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#1
Computer freezes/recovers or freezes/crashes ~once per day
For the past few weeks, about 1/2 hour after booting my computer up in the morning, whatever program I'm using at the moment will stop responding. If I continue to try to get it to respond, its screen will dim and I get the message "Not responding". The disk activity light goes on 100%. To a certain extent I can still get to other programs that are already running, but I can't open new ones. Usually, if I just sit and wait, after about 30-60 sec everything will be ok again; other times nothing will happen for several minutes after which I'll get a BSOD with the message "Windows was shut down..." and
Collecting data for crash dump ...
Initializing disk for crash dump ...
Because of this, I've been running Process Explorer. When the problem occurs I can switch to it if it's on the second screen of my dual-screen system. When I do so, almost everything seems normal:
CPU 1.5%
System Commit 3.46 GB
Physical Memory 3.0 GB
I/0 2 kB
Network 400 B
Disk 0 kB
The abnormal indication is that the disk shows 0 kB even though the disk activity indicator is on 100% of the time. The list of processes shows Avast (anti-virus program) and System to have overwhelmingly the largest I/O Read Bytes, but this doesn't seem abnormal.
I use the program WhoCrashed to check dump files. Some time ago I used it to cause a deliberate crash to check that dump files were being written. They are. However when I check crash dump files after the BSOD there is nothing new in them (WhoCrashed shows only the results of the test crash.)
Usually, but not always, after the first 30-60 sec freeze and/or crash, the computer seems to be ok for the rest of the day.
Any ideas as to what is causing this or how I can check further?
PLEASE NOTE: I downloaded and ran the DM Log Collector. When I did so, I got a brief notice saying something to the effect of "Action not completed. Access is denied." However it did create a zip file on the desktop. But when I try to upload it I get the message "You don't have permission to open this file." (I'm running as Administrator.) What's wrong?