Member Avatar for Marauder

Hey guys, me has a little problem with this wonderful new operating system..It basically randomely freezes every few minutes for 30seconds or so. Doesn't matter if i'm browsing net, playing a game or whatever. At first I thought it was the mouse but I think it's explorer freezing. I can't switch/alt-tab windows or anything until it comes back.

I am unsure what could be causing it. I have stopped some unnecessary startup programs and services but it still happens. Checked the Event Viewer but I can't really use it to be honest. I got onto Dell and they made me restore the PC, telling me everything would be ok after this...haha, they must hire comedians for support :cheesy:

This is a brand new PC bought only last week and the problem has been there since the start..
Dell Dimension 9200
Intel Core 2 CPU 2.4Ghz
2 Gigs RAM
256MB Geforce 7900GS

Anyone know of this problem or think of a possible solution...?

  • 14 Contributors
  • 24 Replies
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  • 3 Years Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by kerbey35
Member Avatar for sennetor

Complete guess here but try disconnecting your system from any network connection and test for a day...completely offline.

P.S. if you could provide more information that may be usefull. e.g.does the mouse cursor atualy completely freeze along with the system.

BTW I'm a part time comedian. :D

Member Avatar for psychoman

Not quite sure if this helps now but I had a similar problem and I thought that it was the Beta Version that I have, but I had upgraded XP to Vista, I was pulling my hair out and nearly going bald in the process. I then did a complete system rebuild and fully formated my drive and cross fingers up to now it has been ok. I hope this helps

Member Avatar for quadguy321

hello. I also have a similar problem. I have a dell E520 with windows vista home premium and it freezes every now and than for about 20-30 seconds. I have contacted a few techs who have told me to do the following. delete temp internet files, run a 32 bit diagnostics test which i passed 100%, and clean install vista. Which a clean install did not work, and now i cant get the windows xp back that dell sent me from the factory that was originaly on the computer when i received it. Finally i called dell again and I got an american this time! yes! nothing wrong with the other guys except they treat you like freaking idiots. He had never heard of this issue before, so i infored him if he were to look online that he would see many cases. which he did. But after haveing me install new drivers which did not help, he informed me that there was nothing we could do. He said i would have to wait for an update for it, and that i have the option to go back to xp and wait. Thats what I did, so here i am on windows xp again. waiting. If anyone can help me at all please do. Thank you oh and ps. dell guy yes the whole screen there is no response from anything!

Member Avatar for quadguy321

what do you mean you did a complete system rebuild and formated your drive?

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

before reformatting the hard drive and starting all over again try getting a spyware program from the net and see what it finds. Its probably not a virus but may be spyware or some keylogger.

Member Avatar for quadguy321

I did this and my computer works fine now!


Good news, it looks like the problem is solved !!!
Indeed, after reporting the problem to Dell Europe, I was called by a technician who told me that a solution had been found and how to fix the problem. He kindly assisted me on the phone during the whole process.
(This fix applies to a Dell Dimension 9200 with two hard disks in RAID 0 on SATA ports 0 & 1 and two CD drives on SATA ports 2 & 3)
What I had to do was move the CD drives from SATA ports 2 and 3 to ports 4 and 5. If you open your computer, you will see two orange cables coming from the CD drives to connectors on the motherboard. Two other free connectors are located underneath. You just have to disconnect both cables and connect them into the lower set of connectors.
After this is done, when you restart the computer, you have to go to the setup (F2 at startup) and change the status of the SATA ports 2, 3, 4 and 5:
Drives
SATA-2 set to OFF
SATA-3 set to OFF
SATA-4 set to ON
SATA-5 set to ON
You can then save and leave the setup. After you restart, the computer runs smoothly.
I did this about an hour ago and didn't experience any freeze yet. I guess the "30 second freeze syndrome" is history now.

Addendum: now it's 5 hours later and everything is still fine. Operation successful ! [IMG]http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/pim/el/spc_eee1.gif[/IMG]

I decided to try this on my Dell DM061/E520.
Have now been running for over 2 1/2 hours without a freeze.
On my machine the 2 orange cables were on SATA 1 and 4.
I moved 4 to 5 and 1 to 4 to keep the drives in order.
Went into setup and reset the switches.
SATA 2 and 3 are not available to me, unless they are on the bottom of the motherboard.
This sure beats Dell's suggestion to reinstall Vista.
Check Event viewer for Errors with IAStorv to see if this may be relavent to you.
Make sure you shutdown and turn the power off. Push the power button for 10 seconds or so to drain reserve power before opening the case.

