PC 'Hesitates' Every Few Seconds 1

[Wadoki]

I just reloaded one of my systems and it started 'hesitating' every few seconds. The cursor and any program that's running will just freeze for a second or two, every 5 seconds or so, but it's regular like a heart beat. I also noticed a sound change coming from the PC but that just may be the sound of the CPU pulling energy, The sound corresponds to the 'freeze'.

I've defragged the hard drive and the registry, rebooted, shut down all extraneous programs, all to no avail. I'm running Windows XP Pro, with a Celeron 3.33 CPU, 512MB of RAM and about 80G free space. I notice that the task manager shows the graph of the activity but it never updates the processes so I can't see what is actually making the CPU jump to 62%

This is not the first time I have seen this problem, over the years of working on PC's this is probably the 5th time, so I am thinking someone my know the answer.


This is not the first time I have seen this problem, over the years of working on PC's this is probably the 5th time, so I am thinking someone my know the answer.

 

[stduc]

It could be many many things to cause those symptoms. But My number one thought is a virus/malware of some kind? So I would check the PC for that. My second thought is a hardware fault. Possible a bad or rather going bad sector on the hard drive.

So if I were you I would do several scans for virus's and then if that found nothing I would use spinrite (from grc.com) to analyse the drive. I would also use it to examine the SMART data and drive temps to see if they were over heating.

I am wondering if the sound could be the drive - seeking excessively for instance (which could be a sign the drive is going bad).

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[Wadoki]

Very unlikely that there is any kind of virus or malware, not only am I ridiculously anal about protecting my network this computer is freshly loaded, the only thing on it is my anti-virus software, acrobat, Office, our ERP software, and print drivers. It’s never been on the internet.

I will look into spinrite (haven’t heard that one for about 15 years)

 

[edfair]

How about shutting down some of the remaining or at least change their priorities?

Is the drive selected while this freeze is happening?

 

[wahnula]

If it's never been on the Internet how did you get the latest Windows Updates? Virus definitions? Driver updates?

I also noticed a sound change coming from the PC

If this sound correlates to the slowdown then you need to trace it down. A length of auto vacuum hose or aquarium tubing makes a good safe improvised stethoscope, see if you can trace it down. In an assembled PC, many times the sound seems to come from where it's not. To bypass this problem, break down the system, lay all the connected parts out on a non-conducting surface like a towel, and pinpoint the culprit.

If it's the hard drive like stduc suggests then that part will need replacing.

A seat-of-the-pants guess would be the graphics or sound drivers, try uninstalling and reinstalling them.

In Task Manager->Processes, you can click on the "Mem Usage" tab and arrange the processes from low to high, or high to low. Same with CPU.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[BadBigBen]

I would also take a look at the capacitors, if these are damaged then they can be making funny noises as well as causing the PC to hick up like you mentioned...

Capacitor Plaque

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[Wadoki]

Follow up:

Normaly when I experiance problems like this I don't spend a lot of time troubleshooting, I simply reload the system, problem fixed. But since I had seen this problem before a few times I though this tread would be usefull to others. I did google the problem and I am not the only one.

I neglected to mention that booting in safe mode everything was fine, so it had to have been a driver or service. So I reinstalled the Linksys wireless network card and that fixed it.

The sound was what I thought it was, it was the CPU being put under a heave load and pulling more power. I probably wouldn't have noticed it but the computer is sitting 2 feet from my face.

 

[wahnula]

it was the CPU being put under a heave load and pulling more power

What does "pulling more power" sound like? An increase in fan speed? I'm curious (not being a wisea$$) what that sound you mentioned sounds like. I've run burn-in utilities on many a PC, some with their cases open, and not noticed any change in sound save a fan throttling up or down.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[stduc]

Thanks for letting us know and I'm glad you sorted it. I've never heard of the CPU load changing the sound a PC makes. I wonder if the PSU is really up to the job?

BTW what did you google for?

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[Wadoki]

What does it sound like... there is a noise that a transformer makes if you listen for it, kind of a high pitch tone. When the CPU would ping high load I can hear the pitch of the transformer in the PS go lower, from experiance I know that this means something is pulling extra power on the power supply.

Your right it is a low wattage PS (250watt), that is why I heard it at all, if it was a 700watt unit it probably wouldn't have noticed the pull.

I googled for PC skipping, PC pausing, and PC hesitation. I found some info under each but PC Hesitation yielded the best results.

 

[SimonDavis]

My HP laptop does it - there are a few things that send the processor nuts, such as my AV scanner, and occasionally some objects on webpages (I'm not kidding, it's a crappy 5 year old HP, it is kinda whackewd out now).

The sound is actually the fan spinning faster as the processor gets hot.