Originally online games freezing 2-5 seconds, now all games and videos have the freezing and occurs every 10 seconds-1 min.

Roxorzboxorz

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Feb 26, 2014
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4,510
Hey everyone, as I was trying to troubleshoot this issue many of the links led me to this site, sorry if this is the wrong section!

How the issue started:
I had taken breaks from MMOs for a while and played some simpler games where I noticed no issues at all. Then I got my Elder Scrolls Online beta invite and that changed, I noticed while on the beta that my screen would freeze up every 2-3 min and everyone else would speed ahead after unfreeze. I assumed this was just a beta issue and wrote it off as such. After beta ended I went back and tried World of Warcraft again, I noticed the freezing issue on here as well but it happened every 4-5 minutes instead. As time went on, freezes got closer and closer together. Now (as of two nights ago) simple games have began to freeze and even videos and webpages. When the freezes occur audio never stops!

Specs (older computer):

CPU: Inspiron 530, Intel Duo Core 2 E7300 @ 2.66 GHz, Windows 8.1 Pro, 8GB RAM (4x2) DDR2.

GPU: Nvidia 9800 gt

Troubleshooting I have tried:

-Deep scans with multiple antivirus/anti-malware softwares (all installed at different times)

-Installing various older drivers for my GPU and resetting my GPU each time I did this.

-Ensuring all drivers were up to date (Using the automatic one in device manager and Dell website)

-Using HD Tuner to check for HDD errors and it found none

-Using memtest+ to search for RAM errors and it found none

-Using CPU-z and GPU-z to check temperatures, none were too high

-Using msi Afterburner to increase fan speed on GPU (no change noticed)

-CPU usage hit a maximum of 80%, RAM usage max of 21%, GPU load hit a max of 40%.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this, may have missed some troubleshooting steps I took as I've been trying to fix this actively for 2 weeks. If I cannot fix this looking into buying a new computer because this machine is getting old, but saving it would be nice.

Noticed as I was typing this out twice the freeze occured then what I had typed out came up 4-6 seconds later
 
Solution
During freezes, is your HDD light on? If so, your swap file may be corrupt. Rename the existing one, in order to create a new one in a different area on the drive, then delete the old one to recover the space.

Roxorzboxorz

Reputable
Feb 26, 2014
2
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4,510


Yes HDD light is on during this time, and I had not heard of swap file being corrupt but now that you mention that, every time that I run antivirus there was a warning I got back saying something along the lines of "swap file could not be searched!" but didn't think much of it. Will look up how to do this now.

Edit: Trying to look up how to change swap file name only brings me a bunch of linux stuff, when I add in Windows 8.1 I get a bunch of links explaining how to swap file names sorry for my lack of experience in this area!
 
I'm glad rebuilding your swap file helped, but I agree with your remark in your PM that it is probably time for a new system if you want more significant improvement. Even a modest new build featuring an i3 or FX-6300 and a GTX750Ti will trounce the machine you are running now.