I have a custom built PC that intermittently hangs when installing, uninstalling, or upgrading applications.

Technical Specs

• ASUS P5E w/ WiFi Motherboard
• Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 Processor
• 4x 2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 SDRAM
• ASUS
• EAH2900XT / Radeon HD 2900XT 512MB Video Card

Under normal operation the machine runs reliably, even under heavy load, such as video transcoding. The temperature never gets anywhere near where I would worry about it. However, the machine regularly hangs (complete lockup, no response to keyboard or mouse, no activity on-screen) when either installing a new application, uninstalling an existing application, or applying patches to existing applications or the OS. This is extremely frustrating as this machine is primarily used as a HTPC. Several apps are configured for automatic updates, and these updates sometimes cause the machine to lockup while we are watching content on the PC.

In previously investigating this issue, I found one likely problem could be my Logitech Webcam. The Logitech software has a bug that leaves an entry in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
                          Control\SessionManager\PendingFileRenameOperations

Which references the Temp directory. My registry contained this error, so I uninstalled the webcam software and deleted this registry key value. Unfortunately, the machine will still intermittently hang. I've noticed that the hangs always happen when an install/upgrade/uninstall requires elevated privileges (presumably to modify the registry). I can typically get at least one install/upgrade/uninstall to complete after a reboot, but after that it is a game of russian roulette to see if the operation will succeed or hang the machine.

The event log is not helpful, as log messages end at the time of the hang, with no record of a warning or error. My only recourse when the machine hangs in this way is to perform a hard reset/power cycle.

Any tips on how to further debug this issue are greatly appreciated.