PC hanging but not during gaming???

[chrbuc805]

Hi
Bit of an odd one, for the past year my PC has been intermittently hanging but doesn't seem to happen when gaming, I can play WoW for hours with no issues then when browsing it will hang, sometimes happens within minutes sometimes will last an hour.

I often turn on WoW and alt-tab to browse like that as it doesn't hang when I do that...

Any troubleshooting tips?

I have a new PC on order so I will be doing a fresh Windows install soon but would like to get this fixed so it can be used still.

Thanks
Chris

 

[Martinr36]

Do you have bullguard installed, if so uninstall it and use windows defender instead which is better and doesn't cause problems like bullguard does

 

[chrbuc805]

Do you have bullguard installed, if so uninstall it and use windows defender instead which is better and doesn't cause problems like bullguard does

No was running AVG, recently using Norton, new products are very good and I get them free through work.
been happening with either installed so doubt it’s AV related.

 

[Martinr36]

Was just a thought

 

[ubuysa]

No was running AVG, recently using Norton, new products are very good and I get them free through work.
been happening with either installed so doubt it’s AV related.

Some 3rd party AV programs are less than complete when uninstalling them. If you've had AVG and are now using Norton it's entirely possible that some remnant of AVG is still there and perhaps tripping up Norton. In any case Norton is (IMO) marginally less reliable than Bullguard.

If that were mine I'd do a clean install of Windows from bootable media and not install any 3rd party AV tools at all but use Windows Defender instead.

TBH given the unusual nature of your problem I think a clean install is going to be your fastest and most reliable way out of it.

 

[chrbuc805]

Thanks all, definitely will try it without 3rd party AV, and will be doing a clean install. Not sure i would drop Norton tbh, and Norton results for 360 are very good.

 

[ubuysa]

Thanks all, definitely will try it without 3rd party AV, and will be doing a clean install. Not sure i would drop Norton tbh, and Norton results for 360 are very good.

Try it for a few days without Norton to be sure the issue is gone.

Norton isn't recommended by anyone who knows what they're talking about to be honest.

 

[chrbuc805]

@Nursemorph & @ubuysa that's the thing, I've worked in Software for 15 years, Norton will struggle to shake off their old rep and rightly so; their software historically was criminally resource hungry, but their new products are much better and slowly being recognised.

P.s. I don't work for them just responsible for several top Creative and AV software brands.

Going to remove the software for a week see how it goes.

 

[ubuysa]

@Nursemorph & @ubuysa that's the thing, I've worked in Software for 15 years, Norton will struggle to shake off their old rep and rightly so; their software historically was criminally resource hungry, but their new products are much better and slowly being recognised.

P.s. I don't work for them just responsible for several top Creative and AV software brands.

Going to remove the software for a week see how it goes.

FWIW I'm not talking historically.