Holy crap this is annoying. I think it’s a bit like how I imagine Chinese water torture. Every 3 seconds freeze - typing, typing, typ… freeze - typing, scrolling, cl… freeze…
The specs:
Dell Inspiron (5-6 years old)
xp sp3
2 GB RAM
(not sure what else to include).
So this started just within the last week. It happens perfectly regularly. You can set your watch to it: 1 - 2- 3- freeze - 1 - 2 - 3 - freeze. Which means about 33% of the time when I click or type or input something it has no effect. I don’t think it’s a windows problem (though I admit I don’t know). It happens right from the log in screen, but also it may be happening before windows loads at all. For example one time I tried to open the CD-ROM drive just as the BIOS was starting and the first time I pushed the button it had no effect. Coulda been a fluke but my gut tells me it’s the same problem.
I did some online research but I couldn’t find any definitive answers, though from this research I did attempt to run sfc scannow which seemed to be progressing OK but I never saw a completion message of any kind so I can’t confirm that it completed successfully. I attempted to run chkdsk but it won’t run. (On a reboot I get the blue screen initializing the scan but seconds later it just says the scan was cancelled.). I’ve tried system restore but it seems to go through the whole process and then at the end it informs me that the system could not be restored to the selected point. (though I’ve tried multiple restore points).
Some other possibly related variables:
For probably a month now I’ve had a problem where the auto-scroll (when you push left and right mouse together and get that little circle thing which allows you to auto-scroll a page) gets interrupted within a second or 2, and same thing with a pull-down menu. But this began before the freeze problem, though possibly the intervals between the interruptions correspond to the freezes.
My Dell battery died like 4 years ago. When a battery dies on a Dell laptop you get a message on start up before anything loads that the battery cannot be identified and will not charge. Finally last year I broke down and bought a replacement battery on Amazon from a 3rd party manufacturer. I’ve only used it for about 2 months and I always keep the power cord plugged in anyway so the battery really isn’t in use, BUT, it seems just in the last week, possibly coincidental with the freeze problem (though I can’t confirm that for sure), I’ve been getting that battery can’t be identified message again when I boot up.
Current status: Well I wanted to see if the hard drive might be failing so I was going to run Seatools, but I’m making a back up of my data using Acronis as I type this. So that’s where I’m at.
Please tell me someone has some insight into this freeze problem. It is maddening!!
Does Windows Task manager show any process running that might be causing it?
ETA: Can you run with the battery removed, using AC power only? That would tell if the battery were the cause.
Does it happen if you boot into Windows safe mode? If it does, you could try a Linux Live CD, and see if that also has the problem. That would let you tell if it’s a software or hardware problem.
As a last resort, I might try reseating the RAM, just because that’s easy to do, but I doubt that will help.
Checked task manager (and process explorer incidentally). Nope no signs of anything there.
Problem is still there in safe mode.
Interestingly, the battery functions (I pulled the plug to test), but windows doesn’t seem to realize this. The little icon that would ordinarily switch to a battery icon and display the remaining power, doesn’t. It continues to indicate AC power.
I don’t know anything about how to use a Linux Live CD but I’ll look into that tomorrow.
Reseating the RAM is not so easy on a laptop, I don’t think. Opening this thing, well, I’ve seen it done many times and it’s fairly simple when you’re experienced but it would take me some time. But I guess I could run memtest (which would take far longer :smack: ). But I’ll do this if you or someone else really thinks this could be the problem.
If its the hard drive, I’d expect to see the drive light come on every time it froze up, but the very regular timing (every 3 seconds, and regardless of what you are doing?) seems to indicate that it is something else, especially if it occurs when you are just at the desktop with nothing happening (you also haven’t mentioned any unusual noises, like a clicking sound when it freezes). Does it also affect the mouse cursor?
I probably should have been more clear, but it’s the mouse cursor that freezes. (and the keyboard). What doesn’t freeze is seemingly everything else. I can watch youtube videos for example (though the playback is quite sluggish lately, it doesn’t correspond to the freezes in any way). Also skype conversations seem to function as normal. The computer clock ticks away the seconds smoothly. It’s just input from the mouse and keyboard that seems affected.
No unusual noises, or clicks, or lights from the hard drive.
What kind of plugs do your keyboard and mouse use? If USB, try plugging into a different USB port as far away as possible. (Like if you have USB ports on the front.)
Do you have any other keyboard and/or mouse you can try out?
Do the built-in keyboard and mouse freeze, or just external ones.
Also, it’s not good for your battery to leave it plugged in when you’re running on AC. The heat from the PC will shorten the life of the battery, but it sounds like yours isn’t that great anyway.
Just to catch up on questions, before I get to aceplace’s suggestions, it’s the built in keyboard and mouse we’re talking about. No externals involved.
And yeah, just tried it without the battery. No difference.
Some new info: actually looking closer at the clock, it DOES seem to drag every 4 seconds or so. Like an extra half a second. (however, the computer time remains accurate. This does NOT seem to correspond to the mouse freezes though which happen every 2.5 or 3 seconds. I actually took a short video of it since it sounds so strange. I’ll post it on youtube as soon as dropbox updates.
Booted from the CD into Recovery console. No need to launch anything. From the DOS prompt I could test it and the problem was indeed still present. So this clearly eliminates windows as the culprit I believe, yes?
voltaire, no peripherals. I’ll check the Dell website to see if there have been any updates to the BIOS but I’d be surprised if they’re still updating it at this point.
Pretty sure the Recovery Console is just an independent DOS boot. I don’t think any of the windows drivers are used.
It sure sounds like a hardware problem.
I have a Dell Latitude laptop the same age. You could try a keyboard plugged into the regular keyboard jack. That might get around a USB problem. But thats just a temp fix.
If the USB is failing then not much can be done except replace the laptop.
I’m not sure what you mean, but there’s no USB involved. It’s just the laptop’s built in keyboard and mouse pad at work here.
So no idea of a particular hardware component that might be responsible? (and perhaps might be relatively cheap to replace compared with a new laptop?)
To determine if it’s low level hardware issue or a OS/software issue go into the BIOS setup screen and move the keyboard cursor around. If there is no freezing it’s something related to the OS or software program running. If it freezes while poking around in the BIOS screen you have a base level hardware issue and possibly one that you will not be able to easily fix.
There are many species of root level malware that can disguise themselves from the OS and will not pop up as a function under task manager. Some of the more sophisticated key loggers/data stealers will also do this and are ironically more apparent on less powerful older system as when they execute their instructions it briefly pauses the system. Malware can do this and suspicious wives and girlfriends are also a vector for keyloggers.
If you can boot from linux CD this will also tell you if it a windows OS issue or not.