Computer freezing and going unresponsive..help?

[technub9]

I had a issue with my computer freezing and going unresponsive a month or so ago and didn't think much of it but its happening more frequently now.
I noticed it first when my computer would freeze up when playing a game and trying to open up task manager was delayed.
I notice that programs will freeze up and go unresponsive. I can't close, minimize them. I try opening up task manager and its delayed by a few minutes. I also try to load pages, etc and i get the spinning loading bar when trying to connect to websites. I'm not sure what's going on but i really need to fix this.

 

[techgeek]

I've seen this once on one of my builds quite a few years ago. I started to happen right after re-installing Windows. When it would happen, I had control over the mouse, but nothing would open or respond to mouse clicks. It was very random, but eventually I noticed while troubleshooting the issue my HDD would make a clicking noise. As soon as the clicking noise stopped, I would gain control of my computer again. I ran a battery of tests on my HDD, but everything came back clean. I e-mailed Western Digital (I had a WD drive in warranty) explaining the situation, not really requesting an RMA at that point, but they sent me an RMA number and asked I return the drive. I didn't actually wait for the RMA, I purchased another drive locally and re-installed. I left the new RMA replacement on the shelf until my next build.

The weird thing was the drive was fine prior to the re-install. The only thing I could figure out was that it was borderline and the stress of formatting, and re-installing Windows put it over the edge.

So if you have your OS on a HDD, you may want to have a look there.

 

[technub9]

Also notice my sound is staticy when this issue occurs. I'll try to open another window on my browser and it will hang for a few minutes then load.

 

[technub9]

Can anyone help me with troubleshooting this?

 

[techgeek]

First I would start off with any program that reads your SMART data from your HDD. Crystal Disk Info will do this. Make sure it shows your OS drive in good health. Other options are WD Diagnostics or Seatools from Seagate. These have further tests in them as well.

Assuming the first option doesn't come back with any revealing information, then I would run a Command Prompt window (ran as Administrator) and enter:

chkdsk c: /r (assuming your OS drive is letter C

It will tell you it can't run on a volume in use, and asks you if you want to schedule it for the next restart. Answer 'Y' and restart. This will check the filesystem for errors and scan the surface of the drive for bad sectors. Now you didn't give any system specs, but the chkdsk procedure assumes a hard drive (HDD) and not a solid state drive (SSD). If its a SSD, please advise.

 

[technub9]

The computer went through a chkdsk when i restarted the computer. Looks like it had to repair some stuff. Should i still run those other programs to check the health of the hdd?

 

[techgeek]

Running Crystal Disk Info, just reads the SMART data and tells you the health based on that data. It doesn't take long.