This is topic New XP/Eplorer bug? (sophisticated freezing) in forum Officers' Lounge at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.


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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
I've had XP since 2001 but up until two weeks ago, had never encountered freezing browser-windows of the kind and extent I do now.

About two weeks ago it started, I was on a page and did something big, like reversing back to another page before the current one had loaded all its content (images, links) or right-clicked on a big link or something. Suddenly that Explorer-window freezes, I can't manipulate it or close it, I can't even press Ctrl-Alt-Del and get the System manager up. As this happens I also hear the processor fan go to max speed (Dell Dimension, variable output fan).
I can however move other open windows (but not scroll or close them).
After about ten minutes, the "bottleneck" seems to resolve itself and every action I tried to do now gets done at once; system manager opens, windows close, the cows moo.

This is different from the old-style freezing, which only happened if I had severely taxed the comp by eating up all the virtual RAM by, say, playing a big game for more than five hours. And that kind of freeze never resolved itself, you had no option but to reboot.
Could it be because of some new fix that was released in Windows Update these last two-three months?

Has anyone else experienced this particular type of freeze? I couldn't find much by googling it.
While I know it will resolve itself after about five-ten minutes every time (and this freeze happens twice a day now), most times I just pull out the cord, reinsert and boot up again.
 

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Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
 
Well I have a "sort of freezing" sometimes when windows start where no icons or toolbar come out and then I have to restart the computer manually.
 

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Posted by dbutler1986 (Member # 1689) on :
 
I have two pieces of advice. One, get Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, and two, get Linux instead of Windows.
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
No, I won't change braussers. And Linux can go eat a bag of hell, IIRC.

Update: It isn't a system-freeze, so much as a slow-down. If I drag a window during the thing, it moves 10-20 seconds later.

I'm pretty sure now that the problem is caused by one or two key files getting caught in a feedback loop, wrongly responded to by the computer by putting 100% of system resources into helping the aforementioned file.
I suspect it is ALG.EXE, which has to do with internet handling and the firewall. If I erase ALG, will it be replicated by the system?

Does anyone have experience in how to make ALG.EXE (and other easily-disturbed files) relax when it hits?
 

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Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
 
Google. *nod*

What firewall program are you using? And why are you using IE?
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
I use FSecure 6.00 for security and firewall.
The reason I'm sticking with IE is because I spent an evening trying out FF at a friend's comp and we spent half the time in IE anyway, as many of the sites we visited didn't work properly in FF.

That and I haven't exactly run into any major problems that would piss me off with IE yet.

Another thing, I got one of these slowdowns 30 minutes ago by just opening up "Downloaded Files" in My Documents, a folder I hadn't visited in some time.
I quickly pressed ctrl-alt-del and looked at the performance meter, it was up at 100% of CPU power and stayed there for ten minutes, until I pulled the plug and booted up again.

Now will someone tell me what would make a computer take 10+ minutes to just display 17 files in a small folder? There is one hell of a bottleneck somewhere in the execution queue system. And it didn't exist a month ago. Weiiiird.
 

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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
What the hell is everyone's problem with IE????
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
It's a poorly-written, unsecure, and badly outdated piece of software? And maybe if IE 7 comes out before the apes take over some of those problems may be fixed, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
 

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Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
 
No, but aside from all that...
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Nim:

The reason I'm sticking with IE is because I spent an evening trying out FF at a friend's comp and we spent half the time in IE anyway, as many of the sites we visited didn't work properly in FF.

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quote:

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I guess you mean IMHO...

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quote:

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Originally posted by PsyLiam:
Go Team Kavanagh!

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Yes, please go. As far away as you can, and quickly as possible.
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
*grabs arm* Don't do it, Lee! He's the only one who knows the way out. Besides, it wouldn't bring Blanche back and you know it. She knew the risks involved when she signed up. Unlike Debbie here.
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Debbie Does Niklas?
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
Now what the kind of precedent would that set? Romancing lost little girls who've ended up on our forums, out where the buses don't run?


No, less and more


And on that note, what's this I hear about disabling file caching?
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Mind you, he didn't say disable file caching, he said clearing. Which I presume means clearing out the Temp folder, that sort of thing. And when did you last defrag?
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
Did it last month, I was going to today but it said it wasn't necessary.
But what did Liam mean by "clearing file caching /.../ restarting, then turning it back on"?
That sounds more like some HKEY_ROOTS_BLAH thing than your theory of just emptying Temp file buildup. Would that we'd asked him before you pushed him into the mine shaft.
 

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Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by PsyLiam:
See, now, I was stubborn about using Firefox. Especially when Charles did that twatty thing of shouting at people using IE on the main page. But now I use Firefox, and everyone who doesn't is wrong.

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quote:

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Originally posted by WizArtist II:
Either that or the entire universe is about to colapse into a singularity the size of Tim.

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So, status quo then? :ducks:

B.J.
 

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Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
 
I've been using Firefox for a while now, even without additional themes, extensions, and mods it's an easy to use program, A billion times better than Internet Exploder.

Anyways, the wierd windows bug I experienced happened yesterday. I downloaded a program called Fraps that lets you record video of D3D and OpenGL video games. anyways, It worked once, and the next day I tried to fire it up and it cause Windows to crash. All the icons, and the taskbar disappeared, leaving only my wallpaper. I left it for about 10 minutes to see if it would return to normal, eventually I had to reboot. When I restarted windows it tells me that Fraps has become corrupted. WTF! so I completely uninstalled it, deleted the folder, the install files, and, all the registry entries and tried it again, same thing. I dunno what the hell's wrong with it all of a sudden.
 

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Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
I was talking about that thing where XP remembers the contents of your folders to speed things up. It's called the, er, oh yeah, indexing service.

Now, with this sort of thing there's normally a way of clearing it. Which I can't find. But you can't go far wrong with right clicking on your drive and unticking the "use idexing service" box. Untick the "compress drive" box too, if that's ticked.

After that, you could try doing some of this stuff:
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1404

Something there might be useful.
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Nim:

The reason I'm sticking with IE is because I spent an evening trying out FF at a friend's comp and we spent half the time in IE anyway, as many of the sites we visited didn't work properly in FF.
...
As for sites that don't work properly in Firefox, many swedish university websites weren't built for both IE and Netscape (and in that extension, FF), so fontsizes and borders can get screwed up there.

One problem-site me and my friends often happen upon is for the university of S�dert�rn, http://webappo.web.sh.se/. They've said they are working on improving it, so I don't know if it works better now.

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