I’ve put this up on FFFS, but maybe someone here might like to try too?

Help! Over the past couple of months my wireless dongle connection will sometimes freeze. The cursor just freezes up and the whole thing stops working. The only way for me to get out of it is to actually physically turn off the CPU with the on/ off button by holding it down. This happens irregularly. Sometimes the whole thing works quite normally. I have noticed it in Hamilton, as I don’t use the wingle at home. I’ve been blaming the NBN people who are working in Hamilton planting green boxes around the place at the moment. But today it was really bad during the morning and at lunchtime, but late afternoon it was fine and dandy. We also have a building site about 4 doors up and I’m wondering if there is something on a building site which might cause interference. We have also got noisy interference intermittently on the phones since the work started.

Is there anything that might do this? It’s very annoying. Fortunately I am not relying on internets for the business or it would be crippling.

If the cursor is freezing I think it might be your computer and not the connectivity that is the problem.

Witty Rejoinder said:

If the cursor is freezing I think it might be your computer and not the connectivity that is the problem.

Control, shift and escape bring up task manager and will show you if some program is frozen, if you go to processes and click on the CPU heading it will show you want is using the most CPU and this could cause the computer to freeze

Witty Rejoinder said:

If the cursor is freezing I think it might be your computer and not the connectivity that is the problem.

cursor freezing sounds like a i/o conflict

look at events in the windows event log manager, that might show something

Witty Rejoinder said:

If the cursor is freezing I think it might be your computer and not the connectivity that is the problem.

I thought this too, but the only thing is that I haven’t taken any updates for a while. That in itself shouldn’t really do this. I’m puzzled about why it should not be consistent, ie I do the same thing each time, really, I log into this forum. Rarely much else.

Cymek said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

If the cursor is freezing I think it might be your computer and not the connectivity that is the problem.

Control, shift and escape bring up task manager and will show you if some program is frozen, if you go to processes and click on the CPU heading it will show you want is using the most CPU and this could cause the computer to freeze

When it freezes, I don’t think anything works. Control/alt/delete does precisely nothing. But I’ll write down your suggestion and try it next time it happens.

Have you tried plugging it into a spare usb port?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Have you tried plugging it into a spare usb port?

Plugging what in?

buffy said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Have you tried plugging it into a spare usb port?

Plugging what in?

the wifi dongle is it usb?

Oh, and when this happens, nothing is open except Chrome. I don’t have programs open on that computer unless I am using them.

Tau.Neutrino said:

buffy said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Have you tried plugging it into a spare usb port?

Plugging what in?

the wifi dongle is it usb?

Yes it is. And that was a problem I had with another computer. But this is a different problem. That was not a freezing, that was not being able to connect. This connects, works and then freezes. Intermittent problem. Varying lengths of time until freeze. Different at different times of day (I think). I intend to have a go first thing in the morning tomorrow. I reckon it usually works then.

buffy said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

buffy said:

Plugging what in?

the wifi dongle is it usb?

Yes it is. And that was a problem I had with another computer. But this is a different problem. That was not a freezing, that was not being able to connect. This connects, works and then freezes. Intermittent problem. Varying lengths of time until freeze. Different at different times of day (I think). I intend to have a go first thing in the morning tomorrow. I reckon it usually works then.

Have you checked if that wifi dongle has an update on the manufactures website?

Ooh, this is handy. The building site appears to be not working today. Distinct lack of tradies, tradie’s vehicles, menacing forklifts in the lane, etc. The sheets of plaster have black plastic sheets over them. I can check if this dongle plays up when they are not there.

So far, so good.

And now there are workers there, and for the moment the internets seems to be holding…

But it’s nowhere near as busy as it was yesterday on the site.

I wonder by what mechanism the builders could interfere with your USB internet dongle?

Michael V said:

I wonder by what mechanism the builders could interfere with your USB internet dongle?

I can’t think of one. Which is why I asked.

And still OK at the moment. I’ll try at lunchtime again.

buffy said:

Michael V said:

I wonder by what mechanism the builders could interfere with your USB internet dongle?

I can’t think of one. Which is why I asked.

I can’t think of one either. I expect it’s not likely that they have anything at all to do with your issue.

buffy, does the building site have any scaffolding up? if so, that could be the problem; especially if it’s in the line of site of the 4G tower

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-17/budget-repair-needed-or-ordinary-australians-will-suffer-bca/8361694

Australians will face dramatically reduced social services, falling living standards and higher taxes without serious budget repair, a peak business lobby group has warned.

The BCA repeated its call to lower the company tax rate to 25 per cent from 30 per cent over 10 years.
—-

ROFL

Pardon me

so all the controls on your computer go non-responsive?

I guess it’s not a laptop and an oldish computer?

you could have a look in the event logs and performance monitors, might be a hint in there.

do scan disc check for and have it fix errors.

of hardware, generally those sort of problems i’d (in your case have someone) pull all the cards out and clean the slots and cards and reinstall them kindly, your RAM, CPU,, video, whatever.

but do try your wireless stick in another USB port

as for interference, if it’s down to one bar signal strength and less it’ll give you a data transfer blip or be slow, but won’t feeze your computer. It’s like CDMA, spread spectrum the signal, it’s not easy to interfere with.

my other computer (retired to the shed) does weird things with a regular cable USB mouse, because it has dodgy usb sockets I guess. Same of internet wireless sticks plugged into them.

My wireless internet connection has been getting worse. I used to have a 50% chance of getting functioning internet two rooms away from the wireless modem. Now it’s down to 0%.

Oh wait, just noticed that the modem aerial has fallen down. I’ll try again later.

diddly-squat said:

buffy, does the building site have any scaffolding up? if so, that could be the problem; especially if it’s in the line of site of the 4G tower

Yes, but that isn’t moving. And this is an intermittent sort of fault. So the scaffolding would have to be there/not there/there/not there. I’ve been blaming the NBN people working around town, but I’d like to blame the builders…

And testing the usb port theory is quite difficult as I don’t know when it is going to happen. I guess I have to wait for it to happen again, and then try another port. This experiment may take some time, as sometimes it’s weeks between the problem happening and then not happening.

> sometimes it’s weeks between the problem happening and then not happening.

Oh, that’s OK then. It’s not like my previous problem where it was crashing 3 or more times a day.

It did it again today. But I couldn’t try the actions suggested up in this thread as a patient was waiting. So I just turned the thing off and turned it on again. Of course, later in the day, when I had time, it wouldn’t freeze. It seems to be during working hours. We’ve heard hearsay around town about problems with wireless and other internet and eftpos machines. Looking more like NBN installer people are messing with things in general.