Ran Norton Internet Security repeatedly - computer still freezes, always clicking

I have used NIS for years and my computer is about 3 years old now, not new but certainly not old. About 6 months ago, my computer started freezing up in the middle of any and every program I have. The mouse wouldn't move. Control, alt, delete did nothing & I would have to do a forced shut down. Half the time after a forced shut down, the computer booted in jerky spells that would take 10-15 min. to complete. I would always do anther complete scan, but no virus or trojans have ever been found, and spyware was deleted. I took my computer to a computer repair shop & they never had the same problem repeat for them.

 

Then about 6-8 weeks ago, the computer started making clicking sounds - a fairly steady click every 30 seconds and when I would open a program or a new web page, the clicks would be like a machine gun firing, lasting 10-15 seconds until the program or web page was open.

 

I'm wondering if I have something that NIS isn't catching or if my computer is going bad. I am currently using Windows Vista. I will be getting a new computer soon, I hope, and will need to transfer all my information from this computer to the new one. But if I have infected files, I will be transferring it to the new computer. NIS isn't finding the problem & the repair shop didn't find the problem. How do I find out if my problem is NIS or the computer?

sbmcmo - Welcome to the Community and I hope you find an answer to your problem.  I'm not an authority but I've read a few post where overheating may cause the PC to freeze up.  When was the last time you cleaned the dust from inside of your PC and checked the cooling fans and air passages?  Another thing I've read is a harddrive will sometimes start making a clicking noise when it is about to fail.  Have you tried running CHKDSK, to check your harddrive?   And a few comment about possible malware, what version of NIS are you running?  Have you tried checking your system with an on-demand scanner, like Malwarebytes' or SUPERAntiSpyware?  They are both free and work well with Nortons. 

Welcome,

What you are describing sounds very much like a hardware failure is in the process of happening. I would expect more problems more often as you continue to use the machine. Please make a backup of everything you MUST have in the way of data. The programs and operating system should all be in disks so they are safe.

My experience has been that I have one of the several hard drives I use assume the 'dying cockroach position' [on its back legs in the air and not moving] after about three years of continuing use. When it isn't the C: drive the recovery is easy. When the primary drive goes it takes a bit longer.

You haven't mentioned the type of computer [laptop or desktop] or the operating system or the version of NIS you are using. If you have made hardware additions to your computer you might want to check the power needed versus the power available from your power supply. A basic computer power supply isn't designed for too many additions. Also, having a little more power available than you are currently using isn't a bad thing. You will be using a bit more juice from the wall socket so that may be a consideration.

Let us know how it works out. We'll leave a light on.

Hello wbncmo

 

Welcome to the Norton Community Forum

 

I would first run check disk and defrag and see if that finds anything. If it does, let it fix it. I would also open up the computer and clean out the insides of it, like the fans and vents etc.

 

Since the problem did not repeat for the repair shop, I don't think it would be NIS causing it since it would be running there also if they turned on the computer. It might have something to do with your ISP or your router perhaps. If after doing the check disk and the problem continues, I would recommend a visit to one of the malware remediation sites and see if they find any malware. Some repair shops don't particularly spend a lot of time running different scans to find malware. They rather just reformat the computer than try and clean it up usually.

 

You could run the Norton Power Eraser tool, but I hesitate to recommend that. It is a very powerful tool and should be only used after other things have been tried first and also under the supervision of an expert who will know by the path if a file is good or not and which need to be replaced rather than removed...  I have my reservations about NPE, but that's just me....

sbn,

 

From what you describe and especially the combination of 3 years and clicking noise I'd say the hard drive is telling you that it is going to drop dead any minute now and you will lose everything on it including your personal files.

 

The question about hard drives is not IF they fail but WHEN they fail -- they all will and usually at the worst moment.

 

The better news is that you can do something about it still if you don't delay. So assume that it is going to crash tomorrow and:

 

 -- 1 Back up to another drive -- external hard drive is quickest; to DVDs; on line to another computer or service all your personal files and your address book and password files (Identity Safe if you use it)

 

 -- 2 If you do not have recovery media for the PC make them while you can -- if you have some brands like HP, COMPAQ, Toshiba there is a utility built in to do this or you can buy a set.

 

 -- 3 If you have drive imaging software like Norton's GHOST or Acronis True Image (If you don't and find out the brand of hard drive you have I know that from Seagate/Maxtor and from Western Digital you can download a free imaging program that will work as long as you have one of their drives in your PC.

 

How long until you get your new PC? Can you get it soon enough to transfer to it?

 

If you can go to this Windows website and download the correct version of the Windows Easy Transfer utility for your old computer and run it on your computer while you can in order to make the file that will save all your personal documents etc but not your applications into a file that later you can move to your new computer (with Windows 7?) and Windows 7 will extract your stuff and put it where Windows 7 expects it to be which is not always where it was before!

 

You need to store that file off your main drive if you can but if you can't you may be able to save it to the main drive and then transfer it to a DVD or external hard drive.

