Solved Windows Freezes

Well yeah, since it seems to be hardware related. some hardware floods the CPU with IRQs (Interrupt requests) which limits the CPU capacity for other processes. In the worst case, since IRQs are prioritized, the computer becomes sluggish and there is no fun in that.

Those "surplus" IRQs can be caused by a lot of items starting with defective cables (HDD, Network), defective controller (HDD, Network, Video), defective devices (HDD, Network, Video, USB), quite almost everything that is allowed to generate IRQs could be responsible. I'm not so deep into Perfmon that I could pinpoint the real reason, so my advice would be to unhook everything that's not absolutely necessary and see if the count goes down then reattach the devices one at a time and monitor the behaviour.

SledgeDG said:

Well yeah, since it seems to be hardware related. some hardware floods the CPU with IRQs (Interrupt requests) which limits the CPU capacity for other processes. In the worst case, since IRQs are prioritized, the computer becomes sluggish and there is no fun in that.

Those "surplus" IRQs can be caused by a lot of items starting with defective cables (HDD, Network), defective controller (HDD, Network, Video), defective devices (HDD, Network, Video, USB), quite almost everything that is allowed to generate IRQs could be responsible. I'm not so deep into Perfmon that I could pinpoint the real reason, so my advice would be to unhook everything that's not absolutely necessary and see if the count goes down then reattach the devices one at a time and monitor the behaviour.

Click to expand...

Had done that, see above posts, and the lan ( intel ethernet) driver came up. If I disable my intel 82579V gigabit network connection, everything is fine. However... I don't have a solution, obviously need the connection, and have the latest driver. How do I proceed...?

BTW, I might be wrong in my analysis... perfmon still gives warnings on CPU interrupts when lan is disabled but the latency is fully ok. So it is probably two different things. I have identified the cause of the latency problems (gigabit driver , even though up-to-date), not of the cpu interrupts. And, most importantly, I don't know which of the two cause the freezing up, of which I had three more today whilst just browsing.

That's just the difference between having a pc on my bench or trying to coach someone. If the interrupt warning still occurs while the network card is disabled, it's simply not the (only) reason. Thus my former answer is still valid:

so my advice would be to unhook everything that's not absolutely necessary and see if the count goes down then reattach the devices one at a time and monitor the behaviour.

Click to expand...

Since you can't unhook the hard drive for obvious reasons, I would switch the HDD cable (and since it's a SATA drive I would plug the new cable in a different port !)
If that helps, viewed in connection with the LAN issue we could deal with a defective motherboard (south bridge).
But to have that to be more than a guess I would try to replace the on-board components by PCI-cards:
A simple Ethernet card to replace the LAN port, a hard disk controller card, etc. and if that all fails, it's the mother board deducted simply by process of elimination.

Just checking, i'm now running safe mode for a longer period of time, fine until now.
If I'm correct and this lasts... then I can conclude it's not hardware but probably drivers? Or at least software in general. It could even be things like directx11... which are not loaded in safe mode, are they?

What is the smartest way to proceed if safe mode w/ network runs ok?...?

How about the IRQ-flooding. does that still occur in safe mode? (thus it theoretically can be generated by a faulty driver, it's mostly caused by defective hard ware)
The main difference between normal and safe mode: no 3rd party driver is loaded. (Even tho DirectX is a bundle of Microsoft drivers, they're also not loaded in safe mode but should have been replaced by working copies during a "SFC /scannow") I agree, since everything works in safe mode the problem should be on the software side.
You already updated all possible driver, so the way to go would be to start over: Safe/Backup whatever data you need (can't be that much on a system as young as yours), make sure you have all necessary drivers handy. Do a complete clean install and start with the basics before installing anything "exotic" (Especially don't install any Non-Microsoft software yet (like Apple-Stuff, other mp3 player soft, programs that come with certain cameras etc. If that all runs fine start adding components one ad a time and check again. It sounds tedious and it is but so you can exactly pinpoint what you installed, that caused the problem. As much as a PITA that is, I don't know any different way to proceed because simply uninstalling stuff in device manager doesn't guaranty that everything is gone.

Thx... that is tedious but you're probably right... it sounds like the best way forward.

BTW, no IRQ flooding in safe mode.

The only two things I'll try first is force basic Micrsoft drivers for my SSD and Gigabit lan.

thx,
Mark

update

Clean install of W7 ultimate. seemed to work fine. after 24 hours with no problems (and no changes/update whatever) it did not have a working driver for the on board intel gigabit ethernet connection. I let it find the latest dirver (from 2010) as recent as I can get, and it froze multiple times since then.

What I'll now try is to disable the driver and see what happens.
The only non-microsoft windows thing downloaded just after install is Avast AV an Chrome.

I have let it install all microsoft updates.

So ... at least 2 freezes after installing ethernet intel gigabit driver... the one that was suspect in the first place.
Weird. Hardware is proven to be ok. It must be software.... How can I best check / find the right ethernet gigabit driver....

Even stranger: I've checked and in safe mode... the gigabit driver is the same. And in safe mode it's ok. Now I'm really lost. It seems as if I have to find some way to identify all, if any, differences between drivers loaded in Safe mode vs normal....

driver versions - ASUS mistake?

I found something interesting... I stated before that I had the most recent/valid driver for my Gigabit Ethernet wired connection. As I have a Sabertooth motherboard, I had downloaded and installed the latest update (with a higher version nr and date 29-12-'10).
To my surprise it turns out that version and date of the downloaded driver is not what Asus states on its site... in the pack I find the exact same old version I already had (sept 2010).... Tried the three download mirrors. All the same. The site state a higher release and date but the content is the old release that came with the Sabertooth install cd.