Member Avatar for psychoman

what do you mean you did a complete system rebuild and formated your drive?

Just as you would be building a system, I took everything out and started again with the basic components. I reformatted the drive installed Vista, Installed drivers and so on. I had previously checked for spyware and viruses using different software and found nothing. For some reason vista did not like upgrading from xp, may be i inadvertantly did something wrong but I don't think so. I was having all sorts of booting problems it wouldn't even boot into safe mode. I lost a few things that i had on the hard drive and I keep on telling myself to back things up but i didn't a lesson i hope i have learned. Anyway thats what I did. They do say that a clean install of any software is better than an upgrade. I know that when my Beta version of vista runs out at the end of june i'll probably go back to XP and wait untill they have SP1 for vista
Bye for now:)

Member Avatar for InfktdGuitarist

Thanks! I tried this and it worked. I've had this problem ever since I've switched to Vista Home Premium. I have a Dell Dimension E520. My cables were also on SATA 1 & 4. I moved them to 4&5. So far, for hours now, NO FREEZING! Again, thank you very much!

Member Avatar for jbennet

i had a 5150 that froze (was XP, i upgraded to vista myself) and updating the BIOS and installing the newest SATA and chipset drivers from Dell supports site seemed to fix it.

Member Avatar for InfktdGuitarist

Thanks quad, this fixed my problem!

Member Avatar for elude2

Hi

I have the same problem.

Random freezes on Vista Busines. I have been running the OS for a Couple months, but only in the last week did the prob start. Freezes for approx. 30 secs. (various apps)

I have 1 HD
intel quad core Q6600 @2.40 2.40
2 gig ram
8800 nvidea graff card

its driving my nuts!

Member Avatar for jbennet

overheating?

Member Avatar for ModeOne4Ever

I did this and my computer works fine now!


Good news, it looks like the problem is solved !!!
Indeed, after reporting the problem to Dell Europe, I was called by a technician who told me that a solution had been found and how to fix the problem. He kindly assisted me on the phone during the whole process.
(This fix applies to a Dell Dimension 9200 with two hard disks in RAID 0 on SATA ports 0 & 1 and two CD drives on SATA ports 2 & 3)
What I had to do was move the CD drives from SATA ports 2 and 3 to ports 4 and 5. If you open your computer, you will see two orange cables coming from the CD drives to connectors on the motherboard. Two other free connectors are located underneath. You just have to disconnect both cables and connect them into the lower set of connectors.
After this is done, when you restart the computer, you have to go to the setup (F2 at startup) and change the status of the SATA ports 2, 3, 4 and 5:
Drives
SATA-2 set to OFF
SATA-3 set to OFF
SATA-4 set to ON
SATA-5 set to ON
You can then save and leave the setup. After you restart, the computer runs smoothly.
I did this about an hour ago and didn't experience any freeze yet. I guess the "30 second freeze syndrome" is history now.

Addendum: now it's 5 hours later and everything is still fine. Operation successful ! [IMG]http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/pim/el/spc_eee1.gif[/IMG]

I decided to try this on my Dell DM061/E520.
Have now been running for over 2 1/2 hours without a freeze.
On my machine the 2 orange cables were on SATA 1 and 4.
I moved 4 to 5 and 1 to 4 to keep the drives in order.
Went into setup and reset the switches.
SATA 2 and 3 are not available to me, unless they are on the bottom of the motherboard.
This sure beats Dell's suggestion to reinstall Vista.
Check Event viewer for Errors with IAStorv to see if this may be relavent to you.
Make sure you shutdown and turn the power off. Push the power button for 10 seconds or so to drain reserve power before opening the case.

I need help as well!!!

I have an eMachines T5234, and it's keep freezing like crazy.

I was looking for the "SATA ports," but I don't see them. All I see on my BIOS screen is "IDE Channel 0 [Master] (active), IDE Channel 0 [Slave], IDE Channel 2 (active), IDE Channel 3, IDE Channel 4, IDE Channel 5"

What do I need to do?

Member Avatar for elude2

Hmmm, nope...not overheating Mr Bennet..

However i did get a blue screen. Before i started checking all my hardware, crying, praying etc. I had a look at my drivers in device manager. It seems under other devices i had about 10 bluetooth peripheral devices. (i only have 2; logitech mouse and keyboard). I disabled these, rebooted and the OS has beed stable for atleast an hour now.