 

If you don't have an external hard drive that you can plug into your old computer please consider getting one -- they are not that expensive and many are on sale at present in the local stores that sell office equipment and computers or on line from reputable sources.

 

If you can do that then you can do the saving and imaging to that.

 

The idea behind the imaging is that if you can't get the new PC soon enough it is not expensive or difficult to put a new hard drive into a computer -- either yourself or you really don't want to for a decent computer store to do it.

 

Please think about this and let us know what we can do to help -- I doubt very much from what you say that you have an infection.

Hi sbncmo,

 

Clicking sounds usually indicate a hardware failure in the offing.  Your hard drive's days may be numbered.  I would not recommend that you do anything too demanding such as scanning, and certainly do not run Chkdsk at this time.  A defrag could be extremely risky if your hard drive is becoming unstable.   Your first priority is to backup all of your data, such as documents and photos to an external hard drive, DVD or CD - it is critical to get your important stuff copied off of the hard drive because there is a real danger of it becoming unrecoverable should the drive fail.  Once your data is safe, then you can attempt some diagnostics, if you wish.  Here are some sample sounds of failing hard drives.  If any of them sound familiar, you don't have much time:

 

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

sbncmo - After reading the replys from huwyngr and SendOfJive, you might want to disregard what I said.  No sense putting any undue stress on your drive. 

Thanks for replying. My PC is rather warm, but our repair shop completely blew out all the dust when he checked it. It is possible that it needs it again. At the time they cleaned it, it was making noise all the time, not a clicking sound though, and the noise stopped after they blew all the dust out. I will check the harddrive and get the Super AntiSpyware. Thanks so much for your help.

Hi Dick,

 

I have an HP Paviliion Slimline desktop running on Windows Vista. My Norton is a basic Norton Internet Security version. I haven't added any hardware, just downloaded programs that Norton said were safe. I'll check the harddrive & see what I find. If you can think of anything else, I'd appreciate your help. Thanks.

Thanks for replying. To tell the truth, I don't know if the people at the repair shop stayed around long enough to see if there was a booting problem & since my computer doesn't freeze up every half hour, they simply may not have seen it happen. But I'm adding defrag to my list of remedies and hopefully all of these steps will solve my problems. Thanks again.

A few things on this list at auslogics.com should sound familiar:

 

Signs of hard drive failure

All computers have problems, but you don't need to panic about hard disk failure unless one or more of the following things are happening:

  • Clicking or grinding noises while running;
  • Files mysteriously disappear. Usually more than once;
  • Locking up during the boot process - hard disk problems are indicated if this happens frequently;
  • The computer often freezes, and when it does you are left without mouse or keyboard input and have to do a hard reset;
  • Standard file processes like saving and opening slow down interminably, even for small files;
  • Increase in the number of bad sectors noted when running chkdsk;
  • You notice that your computer is unusually hot.

Any heavy work that you demand from the hard drive may kill it rather than cure it.  Defragging when reading and writing to disk are exceptionally error prone and there may be many bad sectors is just asking to lose data.  Back up - that's all you should be considering right now.

Hi Hugh,

 

Wow, that's a lot of info. Now I'm afraid to even turn this cmputer on until I get a new hardrive or a new computer & I'm not sure  when that will be. So, I don't have a spare harddrive or dvd's, just cd-r's. It will be 3 weeks before I can get anything - new computer or harddrive - since my husband is self-employeed & that is when his contractors pay, yet I need he computer before then in order to bill the contractors, and round and round we go. I do have a 4 and an 8 GB ScanDisk. Would they hold things like my Norton Identity Safe passwords, documents, programs and applications? I know some about getting around a computer, but when it comes to this kind of stuff, I'm lost. I sure appreciate your help.

Thanks, I was thinking the same thing. I'm definately not going to check all of that. I just need to save my data before I lose it.

Hi sbncmo,

 

External hard drives are not expensive.  Since it sounds like you use the PC for business, you should be backing up business-critical data regularly anyway.  If there is anything irreplaceable on the drive that would cause a gnashing of teeth if it were to suddenly disappear forever, then you should have been saving backups all along.  If I were in your place I would purchase a back up drive and then simply copy over your entire Documents and Settings folder, plus anything else you need that you might have squirrelled away somewhere else (if you tend to be disorganized).  Don't back up system files or applications or programs - just your business and personal files that cannot be replaced.  The process is as easy as making a copy of a file.  Then in the future, continue to make regular backups to make sure that even a sudden disaster does not wipe out your important stuff.

SOJ made a very good point about backups. I can only reinforce his words. I kept a non-profit's books for many years and had the backup set for a full one each month and incrementals twice a week. I would also run an 'extra' backup right after posting all of the contributions - for 'just in case'.

