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XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load


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Guest nirwana@gmx.li
Posted

Hi,

when I "work too fast" under heavy system load, i.e. I switch between

task windows, open and close browser tabs and move the mouse cursor

rapidly across the screen I experience random system lockups (system

hangs or system freezes). I can only press the power switch and

restart the system.

 

It happens about once in 48 hours but it happens out of a sudden, I've

never found an error message close to the crash time in the logfiles.

 

I am running XP-pro SP2 on a Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ Fujitsu

Amilo K 7600 Laptop PC with 1GB of RAM

 

Video: KN266 integrated S3 Prosavage 32 Mbyte shared memory, true

color

Audio: 18-bit stereo audio (AC97)

Pointing device: Synaptics Touchpad, SynTPLpr.exe running but not

SynTPEnh

a D-Link Airplus DWL-G650+ wireles adapter sits in the Cardbus slot

(PC-Card, PCMCIA)

 

Hardware Manager shows a clean tree without warnings.

 

My web browser is Firefox 2.0.0.6. I always have at least 2 dozen

browser tabs open so Firefox consumes up to 350-400 MB of my 1000 MB

RAM.

 

I tried to run msinfo but I get the Windows Help window.

 

I have changed Windows' performance options to give background

services more CPU time and to give programs more memory. I feel that

helped a little. But Firefox appears a bit lame now and the freezes

still occur.

 

 

What else should I try?

 

Best regards,

Dieter

  • Replies 7
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Guest R. McCarty
Posted

Re: XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load

 

Ever run any type of Registry Cleaner on the PC ? It's MSInfo32.Exe

that you should be invoking. I wouldn't toggle the enable bit for

"LargeSystemCache" on a notebook PC. Hardware listing in Device

Manager won't show 100%, unless you add a System Environment

Variable "DevMgr_Show_NonPresent_Devices" and set it's value

= 1 and then tic/check "Show Hidden Devices" in Device Manager.

 

I'd concentrate on the Synaptics TP driver as the cause. Sometimes

you can use the "Generic" latest driver from Synaptics' website instead

of the one provided by your OEM. The mouse pointer issue might

also be related to your Video driver so a check for the latest one is

also a good idea.

 

The Synaptics generic OS drivers found at:

http://www.synaptics.com/support/drive.cfm

 

 

<nirwana@gmx.li> wrote in message

news:1188049507.452703.136630@q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

> Hi,

> when I "work too fast" under heavy system load, i.e. I switch between

> task windows, open and close browser tabs and move the mouse cursor

> rapidly across the screen I experience random system lockups (system

> hangs or system freezes). I can only press the power switch and

> restart the system.

>

> It happens about once in 48 hours but it happens out of a sudden, I've

> never found an error message close to the crash time in the logfiles.

>

> I am running XP-pro SP2 on a Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ Fujitsu

> Amilo K 7600 Laptop PC with 1GB of RAM

>

> Video: KN266 integrated S3 Prosavage 32 Mbyte shared memory, true

> color

> Audio: 18-bit stereo audio (AC97)

> Pointing device: Synaptics Touchpad, SynTPLpr.exe running but not

> SynTPEnh

> a D-Link Airplus DWL-G650+ wireles adapter sits in the Cardbus slot

> (PC-Card, PCMCIA)

>

> Hardware Manager shows a clean tree without warnings.

>

> My web browser is Firefox 2.0.0.6. I always have at least 2 dozen

> browser tabs open so Firefox consumes up to 350-400 MB of my 1000 MB

> RAM.

>

> I tried to run msinfo but I get the Windows Help window.

>

> I have changed Windows' performance options to give background

> services more CPU time and to give programs more memory. I feel that

> helped a little. But Firefox appears a bit lame now and the freezes

> still occur.

>

>

> What else should I try?

