PC hanging up -HDD or RAM?

D

Dart77

Member
Hi, my PC (Pentium 2.6GHz + 3.41Gb Ram, Win XP SP3) has started running really slow occasionally and just stopping and hanging up on simple tasks, sometimes for minutes at a time before it goes again. Anything from Internet to programs like Corel PaintShop to housekeeping like opening or saving files or anything really. even with only one application running. Even CTR-ALT-DEL sometimes takes a full minute to bring the task manager up.

The RAM was increased about 18months ago and it has all been running fine up until now. Can RAM wear out or slowly just not work? I am also thinking the HDD might be about to fail, the red light stays on constantly during these times.

Can anybody offer any suggestions as to what might cause these extended hangups please? (also, when I see Task Manager, I might see, "---" is not responding, but even trying to shut it down (End Task) might take minutes

The PC does not do this all the time, just every so often, eg every 15-20 minutes

Thanks!
 
Probably HDD but you could run a couple tests.

You could download something like UBCD here, once you burn it and boot from it on the target PC I'd run Memtest86+ for a pass or two and then a Seatools long scan on the HDD.

This should isolate it down between them.
 
OK thanks for your help. I'll try them and see how I go. Where do I get SeaTools from, is that free software or do i have to purchase it?

Another thing I noticed just now is when I tried to play a video clip on GOM player, it also kept hanging up on the image and just reacted very slow to commands like full screen and even just moving the play window around

thanks
 
No not yet. I only have Microsoft Security Essentials which scans every day, would that pick them up? I did get a message a few days ago during a scan where it came up with a message that some threat was being cleaned. Also, before that I noticed that when I switched between windows or applications (using ALT-TAB) I noticed some strange icon in the window bar that I had never seen before. All the other things have their name underneath them, Eg Google Chrome / Microsoft Outlook / GOM player etc, but this one had no name! And when I went to that icon nothing came up, it looked rather suspicious. But now, since I got that Scan threat clean message it has disappeared. I wanted to try and take a screen capture image of it so I could show people

Is there some better malware detecting software I can download?

Thanks
 
by red lite always on do you mean the one that indicates computer activity?if thats the case check your cpu usage.and like stranglehold says do a malware scan.security essentials isnt the best av out there either,but do another scan with it and let it clean anything it finds.also do a scan with malwarebytes and let it take care of anything it finds.by this time johnb will probably pick up on this thread and help you thru the process of getting rid of any nasties you may have,if any.
 
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