"Not Responding"

[Juan Wei]

Far too frequently, I see "Not Responding" in the title bar of a program
-- browsers, email client, spreadsheet, word processor, etc.

I have Process Explorer running and always check to see if the display
is active and what the total CPU usage is. It rarely shows more than 10-15%.

The "Not Responding" delay can run as long as 30 seconds and is very
irritating.

How can I get this to stop?

Thank you.

 

[s|b]

Far too frequently, I see "Not Responding" in the title bar of a program
-- browsers, email client, spreadsheet, word processor, etc.

I have Process Explorer running and always check to see if the display
is active and what the total CPU usage is. It rarely shows more than 10-15%.

The "Not Responding" delay can run as long as 30 seconds and is very
irritating.

How can I get this to stop?

How much RAM do you have installed?

 

[Bob I]

Far too frequently, I see "Not Responding" in the title bar of a program
-- browsers, email client, spreadsheet, word processor, etc.

I have Process Explorer running and always check to see if the display
is active and what the total CPU usage is. It rarely shows more than 10-15%.

The "Not Responding" delay can run as long as 30 seconds and is very
irritating.

How can I get this to stop?

Thank you.

You wouldn't happen to be using Norton Anti-virus "Real Time" Scanner
would you?

 

[Juan Wei]

s|b has written on 6/29/2013 3:53 PM:

How much RAM do you have installed?

8 GB

 

[Wolf K]

Far too frequently, I see "Not Responding" in the title bar of a program
-- browsers, email client, spreadsheet, word processor, etc.

I have Process Explorer running and always check to see if the display
is active and what the total CPU usage is. It rarely shows more than 10-15%.

The "Not Responding" delay can run as long as 30 seconds and is very
irritating.

How can I get this to stop?

Thank you.

AFAIK, this means that Windows is trying to resolve a priority conflict.
Dithering about which thread to execute, IOW. And I don't know a cure,
but it seems to happen most often when switching between two 32-but
programs, that is, start a task in one, and switch to or start a task in
the other one. (This box runs Win8, 64 bit). So the cure might be not
to do that.

HTH

 

[Paul]

You wouldn't happen to be using Norton Anti-virus "Real Time" Scanner
would you?

In a thread here, someone had good luck by removing AVG.

http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/32528-not-responding-2.html

Paul

 

[Juan Wei]

Bob I has written on 6/29/2013 4:09 PM:

You wouldn't happen to be using Norton Anti-virus "Real Time" Scanner
would you?

Nope. And if I were, wouldn't it eat CPU cycles and show up in Process
Explorer?

 

[Juan Wei]

Paul has written on 6/29/2013 5:36 PM:

In a thread here, someone had good luck by removing AVG.

http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/32528-not-responding-2.html

Already did that.

 

[Juan Wei]

Wolf K has written on 6/29/2013 4:21 PM:

AFAIK, this means that Windows is trying to resolve a priority conflict.
Dithering about which thread to execute, IOW. And I don't know a cure,
but it seems to happen most often when switching between two 32-but
programs, that is, start a task in one, and switch to or start a task in
the other one.

Wouldn't that show up in Process Explorer as CPU usage?

And it does happen when I switch but not immediately. How does one tell
if a program is 32-bit or 64 (other than looking in c:\program files)?

 

[Stan Brown]

AFAIK, this means that Windows is trying to resolve a priority conflict.
Dithering about which thread to execute, IOW. And I don't know a cure,
but it seems to happen most often when switching between two 32-but
programs, that is, start a task in one, and switch to or start a task in
the other one. (This box runs Win8, 64 bit). So the cure might be not
to do that.

That makes sense in light of my experience. I see "Not Responding" a
LOT more in Windows 7 than I ever did in Windows XP. But it's not
just 64-bit Win 7. At work I see it quite a lot too, and there I use
32-bit Windows.

I think part of it is just better reporting -- Win XP would take
quite a long time to put "Not Responding" in the title bar of a
frozen program. In getting Win 7 to recognize that condition faster,
Microsoft seems to have gone a little too far.

Something they still have not fixed is the absurdly long timeouts for
unavailable devices. If I accidentally click the DVD drive in
Explorer, for example, Windows locks up for what seems like a whole
minute until it finally realizes that there's no disk in the drive.

 

[Wolf K]

Wolf K has written on 6/29/2013 4:21 PM:

Wouldn't that show up in Process Explorer as CPU usage?

And it does happen when I switch but not immediately. How does one tell
if a program is 32-bit or 64 (other than looking in c:\program files)?

32-bit prgms are in /Program Files (x86).

OTOH, of you have no 32-bit programs, maybe we've encountered a bug in
Win 8's thread-handling.

 

[Dave-UK]

Something they still have not fixed is the absurdly long timeouts for
unavailable devices. If I accidentally click the DVD drive in
Explorer, for example, Windows locks up for what seems like a whole
minute until it finally realizes that there's no disk in the drive.

