New to hi-speed w/wireless connection; systems keeps freezing

Hello!

Firstly, please pardon me if I am posting this in the incorrect place, or use incorrect jargon. I'm a noob, trying to ease up off of dial-up!

Anyway, I got a wireless USB adapter to connect to my high-speed model. It'll be fine for about an hour or so of surfing, then the entire system will just freeze up. And by "freeze up," I mean the monitor stays the same, mouse doesn't move, nothing. Just freezes up.

A friend told me that my processor is not equipped to deal w/the high-speed usage. The sticker on the tower says 2800 (2.08GHz) AMD Athlon XP processor. I don't know if that helps. Another dude said I need more RAM. The sticker says 512 MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory. A third said I might have too much on my hard drive. That says 120gb 7200RPM Ultra DMA hard drive on the sticker. But, the C: drive shows I have 91gb free space out of the 106gb total space when I look in the My Computer folder.

Are either of them correct? If so, which one(s), and how do I correct it? Hook me up!


Thanks,

Noob v2.3

 

Hi fella or fellette, welcome to Major Geeks.

I presume this means you now have a broadband connection and you are connecting by wireless to your modem.

This is OK but using a cable link is much more reliable, if possible. Ethernet (RJ45) is best, USB, next best for this.

Your pc specs ( windows xp I presume?) are fine for the task. They have nothing to do with the freezing.

Try this.

Note the time of the next freeze.
Then do whatever you do to unfreeze the pc. (tell us what this is)
start>run typein
eventvwr
or
eventvwr.msc

You will see a split pane box open, similar to explorer.
Click on each of security, application and system and note what events are recorded about the time of the freeze.
Copy and paste these into notepad and post the result.

 

I'm a fella, thanks, studiot.

Yes, I'm connecting to the broadband connection via the wireless USB adapter, plugged into my desktop tower. The cable link is not possible right now due to location. But, it's good to know that my PC specs (yes, Windows XP), are good to go.

Okay, so I froze while first composing this post. That was at 6:53p ET. I ran the prompt (is that correct?) that you suggested. The closest time of an event was in Security, @ 6:50p. I have the .txt file attached. I hope this is what you meant.


Thanks again,

Noob v2.3

 

All the events listed were either recorded as success or information, niether of which would lead to freezing.
Were there any that showed a problem (red flag)?

You didn't tell us what you are doing to unfreeze?
If you press crtl+alt+del to get task manager to kill the process is anthing else shown as running?
How long are you waiting, some updates can take quite a while?
Is there any yellow shield at the bottom right of the screen, with a balloon telling you that there are updates waiting to be installed?
What does microsoft security centre report? (Find it in the control panel)
Are you running some flavour of Norton?

Please give more details of the wireless connection.
How is the signal strength?
Have you got any wireless security enabled, if so which?
Do you know of any others users, legitimate or otherwise?
Are you using windows or other software to control the connection?

Lotsa questions I know, but we need lotsa info.

:major

 

Various, or just too many, toolbars and add-ons to IE can also cause this.

What have you?

 

Yes, LOTSA questions, and I will try to answer them all completely.

My bad for not answering this in the last post. Was trying to make sure I got it through before it froze up again! When it freezes, since NOTHING is moving, not even the mouse, crtl+alt+del doesn't help any. I've tried every variation I can think of; thrown esc in the mix, as well as the Windows key. Nothing. So... (pls don't flame me if this is the worst!), I can only think of holding the power button on the tower until it manually powers off. Then I press it again to restart. I understand this is not "healthy" for the pc, but I don't know how else to do it. When it comes back up, sometimes the background pic is not visible. There will be a white background with a blue caution sign, and a button to Restore Active Desktop. I click that, and all is good again. And I usually restart this way within a few minutes of it freezing up, if I'm right at the computer. Last night around 11:00p or so, I came back to the house and saw it was frozen. So, it could have been that way for some time. That might be helpful for what I'm saying saying next...

