Skip to main content

Questions tagged [freeze]

A general term used when a computer or device becomes unresponsive to any kind of user input. May be caused by hardware or software reasons.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
180 votes
13 answers
39k views

How can I provoke Windows to hang (freeze)?

I need to test equipment behaviour in the event that Windows hard hangs/freezes (e.g. frozen screen, no LEDs blinking, no reaction to inputs, including Ctrl+Alt+Del, etc.). In order to have enough ...
hypers's user avatar
  • 1,562
142 votes
4 answers
78k views

Why do damaged hard drives freeze the entire system?

Why does a hard drive which is known to have bad blocks (verified in HDTune and HDDScan), freezes down my entire system? It is not the OS drive; it is attached to another SATA port, and I'm trying to ...
JustAMartin's user avatar
  • 1,601
71 votes
6 answers
111k views

Installer hangs on "waiting for other installations to finish" despite no other installations in progress

I started an installation of the Xcode 4 developer's preview last night before going to bed. When I woke up, the installation had popped up a message saying to close Xcode first (doh!). I did so, but ...
clozach's user avatar
  • 1,143
60 votes
12 answers
19k views

My computer freezes irregularly

My computer started to freeze at irregular times for 3 weeks now. Please note that this question change with each things that i try. (For additional details) What happens My computer freezes, the ...
57 votes
3 answers
44k views

Can a process be frozen temporarily in linux?

I was wondering if there is a way to freeze any process for a certain amount of time? What I mean is that: is it possible for one application (probably running as root) to pause the execution of ...
Pal Szasz's user avatar
  • 673
41 votes
7 answers
33k views

Window's Slack is frozen

The Windows app opens and loads Slack but then Slack freezes. Even the quit button doesn't work. I have to force-ably shut it down via the task manager. The Windows app's menu bar does work but some ...
SILENT's user avatar
  • 755
37 votes
26 answers
254k views

Excel freezes when copying / cutting to paste elsewhere

When cutting/copying some cells to paste them into another sheet/page, sometimes Excel freezes/locks up and fades out. At the top toolbar it says in brackets "not responding". Eventually, I must ...
Barry's user avatar
  • 373
32 votes
5 answers
49k views

GIMP stuck on "Loading Data Files: Fonts"

I load up GIMP and it gets stuck on "Loading Data Files: Fonts" every time. I have deleted my GIMP profile multiple times, I cleared my font cache, I even searched for corrupt fonts, (0kb font file ...
GusN's user avatar
  • 355
30 votes
13 answers
129k views

How to diagnose computer lockups and freezes?

I built a desktop computer a couple years back with the following specs: CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz 6 MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80580Q9300 Motherboard: EVGA 122-...
Scott Mitchell's user avatar
27 votes
8 answers
72k views

What do do when Linux gui freezes

I'm running Gnome with compiz in Ubuntu 10.04. Sometimes the gui will freeze. I can move the mouse, but I can't interact with programs. The only thing I can do is go to a terminal window with Alt+Ctrl+...
tony_sid's user avatar
  • 14.5k
27 votes
14 answers
206k views

Windows 7 is stuck at "Starting Windows" when I attempt to boot computer

Basically, whenever I turn on my computer, it gets to the Starting Windows phase and just stays there. The startup animation still plays, yet it gets nowhere. I have tried booting into safe mode, ...
Eli's user avatar
  • 860
25 votes
7 answers
140k views

Windows 7 running slowly with low CPU usage and memory

I have a relatively new (under 2 yrs old) Windows 7 machine. It has 9GB of RAM, and an i7 core CPU (930 @ 2.8GHz w/ 8 CPUs). After about 8 months since a clean install, I noticed my computer was ...
arcologies's user avatar
24 votes
6 answers
216k views

How to kill tasks in Windows 7 when even Task Manager won't open or respond?

Occasionally one of my computers will get so bogged down that everything locks up, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't work, Task Manager won't open, or they work, but are opening so slowly that it will take hours ...
endolith's user avatar
  • 7,561
22 votes
3 answers
36k views

How do I troubleshoot hardware issues related to a computer freeze/crash?

What are some common guidelines and issues related to hardware being the issue of a computer crash? What should I look for and how do I troubleshoot these problems? What are some tools that are ...
22 votes
6 answers
51k views

Logitech wireless keyboard / mouse hangs

Problems Intermittent nature The mouse will often hang (won't move) The keyboard will often not type Sometimes, the keys get saved up and come out later all at once, and sometimes they never come out ...
toddmo's user avatar
  • 562
21 votes
6 answers
14k views

How do I quickly stop a process that is causing thrashing (due to excess memory allocation)?

We've all experienced it--some program is asked to do something that requires a huge amount of memory. It dutifully tries to allocate all this memory, and the system immediately begins thrashing, ...
nibot's user avatar
  • 2,077
21 votes
3 answers
14k views

Unfreeze a frozen osx UI using ssh without shutting down all applications?

