Random Pausing Help Meh!!!

[Splintert]

Unplug and check the connectors. Then put it back in firmly (but not too hard).

Also, run a chkdsk through command prompt running off of a flash drive or something.

Start > type "cmd" > press enter > type "[insert flash drive letter]:" > type "chkdsk C: /f" > press enter

Last time I had HDD problems it fixed them temporarily.

[J]

Has it been confirmed that it IS the HDD that is the issue or has everyone excluded all other options already?

What OS are you even using? Age of the computer? How much free space on the drive? Fired up task manager in case there's  some software running which hogs the cpu on regular intervals?

[krik]

Windows 7 64 bit, a year or two old, just under 190gb free space, yeah that's the first thing I did.

[Nipplemelter]

Let me grab a few drinks and I'll get back to you.

[Splintert]

Has it been confirmed that it IS the HDD that is the issue or has everyone excluded all other options already?

What OS are you even using? Age of the computer? How much free space on the drive? Fired up task manager in case there's  some software running which hogs the cpu on regular intervals?

No, it's not necessarily confirmed. But really, if the entire computer locks up suddenly it couldn't be his CPU unless he's on a single-core without multithreading support. The next obvious culprit would be his GPU, but I doubt he'd be having normal FPS on a GPU that isn't capable of putting pixels on the screen. The next step would be RAM, but I have a hard time believing a RAM stick that takes longer than 500ms to access a bit of data would be functioning at all.

His hard drive seems like the most likely case. It's already the slowest component of any comupter, combined with the fact that a system would lock up when waiting for the hard drive to return data to the system (because it's malfunctioning). It probably is having massive seek times compared to normal, or has to process through corrupted data as someone stated above.

[krik]

It's not so much locking up as sorta... loading. Like if you run a Bethesda game on a lower end pc and you can notice when it loads a cell because everything stops for a second or two.

[ancalimon]

It's not so much locking up as sorta... loading. Like if you run a Bethesda game on a lower end pc and you can notice when it loads a cell because everything stops for a second or two.

Buy a spare hdd.  Even if it turns out that the hdd is not the problem, you would have a spare hdd.

Just get a program that checks the disk for bad sectors and leave it checking fixing for a couple of hours with good cooling (near air condition or some ventilation)

What's your hdd model? For example, if it's a Seagate, get seatools dos from here:  http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/


Also check the fans inside your laptop for faults. Is it running cool enough?

[Splintert]

Oh, if it's not completely stopping check to see if your processor is being throttled to a lower clock rate. My laptop does it when I run it at 100% processor max clock in the power settings.

It's easy to do by opening resource monitor and watching the blue bar which indicates processor clock rate percentage of the full. Mine goes from 110% to 66% or lower every few seconds (due to the 10% overclock).

[krik]

That may be it how would I fix that?

[Splintert]

I had to change my power settings to run the processor at 99% as opposed to 100%, it turned Intel's dumb auto-overclock/throttling system and still gives me full performance. I don't think Windows is able to change it so precisely though, I have a tool called Power4Gear that manages power for me.

Try googling for something in the registry?

[krik]

New hard drive seems to have fixed it, thanks a lot dudes. Closed.