General Music Chat

...as I use my computer for recording, editing videos, posting music online, etc.

HP with 6G RAM, 1T hard drive, running Win7. Did a 'Windows download/update' about 2 weeks ago that totally f*cked the system, had to restart in SAFE mode, and do a system restore to get rid of it. But even before that, I had occasions when the browser (Chrome, Firefox or IE) would just freeze up for a minute or 3 and couldn't do a thing until it unfroze. Since that update/restore, its been worse, and I have to do a cold reboot (hold power button in until it shuts down) to unfreeze it.
Did all sorts of diagnostics, Checkdisk, malware/virus scans, Deleted all the crap stuff using CCleaner, Reinstalled video drivers. Acting a bit better now, but still can freeze up 1-3 times (requiring cold reboot) before it stabilizes.
Haven't been doing much recording recently, but thinking I should just get another computer for all my photo and video processing and leave this one for my music work as I never seem to have an issues when just doing that.
Of course a new computer means probably having to go to Win10, so don't like that idea much, but at least my music stuff can stay with the old system and drivers and gear.

For diagnostic purposes, use a process analyzer, or at least task manager, when you're running the browser (whichever one). As you go to websites, watch CPU utilization and memory usage; if they 'hit the wall,' kill the browser process, and you'll at least have control of your machine (no need for a cold boot). Even before that, I'd go ahead and whack all the cookies; dunno if you have the auto-login/password thing going, but I'd get rid of that and physically login each time you need to. It's a good security measure.

From what you describe, I doubt there's anything wrong w/ your machine (altho copying the important, music-related stuff to another box is a good idea)--it's the code in the websites. If you get an app like AdBlockPlus and use the Inspector feature, you can review the actual code and see what sites are doing (and remove any code you don't want running on your machine, not to mention blocking those annoying ads). Quite often, they're loaded w/ code for snooping around on your box, finding out where you've been and what you've been doing. No, I'm not a conspiracy nut; before I went into academia, I worked in IT, and while I can't code like I once could, I still know what I'm looking at.

It's called 'data analytics' and it's a huge field--think of companies like Google, Adboo, er, Facebook and ScoreCard. Knowing your habits is big biz, and they can sell that info to companies in the form of targeted ads, etc. Even Bandmix has some of that code embedded--but to be fair, BM is pretty benign. If your browser allows you to look at the cookies in real-time (some FF versions do), start from a clean slate (no cookies) and visit a site like Gmail...and watch the cookies pile up. Many of them call code, and a lot of it is unnecessary for the user's purposes (email). A while back, the adboo, er, facebook 'like' button was big news, given the code it triggers in the background. It still does, but folks are resigned to it now.

I mentioned something I was noticing on youtube a while ago (actually, it was the link you posted for the '1000 folks playing...'); certain vids/pages trigger a lock-up of my laptop, and I need to kill the browser process to regain control; in one case (before I knew what was happening), I had to cold boot. Guess who owns youtube...

Check it out and see what you find. HTH...

I've backed up everything X3 except last night's work. Even Task Manager locks up when the freeze happens. so it's not a website's code doing it. I ran some diagnostics that found a ton of corrupted files - some it fixed, others it couldn't, so its probably Win 7 OS files, and as my computer didn't come with discs for Win (no computers do these days), I can't just grab the files and replace them.

Even Task Manager locks up when the freeze happens. so it's not a website's code doing it.

That in itself doesn't rule out web code; lock-ups happen fast, esp. if you don't keep your eye on task mgr. and are ready to kill the process. Depends on what task mgr. is telling you--if resource utilization is maxing out, that's a clear indication the web code is causing a problem. That's what happened to me in youtube. Now that I'm ready for it, I can kill the process quickly and avoid that specific page. But...

I ran some diagnostics that found a ton of corrupted files - some it fixed, others it couldn't, so its probably Win 7 OS files, and as my computer didn't come with discs for Win (no computers do these days), I can't just grab the files and replace them.

If an analyzer is telling you there are corrupted files, it would depend on what those files are; they could be files in the temp directories, in which case you can just whack 'em and reboot. Sometimes apps will use TSR (terminate & stay resident) files that can cause problems in memory. Without knowing the file names, it's impossible to tell.

If, on the other hand, the files are indeed OS files, that would suggest the problem occurred during the update. In that case, you don't need to "grab the files and replace them" or reinstall the OS; just run the update again. Microsoft updates files w/ the same name, by overwriting them, so if you reinstall the update, those files will already be there. Any legit MS update can be pulled down from their website for free.

Actually, I was just rereading what you initially posted, and from what you say, you had a problem prior to the update.

Did a 'Windows download/update' about 2 weeks ago that totally f*cked the system, had to restart in SAFE mode, and do a system restore to get rid of it. But even before that, I had occasions when the browser (Chrome, Firefox or IE) would just freeze up for a minute or 3 and couldn't do a thing until it unfroze.

