New Win 7 install freezing

Good day to all.

I've installed Win 7 Pro 64-bit on a HP desktop machine (p6153f) with Intel Quad (Q9300), Nvidia G210 video card, 8GB RAM.

I used the latest drivers downloaded from Intel, Realtek, Nvidia 191.07. I also updated with Microsoft Update.

I don't have much installed in this box yet: PowerDesk Pro 6 (file manager), NTDmatch (directory comparison tool), NEC Brightness Control (set display brightness). All of these are 32-bit apps.

One thing to note: Microsoft update suggested a Nvidia update of 85MB even though I had what I think is the latest driver release from Nvidia. Might be a clue . . .

Anyway, my problem is that the machine freezes up for some period of time - but eventually recovers all by itself.

Here's the scenario: This is one of 4 machines under my desk. Its brand new - bought for the purpose of installing Win 7. It came with Vista Home Premium 64-bit installed and I've ordered the free Win 7 upgrade (won't be here for another 5 or 6 weeks). However, I had purchased several Win 7 upgrades - both Home Premium and Pro way back in June when Microsoft made that special offer for those who had downloaded either the Win 7 beta or RC. I installed Win 7 Pro.

Anyway, the machine currently dual-boots Vista and Win 7. Its mostly in Win 7 right now.

Power settings are: Sleep: never, Blank display after 15 minutes.

Its attached to a KVM that lets me use a single monitor, mouse, keyboard for my 4 machines. I'm usually on one of my other machines - this new Win 7 box is strictly for playing around for now.

I'll switch to the Win 7 box after its been sitting idle for several hours. The screen comes up blank until I move the mouse, then immediatly shows the desktop.

However, even thought the mouse moves, the machine appears to be frozen. Bringing the mouse down to the bottom of the screen (so as to bring up the taskbar) does nothing, hitting the Windows Key on the keyboard does nothing, Caps Lock does nothing. Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing.

If I single-click the icons on the desktop, nothing happens - the item does not show that it is selected. Clicking more than 5 or 6 times (anywhere - blank space or on icons) causes the mouse to freeze.

Previously, I would just power-cycle the machine - it comes back to life after re-booting.

However, I tried just leaving the machine alone for a while while it was frozen. The next time I come back to it, its responsive again. Everything works: keyboard, mouse, taskbar, Start Menu, etc. I can run programs without any problem.

This behavior is completely repeatable. As such, the machine is not currently useable in its present form.

I'm not sure where to start trouble-shooting. Worst case scenario is to wipe the partition clean and reinstall Win 7 again. But I'd like to get a handle on how to go about trouble-shooting a problem like this.

For example, are there any log files I should look at?

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

dwayne

Hi.

We can start checking on things by having a look at the system information.

So, type system information into the start menu search box, hit enter.

On the screen that opens, ctrl+s.

Zip or rar the file that saved and attach to a post using the paperclip above where you type.

Sounds like the hard drive is shuttting down. Try going into power options and do this.

torrentg said:

Hi.

We can start checking on things by having a look at the system information.

OK - the file is called "Win7box.zip"

I'm noticing a real problem with video, though.

I'm in an app such as PowerDesk Pro. As I move the mouse about or as I scroll the page up and down, the video image begins to pixelate and turn into dots. It quickly becomes unreadable.

Alt-Tabbing into another program and back (or minimize, then restore) refreshes the image and its good.

However, the same thing happens again as I scroll the screen up and down.

One final thing: I rebooted this morning. While I was in the boot menu (select Vista or Win 7), I took the opportunity to run the memory test that is shown as an option at the bottom of the boot menu. I used the default settings: standard test, 2 passes.

No errors found.

Many thanks!

dwayne

Go to the start menu, all programs then startup folder. Delete the Brightness Controller shortcut.

In the start menu search box, type services.msc then hit enter. Go to NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver Service and set it to disabled.


Reboot and test.

torrentg said:

Go to the start menu, all programs then startup folder. Delete the Brightness Controller shortcut.

In the start menu search box, type services.msc then hit enter. Go to NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver Service and set it to disabled.

Reboot and test.

I'm trying these one at a time. The first thing I've tried is disabling the Nvidia Stereoscopic 3D Driver Service.

NEC Brightness Control is still running.

So far, so good.

The machine has been running since yesterday afternoon and has not frozen once (so far). In addition, the display turning into unrecognisable dots has not occured since disabling that service.

I'll leave it like this for a while longer, but I'm hoping that you nailed the problem.

Burning question is: why is that Stereoscopic driver causing problems? Do you know if any other people have had similar or related problems?

Many thanks!

dwayne

Yes and no about other people with the problem. I've suggested it to quite a few people before but they never seem to listen about it, so I can't say for sure.

That NVIDIA Stereoscopic driver is for users with the 3D glasses and should absolutely not be installed on systems without. I don't know what NVIDIA is thinking on this one. Quite brainless if you ask me.

So cool...hopefully the pc stays working well for ya. You're welcome.

The deal with stereo scopic 3D is that it's not enabled by default on any of the drivers I've tried. There is a set up you need to perform in order for it to turn on.

I can't imagine why it would be enabled by default unless someone accidently hit the set up wizard for it.

Good day to all.

My machine still appears to freeze if I leave it alone for a while. I previously disable the stereoscopic driver as per an earlier suggestion.

However, the freezing is MUCH less than previously. It has happened only twice or three times in the past 24 hours and the freeze lasts a maximum of 12 to 15 seconds.

Everything appears to be normal after the freeze has ended.

Another item to note: the display problems (pixelation turning into unreadable dots) has not occurred since disabling the stereoscopic driver. I think that its a pretty good bet that driver was the cause of that particular problem.

My next step will be to disable the NEC Brightness Controller.

The next step after that will be to ensure the hard drives don't power down (again, as per an earlier suggestion).

I'll keep you all posted as to how that goes.

Many thanks for all the help!

dwayne

chev65 said:

The deal with stereo scopic 3D is that it's not enabled by default on any of the drivers I've tried. There is a set up you need to perform in order for it to turn on.

I can't imagine why it would be enabled by default unless someone accidently hit the set up wizard for it.

I installed the latest driver (191.07 Vista/Win 7 64-bit) straight from Nvidia's website. I just followed the prompts as they appeared.

I don't recall seeing anything that mentioned Stereoscopic 3D. I certainly don't recall enabling it.

However, that driver was running when I brought up services.msc. I stopped the driver, then disabled it, then rebooted.

I'm still wondering if I made a mistake by accepting Microsoft's Nvidia update when I ran Windows Update. I have NO idea what that 85MB download was for. Nvidia's 191.07 driver had already been installed before I connected the machine to the network and checked for Windows updates.

Thanks for the suggestions! Keep them coming!

dwayne