huge computer hanging problems - please help!!

11/08/2013 07:19:44 AM · #1

So I did a shoot yesterday, and then I went to look at the pictures.

My computer just keeps hanging, and I can't seem to figure out what's going on. Here's what's happening, and here's what I've tried. My husband's out of town, and my computer isn't usable. Typing this on the ancient laptop.

Problem: Was in photoshop and bridge (I run them separately, never really liked running bridge within photoshop itself.) When the photoshop file seemed to freeze up. Stuck on the same tool. The mouse would move, but couldn't switch tools or select anything from the menu. Strange thing was, bridge seemed to be frozen, as well. Usually the don't freeze together. I could still go into firefox, but that would freeze and unfreeze. I would get the message in the title bar saying firefox wasn't responding, but then would come back after awhile. Had to kill photoshop. Shut down the computer. It installed massive amounts of updates since I don't shut down often.

Restarted, still couldn't work in photoshop.

This time it froze the whole computer. Couldn't get out of photoshop, couldn't alt-tab out of it, couldn't bring up the task manager, had to hard boot the computer.

installed malabytes (I think that's the name) and it scanned clean.

Installed norton 360 and it scanned clean

in the meantime, it started slowing down again (hadn't opened photoshop only firefox)
Tried shutting down, but it wouldn't shut down, just hung. Had to hard boot. Shut down, started up clean. uninstalled photoshop and reinstalled.

after trying to get things clean and giving up at 12:30 last night, went to shut down, it said things were still running, but nothing listed, so I told it to force shut down. 5 hours later when my alarm went off to wake up my son, it still hadn't shut down. The desktop icons were gone, but the background photo was still showing, and the computer was still on.

I had to kill the computer again.

This morning I went through the task manager, and it appears that the processes that are running are all valid (nothing funky)

I'm trying to uninstall norton, and it's hung at 84%. Firefox is non-responsive and hung. I have the task manager up, but I really don't know what I'm looking at in there. CPU usage just shows 0% sometimes going up to 1 or 4%. I have 64GB free disk space.

Please help me!! I don't know what to do!

If you have ideas, you can type them. If you're awesome and an expert, I can even PM a telephone number. I'm really at a loss here.

__________________________

update: seems to be a drive issue -- working on it now -- see update further up the thread. :)

Message edited by author 2013-11-12 19:48:05.

11/08/2013 07:28:21 AM · #2

update -- norton finally uninstalled -- took about 30 minutes to do it. That's the type of slow down I'm having. Things are grinding to a complete halt or taking forever. Yesterday it took about 5 minutes for the control panel to show up.

Garry

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

11/08/2013 08:01:03 AM · #3

Wendy, I don't know the specific cause of your problem, but I've had similar and it was due to impending hardware failure, a HDD in my case.

If possible, I would suggest backing up as much as you can as soon as you can if you haven't already.

Sorry to not be much more help than that.

11/08/2013 08:09:36 AM · #4

Originally posted by Garry:

I had tried installing carbonite a couple of days ago, but it's not looking like anything was backed-up.

I'll see what I can do -- but even launching explorer is taking forever.

11/08/2013 08:27:33 AM · #5

Originally posted by vawendy:

Originally posted by Garry:
Wendy, I don't know the specific cause of your problem, but I've had similar and it was due to impending hardware failure, a HDD in my case.

If possible, I would suggest backing up as much as you can as soon as you can if you haven't already.

Sorry to not be much more help than that.

I had tried installing carbonite a couple of days ago, but it's not looking like anything was backed-up.

I'll see what I can do -- but even launching explorer is taking forever.

running in safe mode, and found a 3TB hard drive that still has 2TB worth of space on it. But it says that it's going to take a day to copy to 60,623 (1.06TB) of files. There must be a quicker way to backup? There's no backup software on my 3TB external drive...

Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG APO IF for Pentax

11/08/2013 08:39:28 AM · #6

trying windows backup.

hopefully that's faster than copying.

Back to the original question -- why is the computer grinding to a halt?

Please help!!

MikeO

Fujifilm x100

11/08/2013 08:46:49 AM · #7

Wendy, what version of Windows are you running?

Nobody

Pentax K-S2

11/08/2013 08:47:18 AM · #8

verify your memory configuration. If a memory stick has gone bad or come loose, you may be running with a crippled machine where its thrashing (swapping processes out to disk to make room for others, over and over again).

11/08/2013 08:56:11 AM · #9

windows 7

11/08/2013 08:57:20 AM · #10

Originally posted by Nobody:

How do I verify the memory configuration? It says total 8174, cached 2102, available 6422 and free 4394. I do have 8 (is that what you mean?)

