Vista - multiple apps not responding..

Hi guys

(apologies if this is in the wrong section, wasn't quite sure)

I've recently built a new PC, and this is the first time I've gone for vista. Was previously an XP32 / Ubuntu fan so this is new to me.

I have a rather strange issue that I can't pinpoint the cause on.

After some time (maybe a few hours), firefox will stop working. It doesn't crash, but it just won't load any pages, it just "hangs". The same thing will happen for IE. If i close firefox the window closes, but its still in task manager.

I can't kill the process, well I can click kill, but it doesnt go. I can't load up firefox cos its already running (apparently), and I can't shut the system down, presumably because of this firefox process still running.

I get the same with uTorrent, after about an hour it stops responding and prevents me from shutting down the system.

At the moment I have to just switch the PC off at the mains, and I'm not sure this is a healthy practice.

I was running Avast, Zonealarm. but I have since uninstalled those. I still have the same issue, even if i disable the windows firewall etc.

Any ideas? I've tried googling but it just returns threads suggesting to uninstall antivirus/firewalls

Specs are in signature

James

could you fill in your complete system specs. we need info on ram, 32bit or 64, etc.

then could you go into event viewer (type event viewer in search) and go to the windows log, application tab. Look for errors (red "X" in left corner) that have any of the problem apps listed and tell us what the event ID and source are

thanks

Ken

Hi Ken,

I've checked the event viewer, i can't find anything of use to this issue. Its midnight and uTorrent has gone into the unresponsive state I posted above. I can't kill it via task manager. Theres nothing in the event log for about 2 hours so whatever is happening is not being logged.

Is there anyway I can force a process to stop? or at least debug this issue easier?

Any ideas?

It seems to be hit and miss, but at the moment I get this issue from IE, firefox, uTorrent and windows mail.

I've gotta cut the power at the mains to shut system down, won't be happy if this kills my 2 week old £800 system.....

J

Just a thought all the apps are com apps, 2 browser, torrent, and mail. any possibility there was something in event viewer about wifi/lan?

ken

Edit: were there any errors in event viewer? what were their event id and source?

Pskill from Microsoft Sysinternals will kill the process.
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/PsTools.zip

The most recent error in event viewer is from around 5 hours ago, being the following:



Lemur, is that the recently bought out version of ProcessExplorer? If so, I've got PE but that is unable to kill the process

Thanks

It was killing me. There was an app I loved - "unlocker". Originally I used it to delete files that were locked, but I believe it will kill processes.
UNLOCKER 1.8.7 BY CEDRICK 'NITCH' COLLOMB
James, I don't know if if that's part of ProcessExplorer.

Overclocking CPU or RAM can be the major cause of lockups. Have you done it?

James

At some point with the kind of problems you have you may want to start thinking about a clean OS re-install

ken

Let's try an experiment. This could be a problem with Flash or Java. IE 64-bit does not have Flash (yet). So please launch IE 64 and see if this problem occurs. If it doesn't, you may have to uninstall and reinstall Java and Flash. If you uninstall Flash, PLEASE follow their instructions!!!

Please let us know the results of this test.