unresponsive CPU

[mtnester]

Problem: My OS goes brain-dead. Usually it's a program that won't open. Task Mgr will show System Idle at 98 or 99, but nothing happens when I try to open something--sometimes it's a browser (I use Fx, Opera, and occasionally IE7), sometimes a document, sometimes a program. The cursor still works, I can open folders, I can switch windows if something is already open, but that's it.

I searched the boards, but I probably don't know the correct terms to use to find a matching problem. I honestly think it's probably the OS rather than my TP that is the problem. If there is a program already open when the computer goes into a coma I can still use it--I just can't open anything new.

I don't know how to pin it down to any one culprit, since it's so inconsistent. I've looked at event viewer without seeing anything that could be causing the lack of action. I don't remember having recently installed anything; I have XP Pro SP3, but honestly I don't remember if the problem started before or after the SP3 update; it's an intermittent problem but it happens often enough to drive me batty. I could go take a nap like my CPU, but then neither one of us is getting anything accomplished!

TIA for any ideas how to "goose" it into action.

[killer]

Have you booted into safe mode and checked for malware?

[Marin85]

Download Process Explorer from sysinternals and post two screenshots of it: one when your ThinkPad runs normally and one when your computer "goes brain-dead". The latter might be hard to accomplish or even impossible but worth a try (a possible strategy: open Process Explorer and Paint while your system behaves normally and wait till it becomes irresponsive, this way you might be lucky to take the screenshot). Did you scan for malware? What AntiVirus do you have? Any BSODs? Try running PC-Doctor (available from Lenovo). It´s possible that some hardware component has gone bad. There is also an option to run a burnin test of your computer to exert full load to the hardware; if there is a hardware problem, it should become apparent during the burnin test.

Marin


EDIT: I just saw killer had posted in the meanwhile

[mtnester]

Thanks to you both. I had checked for malware, but not in safe mode. (didn't know what the blue button was for and when I pushed it, saw R&R got scared and retreated. "Thank you, Cancel button.") I found how to do safe mode but haven't been able to get back to the laptop yet.

I'll download Process Explorer and see what happens there. Sorry for the dumbness, but I'm assuming using Paint is to dump the clipboard? I have AntiVir, no BSODs, will run PC-Doctor (probably won't understand it, but I'll run it and have you to interpret, right??).

Hardware component? Hmm--as far as I know the only hardware things I've noticed is needing to push on the right side of my Page Down button to make sure it works consistently and how hard it is to move my trackpoint (OK, OK, I play solitare while waiting for my Core2 to open a program, while holding on a phone call, waiting for the screen to draw when I click a new link, etc.--heck I've got all that idle System Process, why not?)

If by "full load to the hardware" you mean filling up the little Task Mgr taskbar box so that it's completely green, guilty, guilty, guilty. (Even now my desktop has Fx open with 46 tabs spread over 6 windows that I saved from last session.) Anyway, I'll do the above first then if you both think I need the burnin, I'll request instructions for that.

Thank you, thank you; will be back later.

[RealBlackStuff]

my desktop has Fx open with 46 tabs spread over 6 windows that I saved from last session.

That would bring most any PC/Laptop to its knees!
What an absolutely ridiculous thing to do!

[Marin85]

That would bring most any PC/Laptop to its knees!
What an absolutely ridiculous thing to do!

@OP: Do you experience these issues when you don´t use FF? I suspect your issue is that you easily get out of free system memory, hence the hangs...

[mtnester]

OK, I searched but can't find how to include my screen shots, so I guess I need help with that first.

I hadn't forgotten about my post, just had trouble getting things done that suddenly fell on me (besides problem-solving my laptop) to back to my forum post. I am still experiencing the hangup problem, on an intermittent basis, and not just when running Firefox. Also, though I did a search I still wasn't sure how to post screen shots so I'll just attempt copying them here and hope it works.

Killer:
Safe mode malware check: Yes; no problems

Marin85:
post two screenshots of it: one when your ThinkPad runs normally and one when your computer "goes brain-dead".
Process Explorer shots--
normal:


brain-dead: (couldn't even use Start button):




What AntiVirus do you have? Avira AntiVir Personal Edition

Any BSODs? No

Try running PC-Doctor (available from Lenovo). No problems reported

There is also an option to run a burnin test of your computer to exert full load to the hardware; didn't do this one

RealBlack:
mtnester wrote:
my desktop has Fx open with 46 tabs spread over 6 windows that I saved from last session.

