- Joined
- 8 Apr 2005
- Messages
- 16,950
I'm having trouble figuring this one out, so hopefully it's something easy I'm missing.
It hasn't been as bad for a bit, but there were a few weeks/months where my Desktop and Laptop (Dell XPS420/D820, both running Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1) would just randomy lockup. To me, I found this weird because before this started happening, I always used to witness Vista recover itself. When I used to see it do this, it would eventually recover and I could end a task or the program would close, etc. What I'm referring to is simply you get what is I can only assume to be the new hourglass, that blue circle going around and around, and then nothing. The mouse moves, but you can't ever click anything because it's always a blue circle round and around.
Now, while it's possible, I would be surprised if it's hardware for both machines. But, I did run the dell diagnostics on both machines (long test), windows memory testing (no memtest though) on both as well, as well as chkdsk. From those standpoints, smooth sailing all along. Minor issues repaired by chkdsk though.
I updated the BIOS on both, got MANUFACTURER drivers for my sound, video and chipset (I'm referring to not the ones from Dell), and such. Before anyone complains - machines were running Dell versions previously. It hasn't been as bad really, but here's my question (finally).
When this occurs - what do you do? Sure, reboot, but that gets old and annoying. I guess I'm wondering if I wait it out long enough, will anything get written somewhere that I can look at? Nothing in the event viewer because the machine poops, no debugging files since it's not a BSOD. No message when I reboot about Windows Problems and Reports, nothing. It's not practical to swap out hardware (such as RAM, etc.) for most home users, so I don't think that's a good approach.
It's not spyware or viruses or anything like that either. Sorry this post is so long - but I'm curious, what are your thoughts and what would you do?
It's calmed down of late, which is weird since it wasn't immediate after my changes above.
It hasn't been as bad for a bit, but there were a few weeks/months where my Desktop and Laptop (Dell XPS420/D820, both running Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1) would just randomy lockup. To me, I found this weird because before this started happening, I always used to witness Vista recover itself. When I used to see it do this, it would eventually recover and I could end a task or the program would close, etc. What I'm referring to is simply you get what is I can only assume to be the new hourglass, that blue circle going around and around, and then nothing. The mouse moves, but you can't ever click anything because it's always a blue circle round and around.
Now, while it's possible, I would be surprised if it's hardware for both machines. But, I did run the dell diagnostics on both machines (long test), windows memory testing (no memtest though) on both as well, as well as chkdsk. From those standpoints, smooth sailing all along. Minor issues repaired by chkdsk though.
I updated the BIOS on both, got MANUFACTURER drivers for my sound, video and chipset (I'm referring to not the ones from Dell), and such. Before anyone complains - machines were running Dell versions previously. It hasn't been as bad really, but here's my question (finally).
When this occurs - what do you do? Sure, reboot, but that gets old and annoying. I guess I'm wondering if I wait it out long enough, will anything get written somewhere that I can look at? Nothing in the event viewer because the machine poops, no debugging files since it's not a BSOD. No message when I reboot about Windows Problems and Reports, nothing. It's not practical to swap out hardware (such as RAM, etc.) for most home users, so I don't think that's a good approach.
It's not spyware or viruses or anything like that either. Sorry this post is so long - but I'm curious, what are your thoughts and what would you do?
It's calmed down of late, which is weird since it wasn't immediate after my changes above.