>

> Best regards,

> Dieter

>

Guest ManyBeers
Posted

RE: XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load

 

 

 

"nirwana@gmx.li" wrote:

> Hi,

> when I "work too fast" under heavy system load, i.e. I switch between

> task windows, open and close browser tabs and move the mouse cursor

> rapidly across the screen I experience random system lockups (system

> hangs or system freezes). I can only press the power switch and

> restart the system.

>

> It happens about once in 48 hours but it happens out of a sudden, I've

> never found an error message close to the crash time in the logfiles.

>

> I am running XP-pro SP2 on a Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ Fujitsu

> Amilo K 7600 Laptop PC with 1GB of RAM

>

> Video: KN266 integrated S3 Prosavage 32 Mbyte shared memory, true

> color

> Audio: 18-bit stereo audio (AC97)

> Pointing device: Synaptics Touchpad, SynTPLpr.exe running but not

> SynTPEnh

> a D-Link Airplus DWL-G650+ wireles adapter sits in the Cardbus slot

> (PC-Card, PCMCIA)

>

> Hardware Manager shows a clean tree without warnings.

>

> My web browser is Firefox 2.0.0.6. I always have at least 2 dozen

> browser tabs open so Firefox consumes up to 350-400 MB of my 1000 MB

> RAM.

>

> I tried to run msinfo but I get the Windows Help window.

>

> I have changed Windows' performance options to give background

> services more CPU time and to give programs more memory. I feel that

> helped a little. But Firefox appears a bit lame now and the freezes

> still occur.

>

>

> What else should I try?

>

> Best regards,

> Dieter

>

This exact symptom happened to my Sony laptop, which also was running a

D-link wireless card(DWLG-630). It always happened when i was online. So

about

4 months ago i got a ethernet cable and plugged it into my Actiontec

Modem/router and used that instead of the wireless card and i have eleminated

lockups. Run an ethernet setup for awhile and see if that makes any

difference. When you installed your card did it use unsigned drivers like

mine did? . You can try using a different wireless utility to configure the

card. Use WZC utility instead of the D-link utility or vice versa. My lockups

were somehow related to my wireless card. Good luck

Guest Bill Sharpe
Posted

Re: XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load

 

nirwana@gmx.li wrote:

> Hi,

> when I "work too fast" under heavy system load, i.e. I switch between

> task windows, open and close browser tabs and move the mouse cursor

> rapidly across the screen I experience random system lockups (system

> hangs or system freezes). I can only press the power switch and

> restart the system.

>

> It happens about once in 48 hours but it happens out of a sudden, I've

> never found an error message close to the crash time in the logfiles.

>

> I am running XP-pro SP2 on a Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ Fujitsu

> Amilo K 7600 Laptop PC with 1GB of RAM

>

> Video: KN266 integrated S3 Prosavage 32 Mbyte shared memory, true

> color

> Audio: 18-bit stereo audio (AC97)

> Pointing device: Synaptics Touchpad, SynTPLpr.exe running but not

> SynTPEnh

> a D-Link Airplus DWL-G650+ wireles adapter sits in the Cardbus slot

> (PC-Card, PCMCIA)

>

> Hardware Manager shows a clean tree without warnings.

>

> My web browser is Firefox 2.0.0.6. I always have at least 2 dozen

> browser tabs open so Firefox consumes up to 350-400 MB of my 1000 MB

> RAM.

>

> I tried to run msinfo but I get the Windows Help window.

>

> I have changed Windows' performance options to give background

> services more CPU time and to give programs more memory. I feel that

> helped a little. But Firefox appears a bit lame now and the freezes

> still occur.

>

>

> What else should I try?

>

> Best regards,

> Dieter

>

If you close some of those 24 browser tabs does the problem go away?

 

Bill

Guest Uncle Grumpy
Posted

Re: XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load

 

"nirwana@gmx.li" <nirwana@gmx.li> wrote:

>My web browser is Firefox 2.0.0.6. I always have at least 2 dozen

>browser tabs open so Firefox consumes up to 350-400 MB of my 1000 MB

>RAM.

