No BSOD - System just freezes

I've had Windows 7 installed since October 2009 with no problems with crashing or freezing.

When this started happening my system would lock up constantly and the HD light wouldn't come on. I assumed it was either caused by malware or a registry problem so I ran a malware check with F-Secure and cleaned the registry with RegAce. No malware was found and RegAce did speed up the system and reduce the amount of freezing, but it didn't eliminate it.

I then booted into Safe Mode with no problems and ran RegAce again along with Spybot Search & Destroy and Glary Utilities. Again there was a little improvement, but still freezing.

A repair install yielded very little improvement so I did a clean install and the freezing stopped; except when I start the Media Center.

The only time the system freezes now is when I start the Media Center and it always freezes at the same point; when I try clicking on "continue" to configuring the program.

When I upgraded from XP to Vista, I upgraded my video card as well to a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (I don't remember who made the card), which worked fine in Vista. In Windows 7 I have had trouble with the window resizing itself when I stream Netflix, even after I upgraded to the latest driver, but the system never froze before.

Is it the video card that's causing the problem?

Go to device manager, from search, update video drivers, make sure that you have the most up to date graphics card. Make sure there are no yellow warning markers to indicated problems with drivers or cards.

M51AB said:

I've had Windows 7 installed since October 2009 with no problems with crashing or freezing.

When this started happening my system would lock up constantly and the HD light wouldn't come on. I assumed it was either caused by malware or a registry problem so I ran a malware check with F-Secure and cleaned the registry with RegAce. No malware was found and RegAce did speed up the system and reduce the amount of freezing, but it didn't eliminate it.

I then booted into Safe Mode with no problems and ran RegAce again along with Spybot Search & Destroy and Glary Utilities. Again there was a little improvement, but still freezing.

A repair install yielded very little improvement so I did a clean install and the freezing stopped; except when I start the Media Center.

The only time the system freezes now is when I start the Media Center and it always freezes at the same point; when I try clicking on "continue" to configuring the program.

When I upgraded from XP to Vista, I upgraded my video card as well to a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (I don't remember who made the card), which worked fine in Vista. In Windows 7 I have had trouble with the window resizing itself when I stream Netflix, even after I upgraded to the latest driver, but the system never froze before.

Is it the video card that's causing the problem?

Just a word of caution. Most of us here recommend against using a registry cleaner unless you are well versed on the registry and know exactly what you are doing. Windows 7 handles the registry much differently than did XP or even Vista. Not only is a registry cleaner not necessary; but you can screw up your system with one. This same advice applies to third party tuneup tools.

richc46 said:

Go to device manager, from search, update video drivers, make sure that you have the most up to date graphics card. Make sure there are no yellow warning markers to indicated problems with drivers or cards.

Thanks,

I've done this and have the most up to date driver with no warning markers, so I guess my NVIDIA Card and Windows 7 aren't completely compatible. As a temporary workaround, I deleted the device from the Device Manager and am using the Windows default driver with no problems so far.

Now I have to decide between upgrading the graphics card and just buying a new machine. At six years old, my motherboard and chip-set have outlasted multiple power supplies and hard drives. However, it would be nice to upgrade past 2 GB of RAM, even if new motherboards aren't made like they used to be :)