Im having an ongoing problem with frequent, short system lags. By this I mean my PC will momentarily freeze up for 2-10 seconds, and then unfreeze and continue as normal. This happens anywhere from once every 20-30 seconds to once every 5 minutes (although more frequent is the most common).
This all began a week ago. We had suffered a thunderstorm while I wasnt home and lost power. My PC had been on at the time. It booted up fine, however.
The next day, though, when I attempted to boot it up, it got stuck on the initial BIOS screen for 15+ minutes. I had to hold in the power switch and try again. After a second failed boot, I turned it off, unplugged, and started testing things. I reseated all of the RAM and tried booting with each stick independently. I checked to make sure I had no blown capacitors on the mobo. All fans were working as normal (and Id last blown it out maybe a week earlier). After performing all of these checks, I tried one last time to boot it up and the computer booted fine.
However, since that time Ive had these reoccurring lag problems. As Im writing this, Ive experienced maybe 6 freezes since the beginning of my post.
When the lag occurs, one or more windows will freeze and show Not Responding in the title bar. The mouse is still responsive (to movement I cant click anything), and audio doesnt always cut out. Ive seen the lag happen to my browser (Firefox, and also IE when I tested it), games & applications, desktop explorer, everything. It also occurs when I boot fresh and nothing is running.
So far I have done the following:
1) Run Memtest86 for 4 passes, 0 errors.
2) Run CHKDSK on all system drives, no errors.
3) Run Memory Diagnostic Tool, no finds.
4) Run System File Checker (SFC), it found a couple of things and fixed them (sorry, didnt write down the file names). Rebooted, still lagged though.
5) Run anti-virus (McAfee and Avast) and anti-malware scans (Spybot and MalWareBytes). Only hits were a handful of items in Spybot, but their removal had no effect.
6) Began monitoring system temperatures for CPU, GPU, mobo, and case using CoreTemp and CPUID everything is well within what Google tells me my particular hardwares specs are.
7) Updated my BIOS to their current version (Dell AwardBIOS 1.0.13).
8) Updated my video drivers to their current version (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, driver version 9.18.13.2049).
Im worried that one or both of my two HDDs are failing, but searching has shown me similar symptoms also caused by failing mobos and bad RAM.
I can provide a detailed Speccy list for my machine, but heres the summary for now:
Operating System
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP2
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 61 °C
Kentsfield 65nm Technology
RAM
6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (6-6-6-18)
Motherboard
Dell Inc 0PP150 (Socket 775) 70 °C
Graphics
DELL S2409W (1920x1080@60Hz)
1024MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 (EVGA) 41 °C
Hard Drives
466GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00AAKS-75A7B SCSI Disk Device (SATA) 45 °C
466GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00AAKS-75A7B SCSI Disk Device (SATA) 44 °C
Optical Drives
PBDS CDRWDVD DH-48C2S SCSI CdRom Device
ASUS DRW-24B1ST SCSI CdRom Device
ORUTWF 8LIBSTY SCSI CdRom Device
Audio
High Definition Audio Device
Thank you in advance!
This all began a week ago. We had suffered a thunderstorm while I wasnt home and lost power. My PC had been on at the time. It booted up fine, however.
The next day, though, when I attempted to boot it up, it got stuck on the initial BIOS screen for 15+ minutes. I had to hold in the power switch and try again. After a second failed boot, I turned it off, unplugged, and started testing things. I reseated all of the RAM and tried booting with each stick independently. I checked to make sure I had no blown capacitors on the mobo. All fans were working as normal (and Id last blown it out maybe a week earlier). After performing all of these checks, I tried one last time to boot it up and the computer booted fine.
However, since that time Ive had these reoccurring lag problems. As Im writing this, Ive experienced maybe 6 freezes since the beginning of my post.
When the lag occurs, one or more windows will freeze and show Not Responding in the title bar. The mouse is still responsive (to movement I cant click anything), and audio doesnt always cut out. Ive seen the lag happen to my browser (Firefox, and also IE when I tested it), games & applications, desktop explorer, everything. It also occurs when I boot fresh and nothing is running.
So far I have done the following:
1) Run Memtest86 for 4 passes, 0 errors.
2) Run CHKDSK on all system drives, no errors.
3) Run Memory Diagnostic Tool, no finds.
4) Run System File Checker (SFC), it found a couple of things and fixed them (sorry, didnt write down the file names). Rebooted, still lagged though.
5) Run anti-virus (McAfee and Avast) and anti-malware scans (Spybot and MalWareBytes). Only hits were a handful of items in Spybot, but their removal had no effect.
6) Began monitoring system temperatures for CPU, GPU, mobo, and case using CoreTemp and CPUID everything is well within what Google tells me my particular hardwares specs are.
7) Updated my BIOS to their current version (Dell AwardBIOS 1.0.13).
8) Updated my video drivers to their current version (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, driver version 9.18.13.2049).
Im worried that one or both of my two HDDs are failing, but searching has shown me similar symptoms also caused by failing mobos and bad RAM.
I can provide a detailed Speccy list for my machine, but heres the summary for now:
Operating System
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP2
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 61 °C
Kentsfield 65nm Technology
RAM
6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (6-6-6-18)
Motherboard
Dell Inc 0PP150 (Socket 775) 70 °C
Graphics
DELL S2409W (1920x1080@60Hz)
1024MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 (EVGA) 41 °C
Hard Drives
466GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00AAKS-75A7B SCSI Disk Device (SATA) 45 °C
466GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00AAKS-75A7B SCSI Disk Device (SATA) 44 °C
Optical Drives
PBDS CDRWDVD DH-48C2S SCSI CdRom Device
ASUS DRW-24B1ST SCSI CdRom Device
ORUTWF 8LIBSTY SCSI CdRom Device
Audio
High Definition Audio Device
Thank you in advance!