Where these all came from im not sure.
Whether it was disabling these or the vista update that arrived at around the same time that fixed the problem im not sure...

but that was my experience.

Thanks.

Member Avatar for jbennet

I think it adds a new bluetooth thing for each connection ever made

Member Avatar for Gqhj10370

Man I have the same problem not had have the same problem.Listen try to when you have switch to Windows Vista Ultimate Final.Service pack 1
I have an HP Compaq 6830s´.When that dont works switch back to XP or wait for Service Pack 2 to come out.What tipe of Windows Vista u have?

Member Avatar for Gqhj10370

And I forgott to say I Heared when you entering text that happens try diffrent thing I wrote Hope it Works

Member Avatar for Gqhj10370

I forgott to say I heared that happens when you are entering text in Windows Vista Hope it works what I wrote before

Member Avatar for Gqhj10370

I need help as well!!!

I have an eMachines T5234, and it's keep freezing like crazy.

I was looking for the "SATA ports," but I don't see them. All I see on my BIOS screen is "IDE Channel 0 [Master] (active), IDE Channel 0 [Slave], IDE Channel 2 (active), IDE Channel 3, IDE Channel 4, IDE Channel 5"

What do I need to do?

Man please when you can explain this for a HP Lap top I have one Primary Disk 250 GB a HP Recovery 9 GB and HP Tools 0.99 GB Please help when you can

Member Avatar for jbennet

They are partitions on the physical disk

Member Avatar for Spikes595

If Vista is unable to install due to freeze during/after process or once you have it installed there are random freezes for 20-30-indefinite seconds and/or of course the blue screen of death then your problem might be a hardware controller issue. Read on….

The following issues may occur on Windows Vista* with a supported Intel® RAID controller hub:
• Inability to install Windows Vista (in other words, system halts during installation)
• Performance degradation
• Timeout errors reported by iastor or iastor(v) in Microsoft Event Viewer*


Read This:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-025783.htm


Various desktop Serial ATA devices such as hard drives and CD/DVD drives have been reported that do not comply with the Serial ATA LPM device specification and display erratic behavior when LPM is enabled.
Because the setup change means that LPM is enabled by default for all Windows Vista platforms, using a device that does not completely follow the specification may result in one of the listed issues.
Fixes and workaround include downloading the latest matrix storage devices on intel site.

Get here:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=2101&DwnldID=17882&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows

If you’re having trouble installing vista you might need to change the port from 0 and/or 1 to higher ports like 4 or 5. (depending on how many hd you have)
And/or switch to IDE mode in Bios(this method has drawbacks since ide is more limited than sata)
If vista gives the 30 second freezes with a event id: 9 and source: iastor , or event: 508 0r 510 with source: performance in eventview then you need to download latest intel matrix driver specified above.
((you might have to roll back your sata drivers))

If the above problems does not apply to you or all else fails (this is what worked for me)
do the registry fix. See below.
Delete the iastor(v) Parameters registry key by using the following steps:

1. Go to Start -> Search.
2. Type in RegEdit and hit the Enter key.
3. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor(v).
4. Right-click on the Parameters key under iaStor(v) and select the Delete option.
You might have to delete both iastor and iastor(V) parameters as noted from some users.
Fixes and workarounds above was retrieved from:
http://www.flyingnerd.com/intel-raid-problem-under-windows-vista/
yea….it was the harddrive drivers conflicting with the operating system basically.
At least it was for me…hopefully this helps.

Member Avatar for christopher14

hey iam haveing truble with my windows visa freezeing while i am playing world of warcraft and other games the computer never freezes why i am on the web i really don't know what to do.

Member Avatar for kerbey35

I have a sony vaio that is locking up whenever it sits dormant for a bit. It is running vista home premium. i spent $500 yesterday to have a mobile pc guru try to fix it. (i am NOT computer saavy) he said he did. he didn't. i've done spyware and virus scans - did find some, but all clean, now. still freezes. cntrl.lock/delete won't even work. help! on a side note, i looked at the logs and it says that there have been 1200 error events in the last 7 days - 31 in the last hour. I turned the laptop on an hour ago. is this normal?

the pc "guru" claimed this was an HP corrupted software issue. i've had this scanner for a year with no issue and now it's a problem? he also said he removed all the hp stuff (i looked this morning and it's all still showing up).

I suspect it's an office issue. why? it seems to lock up when an office product is uin use. particularly outlook. hope this helps someone to help me.

Edited by kerbey35 because: additional information added
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