Programs constantly not responding, possibly Chrome related

[sventoby]

I have a Dell XPS L501x laptop. A test showed that the hard drive was going to fail, so I had Dell replace it (it's under warranty until December). I installed Windows 7 on the new HDD and I've had problems basically since the beginning. What happens is my programs will hang, with the (Not Responding) message on the top of the window. This will last for anywhere between 10 seconds to a couple minutes. I called Dell again about this and was told that the problem was Chromium, my browser. I uninstalled it and the problems persisted with Firefox, so they told me to install Windows again. I did this and I'm having the same problems. I have Chrome installed now. One thing I've noticed is that Flash occasionally crashes, but this is a separate error message so I don't know how related it is. Chrome isn't the only program locking up. Word, notepad, and basically everything else I have open will lock up, but as far as I can remember this only happens when I have my browser open as well.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I've tried to look up solutions but I couldn't find anything that seemed to match my particular problem. I did not have this problem before my new HDD was installed but I can't tell if this is a software or hardware issue. I have 6GB RAM so that shouldn't be an issue.

I have MSE and nothing else and Windows is fully updated.

 

[Mellon Head]

Chrome has been locking up user's computers:

Google Groups[1-25-false]

It's probably the culprit. You say that you uninstalled it and the problem didn't go away? You might have to reinstall Windows again, and this time don't install Chrome and see what happens. It could also be hardware related, but you need to make sure it is without having Chrome installed.

 

[JamesAS]

Have you tried running the programs in compatibility mode?

 

[sventoby]

@Mellon- Is there no way to fully uninstall Chrome instead of having to reinstall Windows again? I can do it if necessary but I've done this multiple times in the last couple months and it's frustrating.

@James- No, I can try that. The thing is that the problem is intermittent, so I can go without problems for a good amount of time running programs in normal mode already.


Something else that I thought of that seems important: when the program locks up, it locks up the other programs at the same time. For example, if I try to load a page on Chrome and it freezes, if I try to load another page or go to Word and try to do something that has stopped responding as well. When the page loads everything will start working again at the same time.

 

[Mellon Head]

@Mellon- Is there no way to fully uninstall Chrome instead of having to reinstall Windows again? I can do it if necessary but I've done this multiple times in the last couple months and it's frustrating.

You said that you uninstalled Chrome and the problem didn't go away, so either something else is wrong, or Chrome didn't fully uninstall and is still giving you grief. Most programs don't uninstall cleanly. They leave all sorts of junk behind which can still cause problems.

If it were me, I would reinstall Windows (I know, I know...) and reinstall everything EXCEPT Chrome. Run with Firefox for a while until you are certain that you don't have another problem somewhere else. Then you can load Chrome, and if it locks up on you, you'll at least know that it was Chrome, and you can take troubleshooting steps on the Google boards to try to fix the problem. If it isn't, then we can try other options to fix the problem.

Something else that I thought of that seems important: when the program locks up, it locks up the other programs at the same time. For example, if I try to load a page on Chrome and it freezes, if I try to load another page or go to Word and try to do something that has stopped responding as well. When the page loads everything will start working again at the same time.

Does this happen with Firefox or IE?

 

[sventoby]

It happened with Firefox before I reinstalled Windows the most recent time, but that could just be due to remnants of Chrome screwing things up. Thanks for the help so far, I'll probably reinstall Windows tonight if I have time.

 

[Mellon Head]

It happened with Firefox before I reinstalled Windows the most recent time, but that could just be due to remnants of Chrome screwing things up. Thanks for the help so far, I'll probably reinstall Windows tonight if I have time.

Good luck, and remember to test it for a while before reinstalling Chrome.

 

[sventoby]

I haven't had the time to reinstall Windows yet, but in the meantime I think I may have figured it out. Since I switched my power option from power saver to balanced I haven't had this problem. I can't remember if power saver was on the every time I've had this problem but if it was it could just be that my computer wasn't able to handle the processes while not going at full capacity. Fingers crossed that it's this simple but so far it's looking good.

 

[Mellon Head]

Fingers crossed. Hopefully that was all there was to it. Thanks for posting the update.