System hangs (cursor spinning)

[mattlau]

So I've been having an extremely frustrating problem on several of my office machines, and I can't identify a root cause. It started on my personal notebook and is now showing up on our president's notebook and another employee's machine. Here is a description of the issue:

At random times (does not appear related to heavy CPU or RAM usage), the system will hang, but not crash or freeze. In other words, the Vista cursor will be stuck in a spinning loop, ALT/CTRL/DELETE fails to do anything, I cannot click the Task Bar or Start Menu (no response) and the current window will shift to "Not Responding." However, the mouse will remain fully reponsive to movement, and I can still click around the window that is currently open. The only way to escape from this hang is to manually power off the unit.

I have been unable to determine a cause. Here is what I have attempted (all attempted fixes have failed to eliminate said hangs):

-replace HDD with new unit, install fresh Vista x86 Ultimate
-dust unit to ensure proper cooling
-test CPU, memory, and HDD (all tests pass)

All of the systems are running the latest version of Kaspersky Workstation, Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, and Windows Office 2007. Those are the only common programs. Additionally, the notebooks are from different manufactureres and have different hardware. They are all about 1-1.5 years old. While the systems do feel very hot when they hang, the heatsinks are clean. A CPU overheat would reboot the system, but that's not the case.

So, with that in mind, any ideas? Is it Kaspersky? Is it the northbridge/southbridge chipset overheating and causing the HDD to stop responding to the rest of the system?

 

[IllogicallyLogical]

I would not think that this is a related hardware issue, since you have stated that these machines are of different make and model. From what you have described I am tending to think that this is an application or network related problem. Look at the 'System' and 'Application' logs in the 'Event Viewer' and see if any clues are showing up there. Does 'Reliability Monitor' provide any information about program crashes that have been occurring? How is Kasperksy configured to update its definitions, everyday at the same time? Is Kaspersky configured for scheduled daily virus scans? Are all these computers maintained at the same patch level? Has this always occurred and is this a daily occurrence? If not, when did this start? Any new servers brought up on the network? Sorry for asking so many questions, but I would look into these things as possible causes. You may want to set up a sniffer on your box, such as Wireshark, and monitor what types of network traffic are hitting your machine when this happens.

Joey
CCNA, MCSA 2003, MCP, A+, Network+, Wireless#

 

[mattlau]

Thanks for the reply.

I took a look at the Kaspersky forums, and apparently the latest patch is causing a lot of hang/crash problems. I assume that my issue is related to the troublesome patch, because all of the affected machines are configured to update Kaspersky automatically.

 

[IllogicallyLogical]

Good to know. Have they rolled out a fix for the new update yet?

Joey
CCNA, MCSA 2003, MCP, A+, Network+, Wireless#

 

[mattlau]

The fix is in beta but it is available if you contact Kaspersky. I've submitted a ticket to their support staff and I'm awaiting the file.

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I have also been having issues as of about the last week or so. It is only on my Vista machines and it was after a Vista update, I was thinking it had something to do with the patch but after reading this it might be Kaspersky. Hmmm ... looks like a call to them is in order.

The answer is always "PEBKAC!