So, in the past few weeks I've noticed that sometimes when I'm playing a game (Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory) that I will have dramatic frame rate loss. So, my first instinct is to restart, but, when I try to restart it just hangs at shutdown. This happens for both shutdown and restart, by the way.

When it happened again, I exited the game, and checked the task manager. My CPU was running at 50-60% when nothing else was running. I checked all the processes and nothing seemed to be hogging resources. SVChost might have been using a little more than usual but I figured that isn't very substantial since this is a Vista mahcine.

Now, this problem doesn't ALWAYS happen when playing Wolfenstein, because it has happened once or twice when I wasn't playing the game. I tried re-installing the game but it hasn't seemed to change anything. Here are my specs:

Windows Vista Home Premium (Not service pack 1, won't install on my laptop)
Intel(R) Pentium Dual CPU T2310 @ 1.46 GHz
2GB Ram DDR2
Intel Mobile 965 Express chipset family video card
Gateway 93.08 MoBo

Let me know if there's anything else you need to know.

I've tried CCleaner, Spybot, Ad-Aware 2007 so I'm pretty sure I don't have a virus or malware.

Thank you for your time.

Sounds like you are getting a process loop - Windows can't shut down if something is running.

Next time, when it hangs, hit http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6161050.html and look at the processes running.

Yeah, I have checked the task manager when this happens but I haven't noticed anything fishy in the apps or processes. I'll take a closer look at the services next time.

Thanks.

Any other advice?

Things that run a LOT are usually automatic updaters and these can cause screwy behaviour when trying to shut down, particularly if one is a nagger (just keeps trying and trying).

You can look for settings re that. Also, go off-line before you try and turn it off. This disconnects internet activity and may stop an auto updater loop.

Well, it hasn't been doing it as often, now it's about once a week or so and usually it's after a lot of use of the computer.

When I check the services, how do I know which are using a lot of resources?

Bump.

Bump.

Could this possibly be a problem with my memory?