Member Avatar for Vinny_3

Hi All
My internet browsers (Chrome, Mozilla, IE) started approximately 2 weeks ago to become 'unresponsive' from time to time. This has become very frequent now and I only get access to the browser for approximately 1 minute before it becomes unresponsive again. Restarting the Laptop allows me to re-access the browsers.

I am using 3G wifi, and I have double checked the internet using other devices (tablet, smartphone) , so it is not an internet issue.

While the browsers may be unresponsive, other programmes (MS Office etc) work perfectly fine.

I have checked Task Manager and CPU/ Memory/ Disk all look fine (typically around 5%/50%/10% when the browser is unresponsive).
I use McAfee as an anti-virus. All my software is up-to-date.

I have had the laptop rest back to a point ( approximately 3 weeks ago) and that seems to have helped for a few hours but now I am back to square one.

Any suggestion on where I should look to resolve the problem?

Edited by Dani because: Moved to MS Windows forum
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Dani AI

Generated

Intermittent hangs that affect Chrome/Firefox/IE while other apps remain responsive and basic system metrics look normal most often point at browser-process issues, a corrupted profile/extension, or a third‑party component that hooks browsers (rather than a pure bandwidth or general CPU/memory problem). The suggestions from to collect performance data and from to suspect cross‑browser extensions are sensible; the checklist below focuses on steps that isolate browser processes, profile corruption, and security‑suite hooks.

Recommended diagnostic sequence (ordered from least to most invasive):

  1. Clean Boot (System Configuration -> Hide Microsoft services -> disable remaining services/startups) to see if a third‑party service is responsible.
  2. Safe Mode with Networking to rule out drivers and many background services.
  3. Run a browser with a fresh profile or a portable build (no extensions) to rule out extension/profile corruption.
  4. Disable browser hardware acceleration; if that helps, update or roll back the GPU driver.
  5. Use the browsers’ internal task managers (Chrome: Shift+Esc; Firefox: about:performance) to identify a misbehaving tab/extension.
  6. Check Windows Event Viewer (Application log) and Reliability Monitor for Application Hang / faulting‑module entries at the hang timestamps. Those entries often point to the offending DLL or service.
  7. Use Autoruns to find browser helper objects or injected DLLs.
  8. Repair Windows and reset networking:
sfc /scannow
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
ipconfig /flushdns
netsh winsock reset

Third‑party security suites frequently inject web‑filtering DLLs or install browser extensions. Given ’s note about McAfee, a clean uninstall (vendor removal tool such as MCPR for McAfee) or testing with only Windows Defender active is the cleanest experiment; a Clean Boot will also reveal a problematic security service.

If hangs persist with no useful Event Log entries, the evidence usually narrows to corrupted user/browser data or a faulty browser build — create a new Windows user account, try truly portable browsers, or reinstall the affected browsers before considering an in‑place OS repair.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for Reverend Jim

Have you tried restarting your router? You might also try running perfmon to get more granularity on your stats. You can run it from the task manager (Win 10) or from the command line by

perfmon /res

Select the network tab and go from there.

Edited by Reverend Jim
Member Avatar for happygeek

Do you have any plugins that are common to all the clients? If my network seemed OK, and the Internet connection seemed OK, that's where I would be looking next - for an extension/plugin that is behaving badly.

Member Avatar for Douglas_5

Are you using McAfee. This has been found to be causing this problem recently. It seems there is a temporary fix.

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