mouse hesitation

[steve123456]

Recently my mouse has begun to hesitate whenever my hard drive is working. This is a new behavior, 1-2 weeks and is frustrating. I have also noticed that when this hesitation is occurring, my keyboard is also inoperative. I have recently downloaded the most recent CWShredder and this didn't help.
Any ideas???
Thanks

[DMR]

Have you added or changed any hardware/software lately?

Also- try shutting down any unneccessary programs that might be loading; there could be something runninng in the background that's kicking in and hogging your system resources at certain intervals.

[steve123456]

Have you added or changed any hardware/software lately? Also- try shutting down any unneccessary programs that might be loading; there could be something runninng in the background that's kicking in and hogging your system resources at certain intervals.

I haven't added any programs or hardware in the last month, only routine updates on existing software. My system resource meter stays at about
30-40% available. I have been keeping my hard drive clean and have defragged but still no help.
I do have CWShredder and it has shown nothing. I use Norton Antivirus as my system protection. My subscription to Norton actually ran out about the time this started??? I guess I need to update my subscription...maybe that will fix the problem!

[DMR]

You should definitely keep your subscription current- Symantec has put out quite a few updates lately.

Is there any pattern to the freezing? That is, does it happen at certain intervals, when you are performing certain tasks, etc.?

[steve123456]

You should definitely keep your subscription current- Symantec has put out quite a few updates lately. Is there any pattern to the freezing? That is, does it happen at certain intervals, when you are performing certain tasks, etc.?

I just tried some experiments and it seems to be when I first go into a program and right when I close a program. When I do there is a noticable pause in the cranking from the computer and during that pause the mouse can't be moved. As soon as the computer starts up again I am fine. So now it sounds more like a hard drive problem than a mouse problem. I also tried my keyboard and got the same results. When the pause comes, I can't type either. Any ideas???
Thanks

[Catweazle]

Defragmented your hard drive and used 'Disk Cleanup' on it lately?

If not, you should.

[DMR]

OK- that might give us something to work with.

It sounds like you're describing what in geek-speak would be called "disk thrashing", although the cause of that is usually not having enough physical RAM (memory) installed to handle the programs you're using: With insufficient RAM, the system uses a virual memory "swapfile", which is reserved space on your hard drive that gets used when you run out of real RAM. If your system is using your swapfile heavily, you will experience the sort of delays you describe. However, you did say that this problem started without any hardware or software changes, so I'm not sure if this applies here. Just in case, can you tell us:

- How much RAM you have in your system
- The model/speed of your CPU (processor chip)
- the size of your hard drive

In Windows 2000 and XP the Task Manager includes a tab which lets you view not only running programs, but running processes as well; unfortunatley, Win 95/98's Task Manager does not. Assuming that you do have enough RAM to handle your applications, it might be a good idea to check what processes might be running on your system. Use the links in the following Google search to find freely downloadable programs which will give you the same functionality of 2k/XP's process viewer in 95/98 versions of Windows; we might able to determine the cause of the delays by looking through the processes you have running (and thier CPU/system usage stats:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22process+viewer%22+%22windows+98%22&btnG=Google+Search

[steve123456]

OK- that might give us something to work with. It sounds like you're describing what in geek-speak would be called "disk thrashing", although the cause of that is usually not having enough physical RAM (memory) installed to handle the programs you're using: With insufficient RAM, the system uses a virual memory "swapfile", which is reserved space on your hard drive that gets used when you run out of real RAM. If your system is using your swapfile heavily, you will experience the sort of delays you describe. However, you did say that this problem started without any hardware or software changes, so I'm not sure if this applies here. Just in case, can you tell us: - How much RAM you have in your system - The model/speed of your CPU (processor chip) - the size of your hard drive In Windows 2000 and XP the Task Manager includes a tab which lets you view not only running programs, but running processes as well; unfortunatley, Win 95/98's Task Manager does not. Assuming that you do have enough RAM to handle your applications, it might be a good idea to check what processes might be running on your system. Use the links in the following Google search to find freely downloadable programs which will give you the same functionality of 2k/XP's process viewer in 95/98 versions of Windows; we might able to determine the cause of the delays by looking through the processes you have running (and thier CPU/system usage stats: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22process+viewer%22+%22windows+98%22&btnG=Google+Search

My system specs are: Dell Precision 210 - Pentium III processor - 128MB RAM - 2.0 GB
I have downloaded the PRCView program. What list from here would help?
Thanks

[DMR]

The main list which shows the running processes is enough; we don't need info about the threads, modules, and such.