My mac freezes occasionally, and most often I simply restart it by holding down the power button for 5+ seconds. Today however, I had been running a huge file scan for 14 hours when the UI froze ...
Motin's user avatar
  • 1,085
19 votes
1 answer
4k views

What is the best way to identify what caused a CPU spike?

In Windows Task Manager History I can see that there was a CPU spike and my computer freezes. And I can see when I sort the view on highest CPU percentage which processes take most of the CPU. But ...
Z0q's user avatar
  • 407
19 votes
1 answer
23k views

Windows 10 equivalent to 'explorer.exe'

I am an early adopter of Windows 10, and I am a .NET / Web developer so I like to push the bounds a bit when testing out a new OS. I also try to work against the latest / freshest builds available. ...
Glenn Ferrie's user avatar
18 votes
3 answers
22k views

How do I create a memory dump of my computer freeze or crash?

As a lot of us encounter freezes or crashes, I am wondering how do I manually initiate a computer to freeze in order to create a memory dump to view and diagnose any issues that may be involved with ...
18 votes
5 answers
18k views

Windows 8: 100% SSD Activity, 0 R/W Speed: System Hang Issue

Experienced a weird issue with my Windows 8 system where it hangs and it is very unresponsive at random intervals of time (in fact, the first clue that I had an issue was when boot to desktop time was ...
anonalchemist's user avatar
16 votes
7 answers
7k views

Why does Windows still have the BSOD on Ctrl+Scroll+Scroll "feature"?

Background information While Windows XP came out I heard about a testing feature that existed to manually cause a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death). I also heard this was supposed to be removed in XP ...
Kredns's user avatar
  • 3,027
16 votes
1 answer
6k views

What determines whether or not Caps Lock responds while the computer is frozen?

When a computer is not responding in some way, there are different levels of "frozen". For example, let's say I'm browsing the web on my PC... If the current browser tab stops responding (clicking/...
Bort's user avatar
  • 1,554
16 votes
1 answer
2k views

increase desktop responsiveness on linux while swapping

All GNU/Linux distributions I tested so far have the problem that whenever the ram gets filled and the system begins swapping, the whole desktop and graphical user interface becomes unresponsive as ...
FSMaxB's user avatar
  • 1,729
16 votes
0 answers
7k views

How do I troubleshoot a Windows 7 freeze or slowness? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: What are the first steps for diagnosing a slow machine? I have a new pc with windows 7 which freezes randomly. I hit every single key on the keyboard and it works again. Is ...
Jason Martin's user avatar
15 votes
15 answers
50k views

Interrupting the "Spinning Wheel of Death"?

I am running Snow Leopard. It is up to date. Every few days, I get the "Spinning Wheel of Death." I can't do anything except hold down the power button to shut off my MacBook Pro. I've even tried a ...
14 votes
2 answers
15k views

'Performance' tab of the task manager is frozen [duplicate]

The 'Performance' tab of the task manager is frozen in Windows 10 (V1909). I can select options to change the views of the graph but this screen is particularly frozen. It happened all of a sudden and ...
Alvee's user avatar
  • 143
14 votes
6 answers
57k views

Windows 10 Often Freezes When Saving or Opening Files

I've had this rather annoying issue since I first upgraded to Windows 10 (not via upgrade, but fresh install). Whenever W10 opens the Open or Save dialog (i.e. you press Ctrl + S or Ctrl + O in most ...
Cake Princess's user avatar
14 votes
10 answers
20k views

Why would Thunderbird regularly hang for 10 seconds

I've been using the Thunderbird e-mail client for years on three different operating systems: XP, Vista, Windows 7. On all of these operating systems, it has always had the problem of e.g. I'll be ...
Edward Tanguay's user avatar
13 votes
5 answers
19k views

Hung process in Windows: Is there any way to see why?

I tried to print a doc in word, and word froze. Is there any way for me to see what resource it's waiting for? I'm using windows XP and word 2007 (though I imagine the answer doesn't depend on the ...
Nathan Fellman's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
68k views

What to do when Windows 7 appears to hang during the installation of updates?

The following message has been displayed on the screen for the last almost hour or so: I'm guessing something went wrong and it's stuck in some sort of infinite loop or it's waiting for some event ...
Nathan Osman's user avatar
  • 2,772
11 votes
6 answers
43k views

Why does my Windows 7 PC / SSD drive keep freezing?