Since it is a laptop I'd also encourage you to keep it cool. Silicon [sand] becomes glass when it gets really hot. This is not a condition you want to become familiar with:smileywink:

Keep us in the loop. We'll leave a light on.

sbncmo - If you're really worried about the cost of back-up software, if you do a little store shopping, you can find NIS 2011, Ghost 15, and Norton Utilities for only $4.99 USD (after Rebate) and thats with free U.S. shipping. 

Backup software is useful to schedule backups or to automatically backup certain preselected files.  Disk imaging software is extremely valuable for making complete backups of entire drives so that an entire system can be restored in minutes.  However, for the issue at hand, no extra software is necessary.  Just copy the files and folders that need to be saved to the external drive.  One advantage of having copies like this is that you can recover them without having to use proprietary software that created them, unlike Ghost, etc.  Using both types of backup is the preferred approach, but for now, copies will do.

Hi snbcmo,

As mentioned above, the important thing right now is to back up all of the personal and business data on the disk.  Forget about backing up any system files, etc.

What I would suggest is the following:

1. Buy an external USB hard drive big enough to store your personal data (they're not that expensive these days.)

2. Create folders on the USB drive for each of the important areas, such as:

    - MyDocuments
    - Desktop
    - IdentitySafe
    - Outlook Express (if you are using it)
    - etc.

3. Start by copying files from MyDocuments, as follows:

    - Open My Documents and sort the folders in alphabetical order
    - Copy only a few folders at a time (.e.g., 10 folders at a time).  This is to reduce the load on the disk and not stress it too much all at once.
    - Each time you copy a block of folders, go to the next block of 10 folders and continue until the end.
   -  If the copy operation stalls on a given folder, then restart the copy operation on the next folder in the alphabetical order. (The problematic folder might be sitting on a bad sector of the disk.)
    - Continue in this manner to the end, until all folders in MyDocuments have been copied over to the backup drive
    - You can try once again to re-copy the failed folders if you really need the information in those folders

4. Next, copy the files in the Desktop area.

   - If there are lots of files in the Desktop area, then copy only small groups of them at a time.
   - Continue on as described in 3 above.

5.  Make a copy of your Identy Safe data (I think this data is stored somewhere outside the MyDocuments area, so you will have to back this up separately.)  The instructions are as follows:

How to backup and restore Identity Safe data in Norton Internet Security 2011:

 

Identity Safe Backup



6.  If you use Outlook Express for e-mail, make a copy of your data, address book, etc. (This data is stored somewhere outside the MyDocuments area, so you will have to back this up separately.)  The instructions are as follows:

How to back up and to restore Outlook Express data:


Outlook Express Backup


7.  If you have more than one user on the computer, then log into each user in turn and do steps 2-6 for each user.

RichD

 

PS:   I just noticed that you said above that you are running Vista.  I don't know which mail system is used on Vista, but if it is something different from Outlook Express, I'm sure that it has a similar backup procedure with documentation available.

______________



sbncmo wrote:

Hi Hugh,

 

Wow, that's a lot of info. Now I'm afraid to even turn this cmputer on until I get a new hardrive or a new computer & I'm not sure  when that will be. So, I don't have a spare harddrive or dvd's, just cd-r's. It will be 3 weeks before I can get anything - new computer or harddrive - since my husband is self-employeed & that is when his contractors pay, yet I need he computer before then in order to bill the contractors, and round and round we go. I do have a 4 and an 8 GB ScanDisk. Would they hold things like my Norton Identity Safe passwords, documents, programs and applications? I know some about getting around a computer, but when it comes to this kind of stuff, I'm lost. I sure appreciate your help.


I'm sorry if I overloaded things but better than letting you live in ignorance!

 

Yes you should certainly be able to back up a lot to the 12GBs of USB thumbdrive you have -- are they empty or with stuff you can move to CDs? Do the minimum to stress the hard drive.

 

Certainly start by exporting the Identity Safe -- I don't sue it so I ca'te say where the Export menu is located.

 

Should be enough for documents and maybe photo images. You may have to prioritize.

 

You can't save the programs that are installed in any way to reinstall them because Windows won't accept them -- only from an actual installation disk or downloaded file.

That puts prority on making an image of the existing hard drive and/or getting the PC makers Recovery Media which will enable you to put the computer back into the same state as when you bought it complete with any programs that came preinstalled, like Microsoft Works or Office if those are what you really need. You could do this to a new hard drive if the new PC did not arrive and probably buy a replacement internal drive for the old PC for about $50.

 

Can you tell me the Make and Model ID of the PC [ Like HP Pavilion 2330 Desktop ] and I can find out a bit more about your options. What version of Windows does it have?

The business finance records are backed up online daily, but nothing else is. I have a lot of documents, geneology, music (which I can replace), personal finances (which I know how to back up & restore), pictures, games, creativity programs (cards, letterhead, signs, etc.), tax program, etc. Right now, I'm in limbo waiting until I can get an external harddrive and the new computer. I tried backing some things up on disk and on jump drives. but my computer won't recognize either one being inserted into the drives. I sure hope I don't lose everything in the next few weeks.