Windows 7 Programs Stop Responding.

I have a Asus G73JH and have had a a few issues with it. First it was GSOD but Chastity's vbios fixed that. (Thanks btw!) But I'm still having issues with random hanging where programs will all become unresponsive but my mouse it still responsive. It will last 1-3 minutes then everything will quickly catch up and become responsive again. I updated my Realtek drivers thinking that was the problem but it still happens. It also seems to happen more often when running Photoshop, not sure why. Any ideas?

 

Is there disk activity (heavy) during that time?

Is there a process using all the CPU?

 

No sir, My Ram idles at around 30-35% usage (Which I read somewhere is normal as Win7 will free up memory when it needs to?) and all my core usage look normal.

Here's a screen cap when it happened while I was playing WoW:


One thing I should note is sometimes the programs won't grey out like that and just freeze completely.

 

Have you tried removing the creative audio software?

 

I did remove them all awhile ago and I went back to double check they didn't show up in the list to uninstall a program.

 

You might want to run Memtest just to verify your ram is ok.

 

I'd check cpu/gpu temps.

Maybe there's a botched paste job like that in that other thread
or maybe a heatsink needs to be reseated
or maybe you just need to clear out a really bad clog of dust from fan duct lol

The processors throttle themselves down dramatically when overheatin to give symptom like you see.

Overheat -> processor throttle down speed -> cools down -> unfreeze, repeat

if it was bad ram you'd see crash instead of temporary freezes

See what I'm talking about:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...-repaste-gpu-g73-send-asus-2.html#post6790260

and this guy, same thing

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...-repaste-gpu-g73-send-asus-4.html#post7500615

This guy also probably has the same problem.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...90-g73jh-shutting-down-issue.html#post7504278

Another one

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...579006-asus-crahsing-problem.html#post7498863

More!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...chastitys-repaste-experience.html#post6548256

moooore

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...astitys-repaste-experience-9.html#post6571581

even more

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6573864-post112.html

 

All my core's temps idle about 10c less than most of the people who has bad pasting, around 47-50c and I've seen them reach about 60c when playing a game. I'll keep an eye on them though and thanks for the post. I'll have to check my gpu's temps but seeing as this happens sometimes when only chrome or any other program that requires very little work from the gpu, could it be that?

It happened right now and I was able to take a SS as it was happening. Core Temp and Real Temp seem to be uneffected by each one and kept track of the temps in real time. Although you'll see Maya didn't grey out, it was indeed frozen.

 

How much ram do you have anyway? I wonder if your swap is having a coronary

 

6GB, what do you mean swap?

 

bumping, still having issues =\

 

Sounds to me you have a pagefile issue. The lag is the virtual memory resizing itself and the slow HDD access. I would right-click My Computer...Properties...Advanced system settings...Performance...Advanced...Virtual Memory

Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size"

Setup C: with "No paging File"
Setup D: with a Custom Size of "4096" for min and max (assuming you have 2 HDDs. If you only have 1, then make this on C: If you have 2 partitions on one HDD as it comes from Asus, then first spank yourself for not making it only one partition, then make the pagefile on the 2nd HDD (E: or F

 

Now, there is a large debate over whether or not having a page file is good or bad. No matter what side of the debate you're on, turning it off has a good chance of solving this problem. And many people would recommend turning it off in a machine with 4+ gb of ram, since the page file just represents hard drive space that is allocated to become "backup ram".

I turn it off on every machine I work on that has 4+ gb of ram, unless the person using it is doing professional work (because sometimes, even 8gb of ram isn't enough). But unless you're heavy (HEAVY) into 3d cad/cam *AND* rendering that work (or you're using your machine as a virtual server for 5-10 vms) you don't need 8gb of ram and can safely turn of paging.

 

Or unless you are in a very rare instance where a program you use doesn't like having no page file but that's very unlikely. I would say turn it off as well. If you get a program telling you that it can't find the page file, turn it back on but set it to a fixed amount.

 

Thanks for the replies and help guys, I found the following steps a tad confusing:

I only have one, 600GB HDD and assuming I can read properally there is only 1 patition:

So I should keep it as a single partition and set the 'Custom Size of "4096"' on C: like so?:

Or should I create two patitions, (Which I have never done, believe it for not.) and set the pagefile on the second HDD?

 

I would try it with the page file set at something like 1 or 2 GB first. If it's still locking up then remove it entirely and see if it fixes the problem.

EDIT: D:\ is your second partition, i would guess and i got no idea what Q: is, probably some removable media.

 

I have an external 2TB HDD that I keep all my animation work on, That shows up as D when it plugs in, so I think that's what's showing up there. I also have a Flash drive I use regularly.

 

Aperegrina: The config in your pic would work fine.

 

It seems to still happen, all has been well up until about 3 minutes ago when everything started to hang again. I double checked that the settings we're saved still and they were. Should I remove the paging file completely?

 

These issues can be a little hard to diagnose over a forum

For example, the G53 here was playing back videos very choppy. Instead of blaming Windows, or the WMP, or the drivers, or MPC-HC, I instead did a forced update of the Intel INF. It upgraded everything to 9.1.1.1022 and my playback is once again smooth.

In your case, I would suggest you upgrade ALL your hardware drivers.

Intel INF
Intel SATA
Video Card
Wifi
LAN
Audio
Multi-Card Reader
Synaptics
USB 3.0 (if you have it)
ATK Package 1.0.0008
WebCam
BlueTooth
Win SP1 if you haven't already
DirectX June 2010 Redist package

This way you can eliminate them as possible suspects, and hopefully fix your issue.

 

Sorry about the late response, I'll get on updating those listed drivers. I've never updated Intel INF/SATA before and I'm not sure where to look for those drivers.

 

As far as I can tell all my drivers are up to date, like I said before I don't know what/how to install Intel INF/SATA drivers are and how to install them. Those are the only two I didn't do anything with.

 

If you download and run the package from my Driver page, it does the force update automatically. Just run it on default settings, and don't change anything.

The SATA driver package is also there. Just run it, it'll ask for Admin mode, and it's OK to say Yes.

 

I ran both and the SATA updated fine as far as I can tell but when I tired updating the INF i was told that I had a newer version (v9.2.0.1030 vs v9.2.0.1025 from your post here: G73 Series Driver and Application Reference)

 

And if you never ran the -overall switch when you installed 9.2.0.1030, you now have old versions of the drivers mixed with newer ones. You can't just "double-click" the installer. Inel by default, will only update "critical files" instead of everything. So you need to open up a command prompt with Administrator priveledges, and run "infinst_autol.exe -overall" to ensure all the drivers are updated.

 

I didn't install 9.2.0.1030, that's what came with the laptop, and I didn't install v0.2.0.1025. It asked me if I was sure I wanted to install it since I had a more recent version and I told it no.

edit: I should add that since I installed the SATA drivers I haven't had any issues yet, but it's only been a day.

 

OK, so just go with what you have now, and see if the issue continues.