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

11/08/2013 08:59:44 AM · #11

ok -- maybe a piece (and maybe not a happy piece).

I was running windows backup and it said the backup wasn't complete because of an i/o error. Would that happen if things grind to a halt and hang, or does it look like maybe there's a problem with the hard disk? is there something I should do to check this?

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

11/08/2013 09:01:26 AM · #12

The behavior of the system leads me to believe that you may have a dying hard drive.

11/08/2013 09:04:08 AM · #13

Originally posted by kirbic:

The behavior of the system leads me to believe that you may have a dying hard drive.

What's the best thing to do to try to save the data at this point? Should I stop trying anything and bring it in someplace? Should I continue to try to back it up but in a different way through safe mode and copying?

should I continue with windows backup?

11/08/2013 09:05:45 AM · #14

should I try a disk repair type if thing?

MikeO

Fujifilm x100

11/08/2013 09:07:14 AM · #15

Originally posted by kirbic:

The behavior of the system leads me to believe that you may have a dying hard drive.

My thoughts also - Wendy you can try and check the hard drive for errors

If you can get to this link it tells you how to How to run a disk check on Windows 7

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM

11/08/2013 09:26:55 AM · #16

Thanks guys -- the second run of the backup seemed to stall out. I'm bringing it into the geeks. My concern is that the files aren't backed up and if the hard drive is failing, there's a limited amount of time before it's gone. Maybe if they start up off a system disk so that it's not running mine as intensively, they can either bypass whatever's causing the problem (if it's not hardware) or they can run the hardware less and get the data off successfully.

The stupid thing is I signed up for carbonite trial a little while ago because I realized I hadn't backed up in a very long time. Carbonite didn't back up ANY of my RAW files or my photoshop files. I have a bunch of pretty folders with useless .xmp files.

argh!!

Thanks for the input.

Keep your fingers crossed. This sucks because it will be pricey on top of it all. :(

MikeO

Fujifilm x100

11/08/2013 09:32:27 AM · #17

Originally posted by vawendy:

Fingers crossed here for you :-)

Cory

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV

11/08/2013 09:45:42 AM · #18

Fingers crossed, fyi, my bet is on a cooked processor, but it's hard to say without going hands-on.

dtremain

Canon EOS 80D

Canon EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II

11/08/2013 10:10:52 AM · #19

You've got the right idea in running the system from another source than your main hard drive. That should relieve the stress on your hard drive enough to allow you to get a copy of all your files (yes, copying a large quantity like that can take hours - a great job to run overnight). Don't worry about the copies just because your hard drive may be failing - if the copy completes successfully, it should be good (YMMV). To get the copy, you may want to unplug from the internet, and copy the files to a USB hard drive.
AVG has a new thing (well, at least new to me) that disables all your background tasks, and re-enables them as they are needed. The type of slow down you are describing is usually caused by the system having to wait on something (multiple tries in order to read/write to the disk; internet connection issues; multiple tries to read/write memory; other similar situations). Also, background apps can be a huge drag on your system - e.g., a virus scan running, reindexing the hard drive, NSA back door access, etc.
Insufficient memory can also be a problem, but at 8G on a Win7 system, you should be fine there.
Good luck - hope you get it sorted out soon.

Message edited by author 2013-11-08 10:12:07.

see

Canon PowerShot S95

11/08/2013 10:43:13 AM · #20

Wendy, how long sense you have done basic maintenance on your computer.
Disk clean up.
Defrag.
checked for unnecessary programs running at start up.
And most important opened your computer and taken a couple cans of air to it.

Cory

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM

11/08/2013 10:45:31 AM · #21

Originally posted by see:

And most important opened your computer and taken a couple cans of air to it.

This is the best advice I've seen.

Often, at least in my experience, this sort of random hangup situation often occurs because the processor is overheating.

One diagnostic is to shut the machine off for a few hours, then come back and try it. Once it's cool, sometimes you'll find that it'll run well for a while before it gets hot.

pamb

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM II

11/08/2013 10:55:41 AM · #22

Originally posted by see:

And most important opened your computer and taken a couple cans of air to it.

Aah crap! I was supposed to do this too! I'd forgotten.
::writes on To Do list::

Neil

Fujifilm X-T30

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

11/08/2013 11:11:33 AM · #23

For regular maintenance, I also run CCleaner. It cleans up bad registry entries from uninstalled programs and badly programmed programs.

I've always let it fix what it finds, and never had a problem. It does seem to help with keeping the computer responsive.

Also, if you run Process Lasso, you can watch for, and restrain (automatically), any CPU hogging processes. I recently installed a new online backup system based on LiveDrive, and I had to restrain the hell out of it (restrict number of CPUs it could access, and process priority).