Windows 7 x64 Freezing for up to a minute

[gmkayaker]

Symptoms:
Every few minutes, some windows stop responding and the cursor changes to a spinning donut and disappears when moved over certain windows. Usually, the System Idle Process still has over 50% CPU. Sometimes, Alt-Tab stops working. Sometimes the Task Manager stops updating. Sometimes the start Menu will activate but typing doesn't show up in the search box while on others, the Start Menu won't activate at all. Sometimes even Ctrl-Alt-Delete doesn't have any effect. This will go on for 30 seconds to several minutes. Then, the UI "catches up" with some of things I've tried doing and everything is fine for 10 minutes.

Recent changes:
I replaced the original HDD with an SSD back in June. I recently started using CrashPlan+ for local and online backups (30 day trial). Prior to that I was using Carbonite (which is still installed but "frozen".)

Solutions attempted:
I'm running MSE. I have run both Quick and Full scans using Malwarebytes. I've done several (at least 3) runs of SFC /SCANNOW. The first one required a restart. the subsequent ones didn't. (I do see a bunch of renames every time it is run.) I tried using the Event Viewer but I get a dialog saying Microsoft Management Console has stopped working.

Any suggestions on what to try next?

Thanks

Gerard

 

[Arc]

Hello Gerard, How old the laptop is, is it under warranty still?

If it is, take it to the vendor for a check up.

If it is not (then only, coz it will make your warranty void), you may need to open the laptop, make some cleaning, reseat the RAM modules, sata ports etc.

 

[gmkayaker]

Its nearly 2 years old. Task Manager shows little CPU consumption during these freezes (when it doesn't freeze as well.)

I had a lot of trouble applying an important update to Silverlight and the problems seemed to have started after that was applied. I tried restoring to an earlier restore point but several attempts failed to hold. Now, I'm trying a repair install to see if that addresses the issue. During the repair, .Net Framework said it was damaged and was repairing itself. I'll post back after I've given it a few hours of usage/testing.

Thanks

Gerard

 

[gmkayaker]

Still having the pauses. But at least now I can look in the event log. I have attached the system logs. Contain some 30000 millisecond timeouts from Service Control Manager.

Thanks,

Gerard