As you know, you can recover the old OS files by reversing the update (not everyone does the backup during the update process--bypassing it makes the update run much faster), so that problem is eliminated. But to me, this suggests there are multiple causes. That it's been worse since the update (and "worse" is kinda vague, w/o a before-and-after snapshot) suggests something happened during the update, and you can either reverse it or reinstall it to eliminate that issue.

Based on what you say, "occasions when the browser (Chrome, Firefox or IE) would just freeze up" are likely being caused by web code. After all, you "did all sorts of diagnostics, Checkdisk, malware/virus scans, Deleted all the crap stuff using CCleaner," and a browser doesn't just lock up a machine for no reason--esp. when you say it's happening across 3 diff. browsers. I would address the issue w/ the update first, then go back and try what I suggested when you access websites, at least until you identify which sites lock up your browser. Then you can use ABP (or whatever app you want) to review the code and see what those sites are doing in the background.

Even if I leave Task manger running int e background, when it freezes up I can't look at it! I did a system restore after that crap update, so that's not the issue any longer (it was happening before anyway).
It can be ANY web page I'm on when it happens, and one day last week, it even happened when all I had going was Word. But I've never had it happen when I'm running Reaper (which I only run by itself.

Dam Mike... one of my computers starting doing the exact same thing two weeks ago "windows 10"

My only fix that worked was to re-partition the hard drive and restore the computer and software to original factory settings "windows 8.1. Then go through the process of re-loading the drivers and programs one by one.

Total pain in the butt but it worked.

An "iffy" Hard drive can also cause problems similar to the ones you are experiencing. I have had a lot of hard drives do that in the past. Mostly when that happened they were pulls from used systems, but once I had it happen with a brand new drive. I would reformat and reload all the programs and they would work for a while (or not) and then various programs on the fresh install would lock up the system.

Not saying it is that, but the symptoms can be same. Doubtful but "quirky" memory can also cause some weird symptoms. When I wasn't sure what was Once I had a bad memory stick that was a real pain.

It can be ANY web page I'm on when it happens...

You underestimate the reach of companies like Google; they don't have such high stock valuations just because they have nice maps.

...and one day last week, it even happened when all I had going was Word. But I've never had it happen when I'm running Reaper (which I only run by itself.

This is somewhat different from the initial problem you outlined--going from 'I have a problem when I use a browser' to 'well, I have a problem when I use just about any app' is a big jump...and the kind of thing that drives tech support folks to drink heavily. Since I can't remote into your machine to see what is actually going on...

Certainly, what RG suggests is an effective way to address any issues, but as he notes, it's very labor intensive, time consuming and assumes you have all the software currently installed on your machine. This is the method of last resort, but it works.

My suggestion would be to go out to technet.microsoft.com, go to sysinternals and download a process analyzer (it's free). Install and run it, and see what's going on when you use...whatever you're having a problem with. Once you pinpoint the issue, you can check the Microsoft Forums for answers, or make a post asking for assistance--folks from Microsoft monitor the forums. My caveat would be to search for the problem first (they don't like redundancy) and be clear and concise w/ any post you make (i.e., provide all the details). That would surely be preferable to doing a complete system rebuild.

Good luck.

One other thing you can do to help yourself out: every Microsoft OS has the ability to set it for dump prep--it will create a snapshot of what was going on leading up to the lock-up/crash. That is valuable info for anyone who tries to analyze the problem(s). You can do a search for your OS to determine how to set it up.

It USED to be just with the browser, now its happening in other programs. But after any X number of cold reboots eventually everything runs fine until the next time I start it up. I did run one of those MS utility analyzers, that's what found all the corrupt files (and it fixed what it could). Unfortunately, I don't have O/S and Win 7 discs to do a full system rebuild.
Although I took a bunch of computer classes 35+ years ago, I'm not too tech-savvy with new stuff. I looked around the area and a hard drive copy-and-replace form one of the local geek places would run me close to $200 (including the new HD). For $300, I can get a complete replacement tower, for $400 a tower with 2X the RAM and hard drive size (that's just today's Best Buy circular, not even looking at closeout deals.)
Seems like a no-brainer to just start anew with everything I can - I've got 2 installs left on my MS Office, and have discs for some of the older s/w I still use.

Verizon-FIOS? They don't do anything for free! I am quite sure it is a O/S problem now - the MS diagnostics I ran found a slew (the log was extremely long) of corrupt files it could not fix as there were no good files to replace them with (the HP harddrive has a partition with backup stuff on it), so the solution would be to wipe out the whole O/S and reload it - if I had the discs. The cost to have someone do that around here isn't worth it - because the HD could very well be on its way out, too - this computer is about 7 years old now. Only thing I've had to replace on it was the power supply, and the CD/DVD drive failed, so I just bought a USB replacement for it (cheapest option).
this is actually the longest I've had a computer last me for a long time. The Dells I had before (and my wife's cheap ones) all failed after 3-4 years - motherboard and/or hard drive fails each time.

Last night I ran Super Antispyware on it, and it found 1600 Adware things (all in Google Chrome), and this morning it fired right up with no freezes - totally random when it does freeze.