That would bring most any PC/Laptop to its knees!
What an absolutely ridiculous thing to do!
Yes, I'm sorry. Blame it on my OCD


Marin85:
@OP: Do you experience these issues when you don´t use FF? I suspect your issue is that you easily get out of free system memory, hence the hangs...

Yes. See 2nd shot of Process Explorer when the Start button wouldn't open.
Is free system memory the same as Available Physical Memory? I had 1264196 during the last hangup.

Please note that even though nothing happens when I try to open a program, etc., System Idle shows 93-98 percent. This is the part that frustrates me. Why can't I do anything even when Sys Idle is so high and CPU usage history is 0-3% and Page File Usage History is nearly on the bottom (650 MB)?

Also note that I had just booted my TP and opened both Process Explorer, Task Manager and my Downloads folder when I unsuccessfully attempted opening Start to access a program. So why can't I nudge some of those CPU cycles from Idle? I'm using OpenOffice to write this and it takes forever to page up or down or to change windows when I have more than one document open at a time. While watching the processes list as I type soffice.exe shows that it is using .75-1.49 CPUs on Process Explorer.

I dbl-clicked Opera to open it and go to the forum so I could post this answer. Three minutes later it still hadn't opened so I dbl-clicked again and it worked.

Screen shot:

[Marin85]

You can upload the screenshots for example at ImageShack. From there you can include in your post either simple links to the screenshots or thumbnails (just use the corresponding links below the image once you have uploaded it), but please don´t use hotlinks as the screenshots are most likely over 50k.

Marin

[mtnester]

I think I got it. Here are the screenshots I uploaded to ImageShack (thank you for the info, Marin85).

Process Explorer when everything is working normally:


Process Explorer in brain-dead condition: (couldn't even use Start button)



The 3rd screenshot isn't when I couldn't open Opera; it is when I was trying to resize the open Opera window:


Thanks for your time to help.

[RealBlackStuff]

When did you last clean up your PC and did a defrag?
Empty all Temp directories, browser caches and Garbage Bin first.
How much space is left on your HD?
How large is your paging file?

[Marin85]

@mitnester: Viewing the screenshots in full size requires registration on that site.

[goofyGAguy]

Marin, just click on the image and then click "full screen". Voila!

[Marin85]

Marin, just click on the image and then click "full screen". Voila!

Ah, thanks! It worked for me. Sorry for false alarm

I had a look into these screenshots, and on the second and third one there seems to be scrolling, i.e. not all the information is visible. On the second one, what I found strange, is that an Avira process (WCS helper tool) is highlighted in red...

[mtnester]

RealBlackStuff
When did you last clean up your PC and did a defrag?
Empty all Temp directories, browser caches and Garbage Bin first.
How much space is left on your HD?
How large is your paging file?

Well, you're right about the cleanup--it had been a few weeks since I'd done both; I ran CCleaner and Diskeeper Lite. I can't remember if the unresponsiveness started before or after my last defrag, but I can hope that the answer is that simple. HD free space is 50.6 GB (57%); paging file is 2046 MB.

Marin85
I had a look into these screenshots, and on the second and third one there seems to be scrolling, i.e. not all the information is visible. On the second one, what I found strange, is that an Avira process (WCS helper tool) is highlighted in red...

I noticed the scrolling also; I think it's due to whether subservices are showing or not (i.e., System Idle with a plus in front makes the list much, much shorter but doesn't show items like the number of instances of svchost.exe or UCLauncherService.exe), and I didn't know if those were important or not since either way I set it to show CPU usage from most to least of the process taking CPU cycles at the time of the screenshot. The process explorer color code chart shows that red indicates a deleted object and I believe in this case it was due to Avira's completing the update process.

I think I've completed my homework so we'll see what how this goes for awhile. Should I adjust that paging file at all or is it about right?

Thanks for your help. I'll try to keep up better with maintainance and adjust the paging file on your recommendation, but you can be sure if I go brain-dead again I'll be back.