New
#1
This is painful..
After many months of using W7 x64 and having various, extremely frustrating problems that I've never had with any other OS (even with the same hardware & software configuration), I'm now asking for help because this current problem is beyond my ability to solve.
For the last few weeks, within a 2-hour window each night, the taskbar will basically stop responding & programs will cease to load. If I attempt to click, say, the start button, it will take around 10 seconds to register - If I attempt to open something from there (say My Computer), everything will freeze/crawl for another 10 seconds before the window finally pops up.
Browsing the internet becomes an arduous task when this problem pops up. If I attempt to open a new tab or click a link, everything becomes unresponsive for 2-15 seconds before continuing as normal until the next click (flash apps seem to cause freezes).
When the problem occurs, it seems that only Windows programs (ie notepad, event viewer) will open - any 3rd party program that I attempt to open will only show up in the task manager - taking up, interestingly enough, a mere fraction of physical memory that it would normally need. I should note, however, that any 3rd party program that was running before the problem occured (Firefox, spyware doctor, winamp, orbit, x264 etc.) still functions OK.
At this point, I should state this clearly: there is no 'trigger' for this problem to arise. There is no step-by-step routine I can go through that will make this problem occur - it is totally random. Because of the aforementioned time-frame for when this happens, I assumed that something was scheduled in the Task Scheduler that was causing it. However, after disabling everything bar time sync, the problem still persists.
This problem seemed to coincide with installing 10.10 catalyst drivers - however for the first few days everything operated as per usual, so I can't say for sure this is the root of the problem. To be on the safe side, yesterday I completely removed CCC, restarted and installed 10.8... but alas here I am with my slow, unresponsive computer today.
Looking through the event viewer for a reoccurring pattern when the problem arises yields no results (save for basic function logs which seem to occur at the exact time the problem starts - such as Service Control Manager stopping and starting various services & security auditing - but this happens at various intervals throughout the day with no problems).
I have very few background programs running and even fewer programs installed. I should note (as I alluded to before) that I've never had any such problems with my installed programs or background apps with any OS (Vista, XP, even W7 32bit). Note too that I do not have ANY miscellaneous 3rd party apps performing scheduled tasks at any time of the day or night.
Anyway, if anyone is able to help me out with this issue, I will be eternally grateful.
Cheers