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Computer problem: Random hiccups
Greenleaf
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This just started recently but my computer has been having these light freezes while I've been playing games or even loading up firefox or something. They never result in a crash but it just pauses for 5-10 secs and then life goes on.
I have a ATI 5770 with ample wattage and an i5 chip. I have uninstalled/reinstalled with the newest video drivers but that didn't fix it. I really don't know what else to do. It's not a huge problem but pretty annoying.
Could this be my memory shitting out on me?
I have a ATI 5770 with ample wattage and an i5 chip. I have uninstalled/reinstalled with the newest video drivers but that didn't fix it. I really don't know what else to do. It's not a huge problem but pretty annoying.
Could this be my memory shitting out on me?
Greenleaf on
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Nathrak asked a question about your HDD which raises the question of the magnitude of data fragmentation of your particular file system. I'm guessing you're using NTFS and as such your disk is likely to be highly fragmented. NTFS stuffs data in the first physical disk block it finds as empty without any regard for actual data allocation on the platters. Anyway, Click my computer, right click your C: drive (or whichever drive) and go to properties. Click the "Tools" tab and then Defragment now. It will open up the windows defrag application where you can first analyze the check the fragmentation level.
If your disk is highly fragmented (i.e., above 30%) then that could be the cause of your hiccups as the data is being loaded from the disk and since the data is non-contingious it takes a while for it to load.
The second thing that comes to mind is possibly the size of your pagefile. If not that, then perhaps the amount of RAM you have could be low due to some other software causing memory leaks. When you get low on usable RAM, the windows OS pages data out to the disk to make RAM available to running processes, and if your page file sits on the same partition/disk as your OS/games/programs, you're going to be causing a lot of load on the disk.
It may not be that you actually need more ram, but perhaps your system isn't optimized.
I have multiple physical disks and I divide my windows partitioning scheme as follows:
C:\ 250 GB : used only for application software, OS, user profiles, configuration data and system files.
T:\ 8GB : /tmp drive. Houses all of the temporary files (windows environment variables point here) as well as all the browser cache and application software's temporary files.
S:\ 8GB : SWAP space. I store an 8GB pagefile here, on a separate disk.
(If you ever happen to reformat and reinstall windows, google up optimized partitioning guides for windows etc.)
Then I have other disks for basically housing all my data (mostly ZFS NAS etc.)
Windows is horrible in that it is really not optimized and if one doesn't take care of it, it can get pretty sluggish due to the mishandling of a few important tasks.
Find out the fragmentation level of your disk as well as the size of your page file/amount of RAM. Hopefully defragging should take care of the pauses, but in conclusion it is your disk that is acting up (more than likely)
I'll throw two more things out there:
1. SATA controllers. I'm guessing that since you're using an i5 and more than likely on Vista or Win7, you have the ability to run AHCI mode with your SATA drives. Without AHCI mode, it's basically using the original IDE controllers. I have that same issue on this laptop right now, and enabling AHCI mode within BIOS helped me out ALOT. (Keep in mind that enabling AHCI mode WILL 99% of the time ask you to format your hard drive. If you're not ready to do that, you can always change it back. Look into the windows partitioning that chpwn mentioned before formatting so that you're good to go)
2. Hard drive firmware. Took me years to realize that hard drives actually have a driver. Normally, the Windows default drivers work fine, but sometimes there are quirks within the firmware that the manufacturer will want to fix with an update. Check your model number in Device Manager and then do a quick google search to see what you can track down. Alot of times, the manufacturer will provide you with a download for a simple ISO boot image to run at startup that will check for any outdated firmware or issues.
Good luck, and keep us posted!
AHCI gives you the following:
1. Supports NCQ (Native Command Queuing) allowing SATA drives to accept more than one command at a time and dynamically reorder the commands for maximum efficiency.
2. Supports hot plugging of devices
3. Supports staggered spin ups of multiple hard drives at boot time
The problem is that if you installed Windows in IDE mode (ie you didn't use F6 and supply a driver disk), then simply changing the BIOS setting to AHCI mode and rebooting will cause Windows to fail and will require a repair install. Most people have been advising to reinstall Windows if you want AHCI enabled. That is not the case.
1. Go to Intel's download center and download the latest version of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager
open CMD.exe and run the downloaded file (intel's filename.exe -a) with the -a switch for extraction only.
2. Copy the file IaStor.sys from the Drivers folder to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\ (after extraction)
3. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
http://www.google.com/search?q=windows+change+to+ahci
Try various search terms. I'm sure if you wish to enable AHCI mode you'll be able to. Remember, there is always a risk with registry editing unless you know what to do.
Good luck. :-) Keep us updated.
I found out that the Norton AV that I was using only seemed to kick on when I played those games, for whatever reason, and slowed them down. By disabling it, I was able to play those games faster.
So check your AV maybe? Disable that and see if that's doing anything.
I followed up on defragging my C drive and found it to be at 12% fragmentation. I think defragging has resolved the issue. It hasn't froze up on me since.
I think a proper partitioning might do wonders for my machine and I'll be looking into that as well.
I also found my paging file size to be at 4087mb but it's recommended at 6130mb.
Should I change this? I'll admit I know very little of this.
Thanks so much for the help. I appreciate all of it.
Checking my event logs I'm seeing a bunch of 4107 errors.
1 in the last hour, 17 in the last 24 hours, 132 in the past 7 days.
That seems like a lot.
In details it lists:
Failed extract of third-party root list from auto update cab at: <http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/authrootstl.cab> with error: A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file.
I looked into this and found another fellow that says he has this error and that it is the cause of his computer freezing.
I think I found a solution at Microsoft support.
I think I had already solved a few problems with defragging my drive. Hopefully this will help, too.
Thanks for the suggestion to check the logs. I would've never found this.
You know what, I completely forgot about that registry command. I'm so used to formatting on a whim, that it didn't occur to me. But Chpwn is right. There is a registry entry you can modify to prevent you from having to format.
Even though you say your system is stable, there's absolutely no reason you should go without AHCI mode if you're using a SATA drive.
Good catch Chpwn. I had forgotten about that. So many years of having Windows on it's own partition has left me a bit...err...careless. If anything messes up, it's nothing a quick 15-20min format won't fix. Good call.