a memory issue? cant explain how though.

Are the disks defragged?

Are you in a position to easily re-install windows?

[Solarfall]

dude i had the same exact proplem. i noticed it few week back and was trying to get windows to work properly. a fresh windows installation fixed it.
just few day before of the win install thinks strated to get really wierd windows whould not shutdown or restart. the shutdown screen whould hang for ages.
allso my computer started it self allways at midnight....Woooo spooky. i was starting to thing that there was a poltergeist in my psu.;)

[cantankerous]

Hi there, thanks for the response.

If you read above, virus checks come out clean however I never have a scanner running in the background at all times due to performance degradation. I use latest Diskeeper 11 on a daily bases so drives are always defragged. This problems occurs after a format as well which leads me to believe hardware, I hope not though.

[Syn.]

If such problem does not happend when your PC is being used heavily then its something that runs when it thinks your PC is "IDLE", have you got any scheduels with any apps?

[Sparky]

Mine would do the same except it eventually totally freezes up. I have to totally power off via the switch on the PSU then power back up. I've traced it to a funky card reader I believe that is messing up the USB which somehow jams the whole computer up. Removed it and the problem went away.

Do you have any card readers or similar devices in your computer?

[cantankerous]

Hello again and thanks for the responses.

This doesn't happen when the pc is 100% idle so to say, just not at 100% load such as gaming/stability testing etc. I am really starting to think this is Hard Disk/Controller based as I 'think' I have narrowed it down to happening when the disc is under very heavy use. If I have a ton of torrents open and running via latest utorrent it seems to do this. I was transcoding a store bought dvd via latest DVD Shrink and it did it this morning and last night while using this program. Having latest chipset drivers and running diagnostics on the 4 drives in my systems which come up clean has me boggled though. The girlfriend is the one that usually tells me things are going wrong as she will come and get me after I have left the system 100% working just to tell me that things won't load and just sit there when she tries. MSN Messenger, Firefox, Itunes etc.

I do have a Mitsumi Card reader in my system SparkyJJO. I suppose I could try to disconnect it though I doubt that is the issue.

I do not have any scheduled apps. Very strange how it isn't a complete system lock, nothing loads but the mouse cursor movies, I can switch on and off the numlock, caps lock etc lights and the apps running on my G15 keyboard alternate as usual which doesn't happen when the system completely locks up. Something so minor yet soo irritating. argh!

[Sparky]

Do try removing it. I guess card readers have been the cause of strange problems before. The thing that clued me in was I tried booting up Kubuntu linux off the CD and it would freeze every time, after I removed the card reader it worked fine.

Maybe it is my USB is all wonky though, it happens sometimes when I plug in a USB memory stick. :( Unless my OC has made the USB controller unstable somehow.... Anyone heard of that happening before?

[[XC] flat-four]

Check your devices to make sure there are not hardware conflicts in your device manager. After flashed my bios to a newer revision, my 2 ata controllers decided to share the same IRQ, and I/O range. If you can disable sata ports that aren't being used(unless you're using them all) you might try that. My problem was similar, but only showed up when using cpu-z or sandra.

[cantankerous]

Hi, I am unfortunately using all sata ports. The Ultra-D only has 4 and is missing the secondary Silicon Image controller that the bigger brother models have. I have checked device manager and there are no notable conflicts however sharing of IRQ's in XP is always a strange topic to bring up as there is never really any proof that sharing IRQ's in XP is a bad thing. 99% of the time it can share IRQ's between multiple devices without ever having an issue. I can't explain the situation any better than I have unfortunately. It almost seems as if the cpu 'disconnects' itself from the rest of the system not allowing it to be used to start up anything fresh, close out anything already running etc. I can tell because transcoding a dvd in dvdshrink last night had the cpu pegged at 100% load according to the latest Lavalys Everest OSD box I have running on my secondary monitor. When this 'issue' happens the cpu utilization showed 0% meaning the cpu seemed as if it wasn't even being used yet the transcoding screen was still present though no longer working. My torrent activities in utorrent which was also open on my secondary screen showed 0kb/s up and 0kb/s down meaning it too ceased to work. I manually hit the reset button on the front of my case and it came up working as if nothing ever happened to begin with. Strange eh?

[Jaco]

Did you try a fresh reinstall of windows?
I have been troubleshooting for weeks to fix a similar weird problem .
A fresh reinstall did the trick.

[cantankerous]

My memory is getting a tad foggy I must admit. I did format back on Nov. 22, 06 and as far as I remember this issue happened before that as well. I suppose I could try one last time but I am almost positive it is reoccurring. Jaco, do me a favour? If not to waste anymore thread space write me a quick PM as to what issue you were having exactly so I can compare it to what I am having? Would be much appreciated. All of your guys posts are very appreciated I must add.

Maybe a simple question to help narrow down an answer. I understand probably no one knows 'exactly' what is going on, especially when they haven't experienced it themselves and are not witnessing my system act up in person but, from a general hardware/software knowledge base, what would or might cause a system to suddenly cease operation though not totally lock up. Is this type of behavior where the mouse cursor still moves etc usually a bad cpu core? Bad ram/timings? Faulty hd/controller? There are just far too many variables and with testing each thing and having it pass it makes it all that much harder to track down. My system runs fantastic when this issue doesn't happen, if not for this issue I would be quite pleased as games play great etc. I am wanting to get the new ATI card when it comes out, as well as a new PSU but am afraid to drop tons of coin into a system that isn't acting 100% as it should before hand you know?

[biohead]

I'm having similar problems. Could it be some windows update that's bugging some of us?

I have added u on MSN.