I have a ~1 yr old PC with a primary SSD hard drive. I notice quite often that the PC will freeze for 30secs to several minutes, displaying the "Spinning blue wheel" mouse icon during this period. ...
rob levin's user avatar
  • 195
11 votes
2 answers
9k views

VirtualBox 5.0.40 freezes on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-bit for no clear reason

Starting last night, with no apparent changes to my system, VirtualBox now freezes my host OS when starting any virtual machine. The host OS is Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-bit as is the guest OS and the ...
Tac-Tics's user avatar
  • 211
11 votes
2 answers
12k views

Solid State Drive Occasionally Freezes For A Minute While OS Is "Beach Balling"

Almost a month ago I bought Intel 330 128GB solid state drive, migrated my data with Intel branded limited-feature Acronis from old HDD to new SSD, optimized with Intel Toolbox and started using it. ...
Boris_yo's user avatar
  • 5,884
11 votes
3 answers
5k views

Windows 10 Freezing

I've had this issue on and off since Windows 10 went live and I'm finding a few others with similar symptoms via Google with no conclusive solution. The only semi-consistent clue I'm seeing is Windows ...
Bradley's user avatar
  • 113
10 votes
6 answers
56k views

Computer randomly freezes when playing games

My computer just randomly freezes when playing certain games. It has happened to me in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Call of Duty 4, and Blacklight: Retribution. It has not happened to me with other ...
Deniz Zoeteman's user avatar
10 votes
5 answers
194k views

Computer suddenly dies; screen displays weird flickering lines, then restarts

I've been having this terrible problem for a little while and just managed to get a picture of 'dead screen' for the first time and I am posting it to seek help. Randomly, at irregular intervals (...
CodyBugstein's user avatar
  • 1,585
10 votes
9 answers
102k views

Why does my computer freeze and make a terrible buzzing noise every once in a while?

Twice now my computer has frozen, accompanied by a terrible, angry, buzzing/beeping noise through the speakers. It is my first build, and as such I'm not really educated enough to even make a guess ...
Arthur Skirvin's user avatar
9 votes
5 answers
14k views

Why does Firefox cause high-CPU-usage "spikes" every few seconds?

When I start Firefox, I have no problems for a while, but after a couple of days, CPU spikes start to occur. During a spike, Firefox freezes and then stops. Spikes occur every seven to ten seconds, ...
Boris_yo's user avatar
  • 5,884
9 votes
8 answers
46k views

Windows 7 remote desktop hangs after a successful login

I had the below symptoms: I remote to my computer, and after I login, the welcome screen comes out and hangs, I minimized the window and maximize again, then the remote desktop window became black ...
User2012384's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
2k views

How can I interrupt emacs opening a large file?

Sporadically when I open a large file in emacs it will hang forever, except the GUI will remain responsive! I can move my mouse between frames and the cursor will fill in, hovering over files in dired ...
Joseph Garvin's user avatar
9 votes
6 answers
30k views

Putty freezes at random when logging into a remote machine in another continent

I have to ssh to a remote machine in Europe from Asia every day for my work. But Putty freezes sometimes at totally random times and I have no choice but to close and re-open a new ssh session. It's ...
Srikanth's user avatar
  • 4,999
9 votes
7 answers
60k views

Computer not responding when creating a folder

I have Windows 10. I've noticed that whenever I'm trying to create a folder on the Documents folder the Windows Explorer stops to respond and the whole computer gets stuck. How can I resolve this?
Ido Naveh's user avatar
  • 185
9 votes
1 answer
4k views

What do I do when a program stops responding?

When a program stops responding, and turns gray and the box that says "this program is no longer responding" comes up, How do I know when to close the window, and when do I wait for it to respond?
wizlog's user avatar
  • 13.4k
9 votes
3 answers
13k views

Why does Windows 7 mouse freeze after resuming from sleep?

A similar question previously posted at Super User is Why does my Windows 7 computer freeze after waking up from Sleep?, but none of the previous answers intially appeared to solve my problem or were ...
user81992's user avatar
  • 121
8 votes
3 answers
27k views

How to unfreeze drive in Linux?

I run sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda results: Security: Master password revision code = [redacted just in case it's sensitive data] supported not enabled not locked ...
user138072's user avatar
8 votes
7 answers
36k views

How to diagnose repeated freezing of Windows 7 (comes back alive for a few seconds)

I installed Windows 7 in a 3-year-old machine. It installed successfully, took all drivers and running great, but every 5-6 minutes it freezes for a few seconds... 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then it ...
Akash Kava's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
4k views

RPC hangs Windows?

I am using Windows 10 on HP EliteBook 850 G4. In last few months, sometimes there occurs a hang of the system. Firefox shows "Does not respond", explorer.exe (task panel) doesn't respond, but I can ...
DangeMask's user avatar
  • 183
8 votes
7 answers
2k views

How to diagnose Firefox freezes

How can I find what is causing Firefox to periodically freeze?
dale's user avatar
  • 81
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

Linux UI frequently freezes for <1 second

The Linux Desktop (Xubuntu 16.04) freezes frequently (multiple times a minute) for less than 1-2 seconds and then returns operating normally. During the freeze only the mouse cursor is movable. The ...
Guido Krömer's user avatar

1
2 3 4 5
40