HP Pavillian Elite m9515f hangs

Hey there,

I have a HP that is about a year and a half old. I bought it with Vista and did the Windows 7 upgrade. Last spring I started to notice a few odd issues with Windows Media Player and Aero. After hibernation Aero would stop working and Media Player would either work very poorly or not work at all. A restart would fix.

I started looking for solutions online and found this was unfortunately a disturbingly frequent problem with certain HP models. So began my frustrations. HP would send me to Windows as this was clearly a OS problem and Windows would send me back to HP as this was a hardware problem. Of course none ever knew how to fix it. After the warranty expired I discovered HP did know a fix. A new motherboard. Some had the board replaced 2-3 times to fix. So now I will forever be angry at HP and MSI but that is a different thread...

Wondering if any here have ideas.

Issues:
Hybrid sleep causes Aero to stop and Media Player/Itunes to crash (winamp works)
Reboot will fix
Disabeling hybrid sleep causes system to hang
Reboot will fix

What I have tried:
Disable hybrid sleep - system hangs
Set pc to sleep after a long time (days) - system hangs
Drop from 8g ram to 4g ram - no change
Update Nvidia drivers (caused issues in some HP Win 7 machines) - no change
Update every other driver on the machine - no change
Uninstal and reinstall/update all USB (Again, known HP issue source) - no change
Tell anyone who remotely seems interested to never buy anything HP - no change but I felt better.

What I don't know:
Have not reinstalled OS yet (mixed reviews as to if it will fix) - next step
Flash the BIOS - Some on another forum think it may help but could also brick the mobo
If this is a memory clocking issue due to PSU - No idea how to check, asjust or even what it really means (suggested on HP forum)

What I may try:
If the reinstall does not fix I may replace the mobo - can I reuse the OEM OS? How do I install 7? Do I have to install Vista and upgrade or just install 7?

Thanks for any thoughts or advice you may have!

Eric

Clean your PC, physically remove the side panel and blow out the case with a can of "dust remover" from your local retail store..ie Walmart. Blow out all the fans and get in to every nook and crack you can see. This is just to rule out an over heating issues you might be having do to dust build up. This should be done on a quarterly basis anyway. Next clean your hard drive(s) from spyware, adware, malware and virus. Then reboot and check for reoccuring problems your where having.

Thanks for the reply bassfisher!

I have a fetish for the canned air. I clean the machine close to monthly. I have run pretty much every malware and antivirus out there. Also have the machine behind a hardware firewall and pointed at open DNS. All but certain this is some freak motherboard, memory clocking, or compatibility glitch.

Hate to reformat, especially as it seems to not help others with this issue. The good news is I do have a home server to back up everything to. Just a "minor" pain to reinstall everything.

Thanks for the help though!

Eric

It is almost like the machine forgets what it was doing when it "wakes" up. I have read others have had issues with 8gig of RAM and hence the test with 4. Seems marginally better. Having just built a media server (HUGE leap for me) I am feeling more confident in replacing the mobo if the reinstall does not fix. Mainly looking for any last thoughts and then of course direction on how to contact MS and re-reg my Windows 7 to a new mobo if I need to.

Eric

Try a clean reinstall to overcome the HP factory bloatware corruption compounded by an inferior in-place Upgrade install.

Here are steps to get a purrfect reinstall of a factory bloatware preinstall: re-install windows 7

If you want to try troubleshooting first, here are the fundamentals for Win7: Computer lags every couple seconds