Screen Freeze

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There is an issue, possibly related to my DVD and CD drives. Earlier, when I had problems with the old CD drive, the malfunction was accompanied by a few seconds screen freeze. There’s no random opening/closing now, but my screen still freezes occasionally. It only lasts a couple of seconds, nothing major, but annoying. Any suggestions. Greythings8

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There is an issue, possibly related to my DVD and CD drives. Earlier, when I had problems with the old CD drive, the malfunction was accompanied by a few seconds screen freeze. There’s no random opening/closing now, but my screen still freezes occasionally. It only lasts a couple of seconds, nothing major, but annoying. Any suggestions. Greythings8

What applications are you running when this happens?

What other changes have you made recently?

Have you run Task Manager to see if a particular process is consuming resources excessively when the “freezing” occurs?

Joe

--Joe

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Basically, my screen freezes whether I’m running something or not. Other than reinstalling the old drive and installing the new, I haven’t made any other changes. I’ve run Task Manager but I’m not quite sure where to look. I’ve also started having trouble going from one site to the other. Greythings8

What applications are you running when this happens?

What other changes have you made recently?

Have you run Task Manager to see if a particular process is consuming resources excessively when the “freezing” occurs?

Joe

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Basically, my screen freezes whether I’m running something or not. Other than reinstalling the old drive and installing the new, I haven’t made any other changes. I’ve run Task Manager but I’m not quite sure where to look. I’ve also started having trouble going from one site to the other. Greythings8

In Task Manager start with the Processes tab. See if anything has a CPU usage. Ignore the System Idle process.

Joe

--Joe

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I opened Task Manager and clicked the Processes tab. The problem is some of the processes fluctuate (iexplore. exe seems widest: 00-38). Now there’s a grinding or buzzing sound coming from the old drive. Greythings8

In Task Manager start with the Processes tab. See if anything has a CPU usage. Ignore the System Idle process.

Joe

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Now there’s a grinding or buzzing sound coming from the old drive.

I’d bet you’ve either got a memory problem/shortage, or a video driver issue.

How much free space do you have on your hard drive(s)?
How much RAM do you have?
Can you check for a video driver update?

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There is 3.50 GB free on the hard drive. RAM has 512 MB. Video driver update: do I use My Computer Info in Help and Support? or do I check another way? Greythings8

I’d bet you’ve either got a memory problem/shortage, or a video driver issue.

How much free space do you have on your hard drive(s)?
How much RAM do you have?
Can you check for a video driver update?

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3.5 GB free space on the hard drive sounds VERY low. How big is the drive altogether?
512MB is very little memory for a modern operating system.
The best way to check for a video driver update is to go to the web site of the video card vendor.

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As Stuart said, 3.50 GB of free space is very low, and likely the cause of this issue. And, as he mentioned, 512 MB of RAM is on the low end of acceptable for a Windows XP system. I’m stuck at 512 MB with my system (plenty when the system was purchased in 2003, but barely adequate now) because of motherboard restriction with the type of RAM it will use (very expensive RDRAM).

When was the last time you did any system maintenance ?? If you don’t do it regularly, I would recommend that you download the FREE utility cCleaner and run it. If you don’t do system maintenance, this may take awhile, but should give you more free space on the drive. I would then run the defrag utility Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter, which will also take a while if it hasn’t been done recently.

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I ran the cleaner, but according to the defrag analysis, I don’t need to defrag. Hard Disk: Total Capacity: 12.72 GB; Free: 4.25 GB. So should I run the defrag anyway? Greythings8

As Stuart said, 3.50 GB of free space is very low, and likely the cause of this issue. And, as he mentioned, 512 MB of RAM is on the low end of acceptable for a Windows XP system. I’m stuck at 512 MB with my system (plenty when the system was purchased in 2003, but barely adequate now) because of motherboard restriction with the type of RAM it will use (very expensive RDRAM).

When was the last time you did any system maintenance ?? If you don’t do it regularly, I would recommend that you download the FREE utility cCleaner and run it. If you don’t do system maintenance, this may take awhile, but should give you more free space on the drive. I would then run the defrag utility Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter, which will also take a while if it hasn’t been done recently.

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I ran the cleaner, but according to the defrag analysis, I don’t need to defrag. Hard Disk: Total Capacity: 12.72 GB; Free: 4.25 GB. So should I run the defrag anyway? Greythings8

This really is most odd, I have never seen Windows XP installed on a disk as small as 17GB

I assume that your hard drive has been partitioned to create a small boot disk and that the rest of the space is used for something else. Can you let us know what other disks can be seen in Windows explorer.

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So far as the info gathered, My Computer Info – Hardware, the local disk is it, non-partitioned.

This really is most odd, I have never seen Windows XP installed on a disk as small as 17GB

I assume that your hard drive has been partitioned to create a small boot disk and that the rest of the space is used for something else. Can you let us know what other disks can be seen in Windows explorer.

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Did you purchase the machine configured like that or was it upgraded from a different OS ??

What are the drive letters and associated drives listed in My Computer ??

Examples – C:Local Disk, D:Hard Disk, E:CD Drive, F: DVD Drive

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The machine was given to me by a friend. So far as I can tell, it was configured like that. Greythings8

Did you purchase the machine configured like that or was it upgraded from a different OS ??

What are the drive letters and associated drives listed in My Computer ??

Examples – C:Local Disk, D:Hard Disk, E:CD Drive, F: DVD Drive

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I worked on the assumption that the Local Disk and Hard Disk were one and the same since, other than the CD and DVD drives, the Local Disk was the only one listed. So, is it possible to add another disk to the PC? Or clear some more space? Greythings8

Did you purchase the machine configured like that or was it upgraded from a different OS ??

What are the drive letters and associated drives listed in My Computer ??

Examples – C:Local Disk, D:Hard Disk, E:CD Drive, F: DVD Drive

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There is something seriously wrong with the way your drives are configured. It isn’t possible to buy a disk drive as small as this computer claims to have.

Please run disk manager and let us have a screenshot showing how the partitions are laid out on the physical drive. To do this.

[*]Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc > OK
[*]At the bottom of the screen you will see one line for each physical disk, capture the information for Disk 0

Here, is the output on my current computer, to show what I mean…

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Here it is.

There is something seriously wrong with the way your drives are configured. It isn’t possible to buy a disk drive as small as this computer claims to have.

Please run disk manager and let us have a screenshot showing how the partitions are laid out on the physical drive. To do this.

[*]Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc > OK
[*]At the bottom of the screen you will see one line for each physical disk, capture the information for Disk 0

Here, is the output on my current computer, to show what I mean…

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