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Huwajux
16 Dec 2010, 11:37am
Tech Support Help TicketWhat general section does your problem fall under
Other Issues(please be detailed) What is your Operating System (OS)
Windows 7 If you use linux, post the build and any other pertinent info (kde/gnome etc)
- Have you tried the latest stable drivers for your product if any exist? If so please list the number/name of them in the box here.
- Do you understand complex tech explanations
No Would you prefer more personalized and simpler help?
Yes Do you have antivirus or anti-malware installed?
Yes What is the name of your Antivirus/anti malware?
Kaspersky Who made your PC? (Company name or you)
Novatech What is the model number of the part or PC you are having issues with?
Software Please state your problem here
Basically my laptop decides to freeze up every now and then. For example, when playing music from WMP (or any music player) I will randomly lock up for about 10 seconds or so. Nothing will respond and I can only move my mouse about. The time between these is fairly random.

Another issue is when I'm playing games (mainly TF2, but it occurs in others too). I will randomly freeze in-game and the sound of the last second or so will loop over and over (unfortunately it's when a lot is going on like explosions, etc. Not sure if that indicates anything). My screen is frozen and this persists for up to a minute at most.

Whenever this happens the little loading icon (the one that flashes whenever stuff is being loaded) is constantly on and doesn't even begin to flash again like normal until the laptop unfreezes.

I have 4 gigs of RAM, I'm 64-bit, and my GPU is a GTS 250 1GB. Also, after a while (in games at least) the freezing will be extremely rare or even just stop. My only thought it that my game is still loading stuff.

mapper
16 Dec 2010, 01:08pm
You could check if your laptop cooling is working properly. This may be one of the 1000 possible reasons xp


If dust, dirt, hair, or other substances are in the case openings, it can prevent air from getting into or out of the laptop. This can cause the overall heat of the laptop to increase, and in some cases may also cause such issues as random reboots.

Look for laptop openings where the laptop draws in cool air from outside or blows out any hot air from the inside of the laptop. These openings are usually on one of the sides, the back, or the bottom of the laptop. Dust, dirt, hair, or other substances can almost always be removed easily using a cotton swab and/or compressed air.

Warning: If you're using compressed air to clean the openings that have fans within them, it's possible that the amount of air blown on the fans can cause them to over spin, damaging or destroying the fan. To help prevent this issue, place something in-between the fan blades, such as a toothpick.

Huwajux
16 Dec 2010, 09:23pm
The cooling fans seem clear to me and are working properly (hot air is coming out of them). I've optimised my laptop for maximum performance and have the fans running at their highest setting to ensure overheating doesn't occur.

Like I said, after a while my game will stop locking up like this, as it seems to occur more often during the earlier stages when I've just started. Also, I doubt WMP requires much resources, so why would my laptop lock up when it's just playing music? My laptop is relatively new too and I've barely got anything on it still so I don't think the files would be fragmented.

For TF2 I defragmented the files, ran an integrity check and set forcepreload to 1 in the autoexec. There has been a slight improvement, but it still seems fairly temperamental as to the severity of each instance.

Bob Loblaw
17 Dec 2010, 03:45pm
It sounds like it's something running in the background. I used kaspersky on my little tiny laptop but other than that don't know much about it. Try disabling it and seeing if it persists. If not, what else is running in the background?

Shadowex3
20 Dec 2010, 07:12am
you'd be surprised how much ram WMP can eat. Try using winamp or VLC for a bit and see if it goes away. If it doesn't make sure its not kaspersky doing something.

Also check for any kind of auto-updater or whatever going on in the background. Check the "performance" tab of the task manager RIGHT after it happens sometime, look for a ram or CPU usage spike.

Huwajux
22 Dec 2010, 09:44am
Well Shadow I did what you recommended: I let WMP play its music for a while, and throughout it I received very delayed responses whilst doing other stuff like browsing the forum, and this showed up in very small but frequent CPU spikes.

After a little longer the massive freeze came and nothing was responding; when I tried clicking on my browser it just faded to white and was stuck until my laptop had finished loading whatever it was loading. I then checked the performance tab and my CPU usage had a massive spike to 100%, however my RAM usage remained steady.

I'm now going to try one of the programs you put forward and see if it helps stop this irritating issue. If not then I'll disable Kaspersky and see if that sorts it out.

Shadowex3
23 Dec 2010, 08:42pm
Keeping the "processes" tab in task manager open should show you exactly what's spiking.

Spiffy
18 Jan 2011, 09:54am
Oh yeah, sorry I forgot about that. I guess it was probably the power usage of the laptop that couldn't keep up since it doesn't happen when I plugg external speakers into it.

Fixed.