I don't think it's a Windows problem.
When I double-click on my empty DVD drive icon with Windows explorer
the drive door slides open and a message box appears immediately saying:
" Please insert a disc into drive D:."

 

[choro]

I don't think it's a Windows problem.
When I double-click on my empty DVD drive icon with Windows explorer
the drive door slides open and a message box appears immediately saying:
" Please insert a disc into drive D:."

How I wish all the beautiful girls I meet were as inviting as that!--
choro
*****

 

[Juan Wei]

Wolf K has written on 6/30/2013 8:08 AM:

32-bit prgms are in /Program Files (x86).

OTOH, of you have no 32-bit programs, maybe we've encountered a bug in
Win 8's thread-handling.

Win 7. The 32-bit programs I use regularly are:

Evernote (background)
Everything (bg)
Fast Stone Capture (bg)
Kingsoft Office
Malwarebytes Antimalware (bg)
Firefox
Thunderbird
Opera
Stardock Fences (bg)
Maxthon browser
Slimbrowser

 

[Paul]

Wolf K has written on 6/30/2013 8:08 AM:

Win 7. The 32-bit programs I use regularly are:

Evernote (background)
Everything (bg)
Fast Stone Capture (bg)
Kingsoft Office
Malwarebytes Antimalware (bg)
Firefox
Thunderbird
Opera
Stardock Fences (bg)
Maxthon browser
Slimbrowser

Remove Malwarebytes Antimalware and retest ?

I presume this is the paid version, with real-time protection.

Paul

 

[Juan Wei]

Paul has written on 6/30/2013 2:32 PM:

Remove Malwarebytes Antimalware and retest ?

I presume this is the paid version, with real-time protection.

Yes, that's what I meant by (background).

 

[Johnny]

Far too frequently, I see "Not Responding" in the title bar of a program
-- browsers, email client, spreadsheet, word processor, etc.

I have Process Explorer running and always check to see if the display
is active and what the total CPU usage is. It rarely shows more than 10-15%.

The "Not Responding" delay can run as long as 30 seconds and is very
irritating.

How can I get this to stop?

Thank you.

The only time I ever had a problem with a program not responding was
when I was typing an Email in Thunderbird. I would be typing away, and
look up and the letters were not appearing. After a short time, they
would just pop up.

I thought the problem was with Thunderbird, but it was with Firefox, and
it only happened when I left a certain website open in Firefox, while
writing an Email in Thunderbird.

I really think the problem was caused by the Shockwave Flash Plug in.

I solved the problem by uninstalling Firefox, and the only way to really
do that is to delete your profile.

Yes, Firefox was using 100% of the CPU.

 

[Juan Wei]

Johnny has written on 6/30/2013 6:11 PM:

The only time I ever had a problem with a program not responding was
when I was typing an Email in Thunderbird. I would be typing away, and
look up and the letters were not appearing. After a short time, they
would just pop up.

I thought the problem was with Thunderbird, but it was with Firefox, and
it only happened when I left a certain website open in Firefox, while
writing an Email in Thunderbird.

I really think the problem was caused by the Shockwave Flash Plug in.

I solved the problem by uninstalling Firefox, and the only way to really
do that is to delete your profile.

Yes, Firefox was using 100% of the CPU.

Thanks but that's not what's happening here. I have Process Explorer
running and can assure you that my CPU use is way below 100%.

Did you get "Not Responding" in the title bar? If not, your animal and
mine are different.

Thanks anyway.

 

[Johnny]

Johnny has written on 6/30/2013 6:11 PM:

Thanks but that's not what's happening here. I have Process Explorer
running and can assure you that my CPU use is way below 100%.

Did you get "Not Responding" in the title bar? If not, your animal and
mine are different.

Thanks anyway.

Yes, Thunderbird had Not Responding in the title bar.

 

[Paul]

Johnny has written on 6/30/2013 6:11 PM:

Thanks but that's not what's happening here. I have Process Explorer
running and can assure you that my CPU use is way below 100%.

Did you get "Not Responding" in the title bar? If not, your animal and
mine are different.

Thanks anyway.

"Not responding" can easily occur, if you're stuck in a kernel call.
There would be no indication on the %CPU display, if that happens.
And AV programs are the sort of things, that screw around with *everything*.
Which is why removing them, is a start.

You can set up a kernel debugger, connect the PC via serial cable to
a second PC, and debug the machine that way. I've never done it,
and I doubt I'd be successful getting it to run in any case. It's
that ugly. I have a pretty poor record, getting debuggers to run.
The one in Visual Studio wasn't bad (that's an application level
debugger). At least I managed to single-step that one. At least
some of the free debuggers out there, they don't have good
docs for naive users like myself (GDB comes to mind).

The idea would be, if you got stuck in a kernel call for long enough,
you could go to the second PC, and see if the kernel debugger is
responding or not.

Paul