Standby Error

[Garry Russell]

I don't normally use standby mode but I was only popping out and had a lot active so I tried to use it but it would not play ball

I had this message in the standard box

The device driver for the 'HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4160B device is preventing the machine from entering standby. Please close all applications and try again. If the problem exists you may need to update the driver



Well.The DVD Ram does not work and has not done so since the reload.

It was not doing anything so why should it stop the standby.

I have tried to update the driver but it breaks down because it can;t find the drive.

I am also sometimes getting messages to the effect that I can't open FireFox because it is already runny, shut down FireFox and try again....or something similar...when FireFox is not running.

The cure for that is to keep trying or wait a while whereas it starts normally.

This is only after FireFox has been running and then shut down within the same session.
Does any of this point to the severe memory problems I get preventing FS from running and PDF from scrolling smoothly

It's not unknown for FireFox to be using 100% CPU to load a page.

IE only uses about 70-80%

[nigelb]

Gary, if you dont already have it, I would get Process Explorer http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 96653.aspx It is much more informative than Task Manager.

This can give you a lot of information on what processes are running and how much resources they are using. Good to check to see if anything unusual is going on such as a malware process running. You can right click on a process and do an online search to help determine what the process is used for. Bit of a learning curve, but worth it.

Nigel²

[Garry Russell]

Thanks Nigel...I'll give that a go

Does somtimes seem that things are happening in the background

[Garry Russell]

Is FireFox the problem??

This is my system just sitting there.....a continuous race as seen on the left

Then I shut FireFox down...the peek to the right is me opening ARC Photostudio ahead of this screen shot

[nigelb]

Gary, if you hover your mouse over the graph, you can see what process is consuming most of the CPU. A better way to monitor the cpu usage graphically is this: Got to the View menu and then Select Columns. In the applet, click on the Process Performance tab and select "CPU History". On the main window, scroll to the right and there should be a column for CPU History which is a graph of the CPU usage of every active process, line by line. You can drag the column back to the left to make it more easily visable if you want. Watching this column will allow you to see what exactly is using the CPU.

Nigel²

[Garry Russell]

OK NIgel

I'll check that out next time I drag my carcass onto the PC

Thanks

[Garry Russell]

OK Done that and everything points to FireFox as being the main drain

This is a pain as I actually loathe FireFox and only use it because some site I use will not run properly in IE as it doesn't have the capacity.

[DaveB]

Dunno if I'm quite understanding this mate. Are you saying that Firefox is using your pc's capacity even though it's not active or.. is it taking everything available when it IS active?

ATB

DaveB

[Garry Russell]

It's up and running but I'm not actually surfing with it and it is taking up to 100 percent...as you see on the graph.

[emfrat]

Hello Garry -
The last few updates of FF have been disastrous.
They introduced - or tried to - some wonderful thing which was supposed to present all your recent visits as tabs, when you had to restart after an unplanned shutdown of FF.
I strongly suspect that it goes looking for the 23rd page back, and can't open it because it was actually called by a Java script on the 24th page back, which it can't get to until it gets the 23rd page...anyway it gets its undies in an uproar, grabs something over 100kb of memory and so much CPU that it can't even shut down when you tell it to.


ATB
MikeW