Windows 7 laptop freezes for half a second every minute or so

Question

I have a Dell Inspiron 14z latop, with an i5-2450M CPU (running at 2.5Ghz), 8 Gb of memory, and a Kingston SVP200S3 solid-state drive (120 Gb). I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate, 64bit on it.

My problems started a few days ago, out of the blue. I first noticed it while watching Youtube videos - the video and sound would freeze for half a second to a second (audio still on, but corrupted), and this would happen every minute or so. I attributed it to an error with Adobe Flash player. The problem is, when I played a movie later on using VLC player, the same thing would happen.

Finally, I noticed that even if I have all programs closed, and just move the mouse in circles on the desktop, the same thing would happen - mouse freezes for half a second, then it works again.

I rand Dell SupportAssist stress tests on the CPU and RAM, and nothing comes out of it. I still haven't run the SSD test, as it might take a few hours.

Any suggestions as to what might be causing this? What other software could I use to diagnose the problem?

Thanks!

possible duplicate of How to diagnose repeated freezing of windows 7 (comes back alive in few seconds) — DavidPostill, Feb 15 '15 at 13:53
I looked at that question, and tried Process Manager. The spikes that appear in CPU usage when the laptop freezes are labeled as "Interrupts". What does that mean? — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 14:17
Hmmm, so it's on to reinstalling drivers, I guess. Any way I can check if something's wrong with my hardware? — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 14:21
Playing videos would all happen in the RAM. So I wouldn't think it has to do with the SSD. — E.V.I.L., Feb 15 '15 at 14:29
It could be a failing hard drive (paging to disk). Does your drive have smart? — DavidPostill, Feb 15 '15 at 14:35
@DavidPostill Not sure what "smart" means. It's an SSD. btw, I just tried MooO System Monitor as well, but it wasn't able to tell me anything. — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 14:36
@MadTomVane This happen all the time, not just when playing videos - even while I'm typing this. — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 14:37
How can I read my hard drive's SMART status in Windows 7?. See also Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox — DavidPostill, Feb 15 '15 at 14:38
Here's the readout from the online test in SpeedFan 4.50: http://imgur.com/mV1skiR — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 14:46
And here's a logfile output from HijackThis: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/8d8257ef5ee0937ce949 — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 14:54
@DavidPostill Finally, the 'mytrace' file from Windows Performance Analyzer: https://www.sendspace.com/file/enjk7e Just shows a 'break' in everything, and that's it! — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 15:33
OK, so apparently, the problem is in two processes: DellDataVault.exe and DellDataVaultWiz.exe which I spotted using MooO System Monitor. So, all that's left is to remove them from the system! — neuron, Feb 15 '15 at 15:49

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 15 '15 at 21:08

1

After using MooO System Monitor (and it took a little bit of paying attention what's happening), it turned out two services were the culprits: DellDataVault.exe and DellDataVaultWiz.exe, both of which I disabled using msconfig.

Unfortunately, I'm still not sure why they were causing the issues, not why they started causing them suddenly - I didn't install them myself recently.

answered Feb 15 '15 at 21:08

neuron

133

You likely never installed them. They are only installed on Dell computers. But it sounds like they were accessing a bad HDD which was causing I/O errors – Ramhound Feb 15 '15 at 21:13
@Ramhound I have a SSD drive. You think there could be hardware issues? Any way to check if the hard drive is getting out of shape? – neuron Feb 15 '15 at 21:19
You tell me? Is the drive healthy? But Windows not responding is a classic sign of an I/O error – Ramhound Feb 15 '15 at 21:20
@Ramhound This is the readout from SpeedFan: http://imgur.com/mV1skiR Any ideas? – neuron Feb 15 '15 at 21:37

Windows 7 laptop freezes for half a second every minute or so

1 Answers1