lots of "not responding" and freezes

[rbico]

I am trying to help a friend with her PC and am stumped. She is having major problems with programs "not responding" and occasional BSOD and just a general slow working environment. HP has been little or no help to her. I have a few hours to play with it next week and thought I would do the basic bonehead stuff like cleaning out her msconfig startup programs and whatnot, but wanted any suggestions you all might have (memtest? disc scan?).

One theory is this: Insufficient power supply...
She is a user who doesn't game but will have Photoshop, illustrator, Outlook and a few other programs all open at the same time that she is watching a streaming video online - and she always has about 15 firefox tabs open. i looked at her PC's specs (below) but what is doesn't say there is that it is a small form factor PC and the power supply is only 240 watts. I think that might be the problem, or part of the problem.

Example of her issue:
Yesterday I was there and she was using a program (Xilisoft DVD audio ripper) to extract some audio. It started up fine and said it would be about 15 minutes to rip a DVD. after a few minutes she wanted to show me some digital photos and we looked at about ten - but when we went back to the program it was stuck at 12% and would not budge. We tried to cancel but it took several minutes to shut the program down (task manager didn't work - ""no response"). When she re-started the program and re-ran it without doing anything in the background, it ripped the DVD in about 12 minutes. So multi-tasking seems to be a no-go with this PC.




Product Description HP Compaq Business Desktop dc5800 - Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz
Type Personal Computer
Windows Vista Certification Windows Vista Capable
Form Factor Small form factor
Dimensions (WxDxH) 13.3 in x 14.9 in x 3.9 in
Weight 17.9 lbs
Localization English / United States
Processor 1 x Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / 2.4 GHz ( Quad-Core )
Cache Memory 8 MB L2 cache
Cache Per Processor 8 MB
RAM 4 GB (installed) / 8 GB (max) - DDR2 SDRAM - non-ECC - 800 MHz - PC2-6400
Storage Controller Serial ATA ( Serial ATA-300 ) ; IDE
Hard Drive 1 x 250 GB - standard - Serial ATA-300
Optical Storage DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM with LightScribe Technology
Card Reader 16 in 1
Monitor None.
Graphics Controller Intel GMA 3100
Audio Output Sound card - stereo
Networking Network adapter - PCI Express x1 - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet
Power AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
OS Provided Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
Manufacturer Selling Program HP Smart Buy
Environmental Standards EPA Energy Star , EPEAT Gold
Manufacturer Warranty 3 years warranty ( on-site )

 

[richc46]

One of our members will be glad to help you with the BSOD, but we need this information
http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

 

[rbico]

it's way less BSOD (very seldom) and more the no response and general slow. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned the BSOD. She has no viruses and no malware; I checked for both.

 

[rudions]

about freez and not responding can be many reasons.
1st of all not responding and freezing-viruses,issues with hardware might be old HDD or wrong instaled driver.
Might be wrong configuerd bios.
About PSU 240wat well yes it might be problem as well many might not recomend this but since i haw tryed my own for very cheap money can get energon 750wat PSU.Recomend to try spybot,MS security essentials,Tune up uttilities ,CCleaner.

240wat is not inaf to feed quad core PCU. U might try to make windows run only with 2 cores of 4.
Somtimes as funny it would be atleast helps for me when i got some freezing and stuff like that.crate new account usser with transvering old data to it.

and im apoligize about my english

 

[cluberti]

Honestly, if you have a program or two freezing or hanging, but the rest of the OS is not, it is *not* a hardware problem. It's time to start taking a close look at that OS, and give it a good once-over with a virus scanner, malwarebytes, a disk defrag, and make sure it's patched. At that point, when you're sure it's clean and orderly, if it's still happening, get crash dumps of any application that hangs or freezes via task manager (right-click the program, select "Create dump file").

 

[rudions]

still could be a PSU problem.OS as it self dont ask much power from hardware so not much need for PSU but as more programs you open then hardware will start to work more active on the line when PSU cant give such a power for a hardware it will start freezing.