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Programs are freezing up and can't be closed
No overclocking of anything. The PC is new, only about 2 months old, and worked fine until recently. The problem has been going on for about 5 days now but doesn't coincide with the install of anything.
The problem I'm having is programs are freezing up on me and unable to be closed. The program window may or may not go dim, become unclickable and even End Task and End Task Tree doesn't close it. Once it starts happening it happens to another program, then another, then another until eventually the computer is unusable and must be restarted. Unfortunately since there are programs frozen up the computer can't shut down and must be hard booted. Also I don't have to open anything for it to freeze. I can simply boot it up and leave it on the desktop and come back and it's frozen up.
If I look in the Task Manager I can see the frozen program listed however it doesn't specify as "Not Responding" it says "Running" as if it were operating normally. Also if I locate the program using the Resource Monitor "Analyze Wait Chain" it states the program is running normally and it shows nothing in the Wait Chain that's preventing the program from closing.
I have tested each stick of RAM using Memtest for 24 hours individually and both came back without error. I have run Quick and Extended tests on both hard drives without error. I've run numerous various virus, spyware scans with nothing found.
One thing of note is that the PC doesn't do this in Safe Mode. In Safe Mode the computer works fine. This leads me to believe it's a software or driver issue rather than hardware. Is that a correct assessment?
If that's the case what can I do to narrow down the possibilities and discover what program or driver is causing this conflict?
Thank you all for any help you can provide with this frustrating problem.
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