BleepingComputer.com: Vista "catnaps"

Dear Trusted BC mods,

My main concern is that whenever the system feels like it, Vista decides to just "stop" with its "wait circle" spinning. The lags last anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, some even to the point where I get fed up and restart the system. Is this a Vista bug or could it be a hardware issue I can fix manually?

Vista Home Premium
AMD Athlon 2.1 GHz Duo-Core
GeForce 6150SE video
2GB RAM
320GB HD

Thanks for your time.

It's possible that this is a symptom of a failing hard drive - but more likely it's due to a program that's misbehaving and sapping your resources.

Right click on an empty spot in the Task Bar and select Task Manager.
Click on the Processes tab
Click on the View menu item, then on Select Columns
Then put a checkmark in the box labeled I/O Reads and I/O Other, then click OK to close the dialog
Resize the Task Manager window so you can see all the columns
Click on the button to Show processes from all Users
Double click on the I/O Other column header to sort it by that column
Wait for the lag to happen.

Is anything significantly larger than the usual values - if so, what's the image name for it?

Then do the same for the I/O Reads column, the Memory column, and the CPU column

Let us know what you find out and we'll work from there.

The only apps that have significantly larger computer usage than all the rest are Firefox and iTunes.
csrss.exe has the largest i/o read but isn't this a crucial system file anyway?

Yes csrss.exe is a critical Windows file - but there's lot's of stuff that hooks into it.
The easiest thing here would be to download this free program: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...ssExplorer.mspx

When you open it, right click on the csrss.exe process and select Properties.
Then select the Threads tab and let us know what shows there. Look for the thing taking the most thread time (Cycles Delta), but also look at the rest of the Start Addresses. Let us know the filenames of the threads (everything before the ! in the Start Address).

This may take a bit of time, but it has to be done when the system is lagging. If it's not lagging, then the offending process may not show up in the Threads tab.

ntdll.dll is showing under the Thread properties for csrss.exe in Process Explorer.

but again, this is an important file, right?

Is that the only thing that shows under both csrss.exe processes?
Try turning off Windows Updates to see if that helps (don't forget to turn it back on)

Sorry for the long delay, I've been lazy.
Yes when I use process explorer and check ntdll.dll is the only thing that appears for both csrss.exe processes.
This was performed *after* turning off Windows updates. On top of this, I made sure when checking that firefox was my only open app.

EDIT: After I verified the process properties in Process Explorer, I decided to open up Windows Live Messenger, which is the most recent one, and in the processing of logging in, the vista circle popped up and the comp froze.

I'm hoping that one or more of these revelations might help.

Cheers