Computer Lockups
First up, allow me to apologise if this issue has been raised in this forum before. As you may guess, I've only recently "discovered" this forum. I've been driven to make this post by virtue of the fact that my computer has locked-up on me twice within the last 12 hours. In fact, it seems that hardly a day goes by when I don't experience this at least once.
But the thought occurred to me that I've never kept any formal stats on it. Thus, in my brand of logic, it followed that others may well have experienced the same "phenomenon". I'm not referring here to "crashes" because that's a whole other subject area, as far as I'm concerned and I hope this thread can avoid any such references for however long it manages to run.
Anyway, the lack of stats forced me to consider how and why a lockup occurs. So, first up, let me try to define what I believe a lockup to be. In my experience, it can happen on shut-down ... ie the shutdown process simply halts at some stage. I may, or may not, get some advance warning of the occurrnce when my mouse ceases to operate, or when one or more programs are "not responding". This latter case, in my experience, occurs more as a sequential thing than an "all at once" concept - thus, one program stops responding, so you close it, only to find that another has ceased responding, and so on.
Sometimes, the very act of closing a program in these circumstances by aborting it using the Ctrl+Alt+Delete buttons (to bring up the "Close Program" window), will also result in the aborting of one or more of the programs whose icons are in the "tray".
So I began to wonder if the lockup problem manifests itself in :
(a) certain types of computers; and/or
(b) certain brands of computers; and/or
(c) certain types of operating systems; and/or
(d) certain types of processors; and/or
(e) the amount of disk space and RAM available to the operating system and how the so-called "virtual memory" is setup; and/or
(f) certain types of internet activity - ie with lots of browser windows open and checking mail at the same time; and/or
(g) certain types of computer usage - ie whether or not the a computer user is : (1) a so-called "power user" (one whole tinkers with lots of things that are not necessarily internet-related); and/or (2) a computer programmer.
(h) the use of a firewall; and/or
(i) the use of various types of e-mail protection programs - eg anti-virus, anti-spam.
All of this immediately started to seem too hard for me to work out, so I thought that I'd create a bit of a questionnaire and hope that everone who reads this thread will make the necessary contribution to it. But now the issues of privacy and security arise, so any such questionnaire probably has to be phrased such that the answers only need to be "general", rather than specific. That would probably tend to negate the value of the exercise.
Anyway, with all of that in mind, I thought that it might still be worthwhile to go ahead with the questionnaire and hope that the "general" answers may provide some useful clues that may be of benefit to all of us. I'll kick this off by setting up the questionnaire and providing the answers as they relate to me. I guess the best way for others to contribute to it would be to do a "copy and paste" of the questionnaire, obviously including my responses, then change the responses to fit your own circumstances.
At the very least, I'll find out if the questions should be different, or if additional questions need to be asked - or if the whole thing is unique to me! I'm content to let the cards fall however they must fall. I just hope that neither the questions, nor the answers, will fall foul of PPRuNe rules/standards.
QUESTIONNAIRE - COMPUTER LOCKUPS
1. Approximately how often do you experience a lockup? :
At least once per day.
2. What type of computer? (eg desktop, laptop/notebook, palm) :
Laptop/Notebook
3. What brand of computers? :
Asus (Asian brand of IBM compatible machine)
4. What type of operating system? (anything from about Windows 3.11 to XP, Mac, Linux, etc) :
Windows 98
5. What type of processor? (eg Pentium, Celeron, other?) :
Pentium 3
6. How is "virtual memory" setup? (approx disk space available AND approx total RAM) :
I have configured it so that Windows uses all the RAM (128 MB), and can use diskspace as required.
7. What are your most common types of internet activity? :
E-mail, Bulletin Boards (such as PPRuNe), some surfing. I can often have three or more browser windows open at a time.
8. Which web browser do you use (the most)? (eg Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) :
Internet Explorer v6
9. What type of computer usage? (eg occasional, frequent, heavy, addict, etc) :
Hmmm... first problem, but I'll live with it. I'm really not quite addicted but its fair to say that I'm quite dependent on my computer and give it heavy use.
10. Do you use a firewall? :
No
11. What types of e-mail protection programs? (eg anti-virus, anti-spam) :
Separate anti-virus and anti-spam programs.
Well, now I throw it open for everyone else to consider. I guess that I'll hear from a "modbod" or Admin quite soon, if this questionnaire is likely to cause PPRuNe any grief. Obviously, I hope it doesn't because I'm hoping that we can all learn something about the problem by means of this exercise.