By the way- how much free space is left on your drive?

[steve123456]

The main list which shows the running processes is enough; we don't need info about the threads, modules, and such. By the way- how much free space is left on your drive?

My free space is 9371mb
PRCView shows 40 processes. I can't cut and paste the screen.

[DMR]

OK, so your hard drive has plenty of breathing room.

40 processes sounds like a lot for your basic desktop machine I'd still like to see the list if possible; does PRCView have any facilty for printing the list or saving it to a text file? I use Norton's Process Viewer, so I'm not familiar with PRCView.

In the process viewer, can you see any processes running which seem to be taking up an inordinate amout of CPU time or other system resources?

[BinaryMayhem]

there are a few reasons for this.
A) program is eating up all you cpu time... and is not allowing other threads to processes the IRQ's, or a program with a thread priority set to HIGH.

B) too many programs running, not enuf ram

C) Hardware conflict.

most of the time I see this with older slower computers that have fragmented drivers and are reading and writing alot of data (swapfiles). keep in mind... Also the speed of the drive contributes to this factor as well as well as the transfer mode. DMA or PIO. PIO mode usaly is slower and consumes massive amounts of CPU time when transfering large files.

even though you defraged (in win 98).... windows sytem files are not moved. meaning any file windows needs to load does not get moved. so if they are scattered... (when defraging they are the white blocks with a red slash going thru them... if I remmber right...)

also, win 95 and win98 are NOT stable over long periods of time... after 2 days of uptime, I noticed system responsiveness degrading... (reboot is your only solution)

-------

to me it sounds like your hardrive is possibly a little slugish (20GB @ RPM???), mixed with possibly low mem... and lots of programs running. now you said you had NAV running... Believe it or not, running virus scan with real time protection takes a toll on the system. The AV will want to scan EVERY file before opening. On some selecting a file will trigger a scan as well. I would suggest disabling AV and see if you gain a performance boost, if not, check your memory usage... drop down to a dos prompt and type in MEM and see what % is used. furthermore, check to make sure you drive is running in DMA mode. (win 95/98... never used me) select my computer > properties > device manager > find the hard disk controler > properties > (look thru the tabs and see if the check box "DMA enabled" is checked (its been about 2 years since I used 9x). if none of these are the problem... it could very well be some spyware or a virus that is propergating in the background...

keep in mind... during cpu idle, the hard drive should not be accessed that often.... so if your hdd light is flashing pretty quick, and your not doing anything, a red flag should go up... find out what is accessing your drive!!!!

a good program for this is filemon... look around on google for it... its a great program.

[steve123456]

OK, so your hard drive has plenty of breathing room. 40 processes sounds like a lot for your basic desktop machine I'd still like to see the list if possible; does PRCView have any facilty for printing the list or saving it to a text file? I use Norton's Process Viewer, so I'm not familiar with PRCView. In the process viewer, can you see any processes running which seem to be taking up an inordinate amout of CPU time or other system resources?

The PRCViewer can save to a text file. I am attaching.

[steve123456]

OK, so your hard drive has plenty of breathing room. 40 processes sounds like a lot for your basic desktop machine I'd still like to see the list if possible; does PRCView have any facilty for printing the list or saving it to a text file? I use Norton's Process Viewer, so I'm not familiar with PRCView. In the process viewer, can you see any processes running which seem to be taking up an inordinate amout of CPU time or other system resources?

I just found an easier to read version on Adaware. File is attached.