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System Pauses...
Posted: 2006-10-31 10:58am
by MKSheppard
Every once in a while, my system will behave like it's "hung", but after a few seconds, it goes back to normal. Does anyone have any idea what would be causing this problem?
Posted: 2006-10-31 11:18am
by Bounty
100% CPU usage by a particular application?
If it happens regularly, try keeping Task Manager open and watch for odd CPU usage.
Posted: 2006-10-31 12:01pm
by Beowulf
Use Process Explorer from Sysinternals. It has a history graph, where you can find out which process was the biggest user of CPU cycles at a given point in time.
Posted: 2006-10-31 12:33pm
by Netko
Oddly enough, I had that once because of a faulty hard drive. Your event viewer, system tab should be the first place you look - such a strange event should leave something in there.
Posted: 2006-10-31 03:18pm
by MKSheppard
Yep, Soemthing went to 100% when my system paused.
It says that DPCs used up 98.5% of my CPU.
Posted: 2006-10-31 03:49pm
by Beowulf
DPC = deferred procedure call.
Do a spyware/adware check.
Posted: 2006-10-31 05:40pm
by loomer
I had the same thing when my power supply was starting to die, so it might be worth looking into that as well.
Posted: 2006-10-31 06:59pm
by Edward Yee
MKSheppard, ever have the culprit be a program's process (most frustratingly for me, at times Firefox), in particular when it's a lot of windows or tabs open?
Posted: 2006-10-31 08:19pm
by Exonerate
Did you make any recent changes to drivers?
Posted: 2006-10-31 10:19pm
by MKSheppard
loomer wrote:I had the same thing when my power supply was starting to die, so it might be worth looking into that as well.
How can you tell if it is starting to die? Look at the voltage input to the mobo?
Posted: 2006-11-01 03:12am
by loomer
Actually, I have no idea how to tell. Checking the input would work, I suspect, so go with that. Or wait until it craps out, either one.
Posted: 2006-11-01 06:08pm
by Xon
Heavy disk activity on the OS drive will cause these problems too.