I ran another event viewer to look for any error/warning flags. I put down what I could find recently, attached below. There weren't many in Applications, and the ones that were there were from a few days ago. There were several for Security from last night, and even more in System. Any that were around 11:00p on 10.20 were (I think) around the time of a restart. I believe there was also a restart around the 8:00p hour, which also boasts several warning/error flags.

There is currently no yellow yield sign in the system tray. Though there was one there a few days ago. I do not recall if I clicked on it or not, but it's gone now. Go fig!

I checked the Microsoft Security Center, and it reads: "The Security Center is currently unavailable because the 'Security Center' service has not been started or was stopped. Please close this window, restart the computer (or start the 'Security Center' service), and then open the Security Center again." I couldn't find where to "start" the Center, so I restarted the computer, and it has the same message. I did realize, however, that the Windows Firewall was Off. I turned it on before I restarted, though the Security Center is still apparently off.

I am running Norton Antivirus, from Symantec (if that makes a difference).

These next couple items, I am not sure about, so I'll answer them as best I can:

Deets on the wireless connection... for signal strength, when I hover over the icon in the system tray, it says Speed: 54.0 Mbps, and that the strength is Excellent (it has all five bars lit up).

Wireless security... the window that shows where I'm connected to has an area listed for Security with three buttons. The one depressed is the one that says Disabled. Probably not good, eh? The other two buttons (one is WEP, the other is a pull-down w/WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK) have options with fields I have no idea how to customize.

I don't know of other users.

The software I'm using is what I was describing above w/the wireless security question. It's Netgear WG111v3, the software that came w/the wireless USB adapter I'm using to currently connect to the Internet.

And, finally, I hate IE (hell, Bill Gates for that matter!), and cannot stand to use it if I don't have to. I'm on the latest version of Firefox, 2.0.0.8 to be exact. I also hate toolbars, so there are no add-ons to speak of (that I am aware of!).

I believe that is it, good sir. Whatever else I can provide to assist in your helping me, I will promptly post. Thanks again!

 

Also, I took Major Attitude's suggestion and ran some Basic Computer Maintenance (http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=106650/) on my pc. I used CCleaner Slim, and then defragmented w/Diskeeper Lite. I've so far been online for approx. an hour and 20 minutes after restarting last, freeze-less. :: knocks on wood :: I'll sign out now so as not to jinx it!

 

USB wireless adapter can cause problems as has already been stated.

Firstly, is the USB wireless adapter connected directly into one of your pc's usb ports?

I would suggest getting hold of a powered usb hub and connecting your usb wireless adapter into that to see if that cures the problem.

The USB wireless adapter is drawing its power solely from the usb port of your pc which can only deliver 500mA. Some usb hardware can draw more power than this and sympthoms such as lock up which you have described can occur.

Lastly, are you using a USB mouse or keyboard as these can also cause problems and also do you have any other usb hardware connected (and powered up) when the freezes occur?

Good Luck

 

This is the correct course of action. A pc should shut down in an orderly fashion if you hold the power button (not the reset button) in for 4 - 10 seconds. Whatever you do, don't just cut the electricity, this can result in Windows needing reinstallation.

I'd be interested in the answers to R_R 's questions, although I only ever come across a USB hub causing problems rather than solving them.

 

Okay, so I had the wireless connection running for about 24 hours, using it on and off throughout. It didn't freeze up once, and I pushed it! I had streaming video, music, several windows and applications running, just to push the limit. I thought I was in the clear It didn't freeze up until about the 24 hour point.

So, to answer your questions, risk_reversal, yes, the USB adapter is plugged into the PC's USB port. I will look into a powered hub, though studiot disagreed with its effectiveness. =)

Neither the mouse nor the keyboard are USB-connected. There is also no other USB-connected hardware in use at this time. The only thing plugged in is the wireless adapter.

So, the sweep and defrag-ing helped; just need a little more help to bring it on home to freeze-free surfing! Thanks, folks.

 

We have been through and eliminated the physical possibilities for your problems.
I'm glad CCleaner did such a good job resolving some obvious program conflicts for you.

A thought for the future.

You are using third party wireless software (Netgear) and browser (Firefox). So beware of fixes to future problems which involve tinkering with the Windows alternatives.

Good luck in the future.