So what I did next is use the Intel test/scan software. It scanned and found that it had a much newer driver (4-5-2011) for my specific Gigabit connection. Installed that (along with some other drivers that also came up on the scan) and am now keeping my fingers crossed (when not typing ).

Cheers,
Mark

That wasn't it. Just had another freeze. Am at a loss again. I'll try to check if the Nvidia drivers could have caused this (they were updated automatically after install W7).

Oh man that's frustrating...so you think the freeze after using the gigabyte drivers was just a coincidence?
Just make sure you remove the "old" drivers with
Guru3D - Driver Sweeper
- or-
with Phyxion.net - Driver Sweeper

SledgeDG said:

Oh man that's frustrating...so you think the freeze after using the gigabyte drivers was just a coincidence?
Just make sure you remove the "old" drivers with
Guru3D - Driver Sweeper
- or-
with Phyxion.net - Driver Sweeper

Click to expand...

Are you sure these would help? Both don't seem to have or recognize the intel Gigabit drivers... so it doesn't look as if they'd remove older versions...

I continue to have multiple freezes when idle or only surfing. I've done a very thorough search through all logfiles and, strangely, I find no entry whatsoever on the exact time of a previous freeze (exact time being within a minute....)

What kind of 'thing' could cause freezes, no logging, and nog problem when in safe mode....? The only thing I've not been able to check yet is what driver safe mode uses for the graphical card. (gtx570). After a clean w7 install, that driver has been updated to the latest nvidia drivers and I'm not sure how to force usage of default safe mode driver as a test in normal operation...

MvdB said:

Are you sure these would help? Both don't seem to have or recognize the intel Gigabit drivers... so it doesn't look as if they'd remove older versions...

Click to expand...

They're mostly designed to uninstall old video drivers (since that seems to be the most difficult part)
I'm out of my wits here. Either we're both overlooking something here or we're in fact dealing with a hardware condition.
The harder to find since there doesn't seem to be a definite trigger
Time to swap some stuff around...Only where to start.... How about this: reseat all cards /modules, re-check every connection making sure all pins are connected and none is bent.
You did a memory/RAM check with http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html
already, didn't you?
Now we're back to the way, cars are fixed nowadays: replace most likely components, one at a time.
For instance: try to borrow a simple ethernet card and disable the build in Gigabit Lan in BIOS

I hope (very much) that I've found it.... after 4 freezes today, I noticed that despite full driver updates, the cardreader module still had old 2006 drivers. Disabled all of them (CF, SD etc) and am now 5 hours without freeze. I was triggered because I got information on the driver in the logfiles, even though not warnings or fault.... If still ok tomorrow I'll post full details...

Could make sense as the cardreader is not enabled in safe mode when things went fine....

I will keep my fingers crossed but generally a driver is not automatically bad just because it's old (except those from the pre Windows 7 era)
I must admit at one point I got confused and thought you said the box would freeze in safe mode as well. Hence my advice to start exchanging hardware. If the card-reader really is the reason that would be great. If you ever need one (until you get a working driver) you could always pick up a USB version that only gets connected if needed.

SledgeDG said:

I will keep my fingers crossed but generally a driver is not automatically bad just because it's old (except those from the pre Windows 7 era)
I must admit at one point I got confused and thought you said the box would freeze in safe mode as well. Hence my advice to start exchanging hardware. If the card-reader really is the reason that would be great. If you ever need one (until you get a working driver) you could always pick up a USB version that only gets connected if needed.

Click to expand...

Aren't all 2006(!) drivers pre-W7? I'm still running cleanly now but it is still to early to confirm the fix. I had one instance of a 48 hour clean run.... and am now doing +/- 24 hours....

Solved

I guess this solves it. I've now got >48 hours of freeze-free running. Stable, no glitches at all and have since installed loads of other stuff that this forum sometimes quotes as the possible cause of freezes or BSOD's. bear in mind, I've NEVER had a BSOD on this system. Only freezes.

As stated above, I strongly suspect that the 2006 drivers for the built-in multi-cardreader were the problem. I disabled all as you can see in the snip attached. No problems since I did that.

To be honest, I've not yet had the time or energy to fully prove it... by turning them on again do nothing else and expect another freeze. I will do so sometime in the near future.

What is also interesting is that during this long fault-finding process, I swapped Norton360 for Avast (and windows firewall) and that made no difference. It kept freezing up on me. Iow, in my case, Norton was not the gigantic problem causer that it is claimed to be in many other threads in this forum.

And, again in my case, everyone could have different experiences... iTunes and fullfledged gtx570 overclocking + ASUS Sabertooth AI software + overclocking now all work fine. No influence on the freezing.

Finally to finish off one detail point on the Intel drivers on the ASUS distribution that comes with the motherboard. ASUS has since updated their INTEL drivers, even though not to the newest available at INTEL direct.

@SledgDG, thx for all the help! It's been fun

Cheers,
Mark

You're very welcome! I'm glad you got it sorted out.
Norton, Daemon Tools etc. might not have been responsible in your problems...but often they are that's why we like them excluded for diagnostic purposes. There are millions of users that run those programs and never have any problems.
Then again...you got to start somewhere. It was fun and again we learn something new every day.
Thanks for the feed back!

-DG