Windows Programs are not running fully

Hi everyone,

I am trying to diagnose my brothers computer and some of the programs are not running properly.

So far I have tried Firefox, IE, McAfee, League of Legends, CPU-ID, Disk management, Task Manager, and iTunes. Only Firefox, IE, Task manager, and McAfee are not running properly; they get stuck in the loading process or freezes.

Task Manager: 3 of them presently showing in the icon section

McAfee: Stuck at 0% of scanning

LoL is stuck in an update and has not moved.

IE: does not load the default site or google

Firefox: freezes after searching for someting

I am guessing it is either the motherboard or the hard drive as those are the only 2 I can think of that can cause the problem. His rig has a good PSU and just added RAM from one of my old rigs, so I ruled those out as the problem.

Only thing I moved around in the case was the main hard drive as it was not mounted in the rack and was sitting in a 3.5 in. bay (reason: older case with outdated mounting racks, just found the old rack mounts and remounted the drive, as FYI for some).

NOTE: Just found out as I'm typing this, it is getting stuck in the shut down process while I was restarting the computer.

Any help would be helpful. Here is his rig specs:

AMD Phenom II X2 545 (AM3) CPU
ECS IC780M-A Motherboard
2x G.Skill DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM (added to rig)
2x OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM (original sticks)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 (upgrade from a 8600 GT)
Hard Drive WDC WD1600AAJS-22WAA0 ATA
Hard Drive WDC WD1600JB-00GVA0 ATA
500W PSU
1x DVD Drive ASUS DRW-24B1ST ATA

 

- Put your ear near the case and listen for a tick/clicking sound.
- Does the HDD usage light go rock solid when trying to load things?

 

I wouldnt personally jump straight to hardware. Stick a linux live CD in and use the browser on there, if it works its most likely a software/windows/driver issue.

A simple format and reinstall will fix that, as long as it may sound, and you will be mostly sure it is fixed!

 

Phalanx: I watched the HDD light as it was in the shut down phase of the restart and it was not flashing rapidly. It was acting as if the hard drive was idle.

I will check to see if there are any clicking noises when I get home.

matt_lumley: I have Linux on a USB. I will give that a try as well.

The OS is Windows 7 32-bit and is only about 4 months old after upgrading from XP.

 

If it was an upgrade install over the top, I would just go ahead and do a clean install if it isn't a drive issue. Trying to fix Windows is often an exercise in futility once it starts behaving badly. My bet is on a damaged Windows install as well, but I would still run diagnostic on the drive before just to make sure. I would also take this opportunity to install the x64 version of 7 instead.

 

For the upgrade, I completely wiped the drive before installing 7, I have done this many times with my builds and I made sure nothing would interrupt the process.

But I will run a chkdsk if the Linux ends up working properly.

 

Hi guys,

Here is my update. I am suspecting the hard drive is dying for the reasons below:

I ran linux off my flashdrive and the internet part did work (no freezes or internet issues).

I did a disk check and it did find some bad sectors. I also ran a defrag after it.

Right now I have found several more problems involving software: McAfee is taking a lot longer to reactivate its real-time scanning feature and now it is stuck.

Windows defender showed a "Check for new definition" window prompt and I tried clicking "Go online to view troubleshooting tips" and it gives me an error saying "There was a problem sending the command to the program."

And firefox is still freezing when trying to open.

Task manager works now but I do not know when it will freeze again.

UPDATE: As I was writing this, I noticed that the computer will also not shut down without manually shutting it down. Also, the HDD activity light is not flashing during shutdown.

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What do you guys think?

 

Yeah it sounds like the hard drive is dying but that's just my opinion. Have you tried wiping the hard drive and reinstall windows 7 yet?? It's probably a bad install or something.. Also have you got another hard drive to install Windows 7 on??