Vista Issues, Again...

I've been using Vista for quite a while now... but its been acting up as of late.

It randomly stalls. In the sense pauses, becomes unresponsive, and then continues after a few seconds as if nothing happened.
If I open up some folders, they take over thirty seconds to display the contents, even if there are only a few files in them.
The mouse doesn't get stuck during these stalls.
During these stalls, the cursor changes into the loading one [the green whirly thing]
The frequency of the stalls is variable. Sometimes, it stalls five times in a minute, or not even once in an hour,
The above are COMPLETELY random. An event that causes it to stall once need not stall it if recreated.

On my part, there is nothing I have really installed newly or anything. It just seems to have started off on its own!

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I can't seem to put my finger on the problem.

Config :

E6550
MSI P6N SLi V2
2*1GB 667 MHz DDR2 [Transcend]
160 GB SATA [Seagate]
XFX 8600GT 256 MB
All components are at stock speeds and voltages
Vista Ultimate, patched with latest hotfixes.

If you think there isn't any virus then re-install vista

No viruses.. checked with two scanners.. NOD32 and AVG...

Reinstall? How is that going to help? The problem just cropped up all of a sudden! I don't want to reinstall Vista for no reason.. I mean it is kind of a tedious process....

O

check the rams and HDD cables if they are seated properly

Checked... all connections are secure..

anything else?

A

Run a good anti-spyware (though I don't think this might help, but still give it a try

).

Also check if any files are corrupted using the Vista repair mode!

S

Run a Linux Live CD/DVD to work in Linux mode... Use if for a while... If similar problem occurs, you are more likely dealing with hardware issues and not software issues... On the other hand, if you have no problem with it, may be you have some issues on your Vista installation or some malware problems... Try working in safe mode for a while also...

Arun

I had a similar problem while using Avast antivirus with Vista. May be due to some incompatible programs. Try uninstalling any programs recently installed.

I'm starting to think its a Hard Disk issue... because my RAM checked out clean [ran MemTest for over 8 hours]... what else can it be?

I really don't think its something to do with Vista, coz I actually had Ubuntu on dual boot, and when I tried logging on to that to see if the problem extended into Ubuntu, then it just ran a disk scan and started throwing up errors... I rebooted into Vista and ran SeaTools, the diagnostic utility to scan my disks and its not detecting my HDD!!!

I actually ran diagnostics before with SeaTools, so what's up now?! Any alternative tools to check for HDD issues?

But what's bugging me is that the OS has no reason to constantly access the HDD right? I mean when I'm.. say.. surfing the web, then its all running from the RAM right? Why should the HDD be accessed at all? Is it? I'm not too sure.

Also, I noticed that the problem increases when I perform tasks that are HDD intensive.. like playing a video or even a song!

Update : okay, now I'm nearly sure that its a HDD issue. I managed to log onto Ubuntu and the problem isn't nearly as bad as Vista, but its there. When I try to access my HDD from Ubuntu, the file browser crashes. The same stalling thing also happens, but rarely.

Are there any tools apart from SeaTools I can use? And how is it that my HDD is not showing up in SeaTools? Is it like.. fake or something? Is that even possible? :sad:

Anybody?

Download Hirens BootCD and burn it on a CD. Boot through this CD. It has many HDD checking software.

I trust whenever you are noticing these stalls, you would be hearing a clicking noise from your harddisk.You hear these noises whenever there are bad sectors. Check your hard disk for bad sectors.