 

Like you really need that many open windows, huh???

 

I stopped using Firefox MONTHS ago... it kept consuming more and more

RAM, the more I used it - no matter how few open windows there were.

 

Memory leak... eventually it would freeze my computer.

 

No such problems with IE7.

Guest nirwana@gmx.li
Posted

Re: XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load

 

On Aug 25, 3:57 pm, "R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSp...@mindspring.com>

wrote:

> Ever run any type of Registry Cleaner on the PC ?

 

....sure, I run Registry Mechanic every once in a while.

>It's MSInfo32.Exe

Yes that's what I started. It results in starting the Help and Support

Center.

>I wouldn't toggle the enable bit for "LargeSystemCache" on a notebook PC.

Perhaps you're right. I wrote I gave programs more memory so the cache

size should be lower now. My "LargeSystemCache" setting was a relict

of times of slower HDDs and smaller memory.

>..."Show Hidden Devices" in Device Manager.

 

....only shows my USB scanner is not connected.

>...the "Generic" latest driver from Synaptics' website...

 

Version 8.3.4

> ...the one provided by your OEM.

 

Version 7.8.1

 

I always thought I had the newest one. Thanks for pointing me to it!

I'll install it as soon as I've posted this reply.

>The mouse pointer issue might also be related to your Video driver so a check for the latest one is

> also a good idea.

 

Mine is S3 Prosavage DDR KN266 6.14.10.12 of May 2003. I found a newer

one at VIA, I'll install it immediately after hitting the Send key.

 

Another interesting hint I found in this forum is to lower the video

load by setting the graphics acceleration slider one tick to the left.

I'll try that too and I promise I'll report the results here.

 

BTW, I tried a driver update for the D-Link Airplus DWL-G650+ wireles

adapter but it wouldn't install correctly. I can only install the one

from the CD that came with the Airplus. I guess I didn't dig deep

enough into the problem. Maybe I could replace the driver used by the

setup program and make a new install CD image.

 

Many thanks to all of you guys in this great forum!

> > Best regards,

> > Dieter

 

ps

I really love Firefox, especially for it's plugins and I got so much

used to tabbed browsing (e.g. I save and restore whole browsing

sessions etc.). And I need all the lot of open tabs for my work (or

say most of them). If I use IE it's mostly the FastBrowser, a tabbed

overhead to IE.

Guest nirwana@gmx.li
Posted

Re: XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load

 

Interim report:

 

I tried to update the graphics driver. VIA suggests to use the

Touchstone DriverAgent. I allowed the program to download install but

when I clicked o "Scan Now" the PC just froze like described before.

This is repeatable but I don't like to demonstrate it.

 

What does the DriverAgent do? Scan the registry? Scan the PCI-Bus?

 

What should I do, report this to Touchstone?

 

My graphics adapter is the S3 Pro SavageDDR integrated graphics KN266.

I managed to get the driver S3G_ProSavageDDR_winxp_v139433.exe without

DriverAgent but I'm unable to install it. Message during install

process (translated):

 

--------------------------- Error

in 16-Bit-Windows program ---------------------------

 

File "C:\S3Graphics\ProSavageDDR_wxp_139433\SETUP.EXE" (or component)

not found. Check if path and file name are correct and if all required

library files are available.

 

 

--------------------------- OK ---------------------------

 

Any ideas?

Guest nirwana@gmx.li
Posted

Re: XP freezes on rapid cursor movements under heavy cpu load

 

Addendum:

 

I eventually managed to run the 16-bit setup.exe by truncating the

folder names created by the Winzip executable to 8 characters and then

manually starting setup.

 

Now with the new driver DriverAgent gets a bit further:

 

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 36%

Scanning hardware

 

Start time: 2007.08.29 21:07:26

Plugin version: 2.2007.08.23, DA-NP

Scanning smbios --> Done

Scanning chipsets --> Done

 

....frozen again!


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