Windows 7 Freeze and Possible Time Server Problems

spaceboy1976 · 23 Dec 2010

Hi, I am hoping that someone can help me resolve a problem that i have been having since day 1 with windows 7.

The problem is that my PC will occasionally freeze requiring a hard reset.

The PC itself is solely used as a HTPC with Media Center running on it 24/7. Its running Win7 64 bit. There doesn't seem to be any common tasks that it will freeze up on, although a possible slight propensity for it to happen at 100% CPU use (encoding).

Its not heat on the CPU (it has also happened when at idle), all my drivers are up to date, I thought it might be Catalyst Control Center but it froze without this too, bios was updated the other week and yet i had three freezes in a day today.

The main clue (I think) is that there is always some problem with the time when it reboots after the freeze. A lot of the time it will wake up and think that its 2000, exactly 10 years to the second has been lost from the system clock. obviously this affects the scheduling of tasks, scheduled recordings and so on. Until recently there's been very little detail in the event log, often i have seen the last 1/2 hour to 5 hours missing completely and showing the wrong date when it resumes.

The last three freezes it has (seemingly) been able to retain all the even log and i have noticed that there is a event relating to synchronising the system time shortly before the freeze. When it has rebooted on each occasion, if i go through to changing the internet time settings, it tells me that the time server has stopped. It will restart if I attempt to sync and picks up the right time but this must be more than coincidental?

i am just about out of ideas. i thought that the bios update last week seemed to have fixed everything but now i feel back to sqaure 1.

i would be very grateful for any help, this is the last thing that is really stopping me from enjoying my HTPC

gpmark · 29 Dec 2010

Have exactly the same problem but at least I think I've found out why. The culprit appears to be searchindexer.exe.
My freeze is fairly random except that it will always occur when the tv listing update runs in the early am.
My setup:
- Windows 7 home premium
- Originally an ATI 4300 video card - now it's a Nvidia 430
- Hauppage PVR
- Asus N4L motherboard with 2M memory
- Home Server for pictures, music, etc.
I've gone thru a heck of lot of testing. Here's what I did:
1. Replaced the ATI with Nvidia. I too was seeing a bunch of errors and suspected the flood crippled the system. Didn't fix anything. Nothing in any of the system or media center logs; system just froze and required a reboot.
2. Replaced the hard drive and cable. Denada.
3. Replaced the memory. Denada,
4. Replaced the hard drive. Denada.
5. Double checked and reloaded all the latest drivers. Denada
6. Killed all the services that I could reasonably kill. Denada
7. Cleaned out all of the extraneous autoruns. Denada
8. Rebuilt the entire Windows 7 media center. Turned of aero and only loaded Total Media Player. Set up Home Server. Went thru the autorun and service cleanup. Downloaded all new drivers. Turned on monitors for temperature of CPUs and GPU - all remained fine. Ran memory test for two days with no errors. Denada and still not a single event log error posted - the system just stopped.
9, After 6 months of frustration, 3rd party and system software tuning, and hardware replacement I was pretty convinced that the problem was in Windwos 7 or Media Center. Finally set up sysproc internals and process explorer let them run all the time displaying results on a second monitor. That way when the system totally locked up I could see what was running at the time. Here's what I found when the system hung:
- ehshell running at 51% (media center key module)
- searchindexer - 37%
- sidebar, wmplayer, wudfhost, and svchosts running but all less than 10%
Searchindexer was off the chart with updates to WHS and directory. Ehshell was obviously not a problem so I killed searchindexer. For the first time in 6 months my system has not frozen at night! Continued running next day and had another freeze running TV. There was dwm.exe running even though I had turned of aero (selected classic windows as a theme). Killed dwm and have run a day without problems.

Please anyone else - if you are having the problem try killing searchindexer and see if it fixes your problem.
Please Microsoft - step up and address the problem rather than pointing at 3rd parties, memory, drivers, etc. There's a real problem here that you need to fix.

spaceboy1976 · 04 Jan 2011

hi, thank you very much for the response. I'm not sure we have exactly the same problem but you have certainly helped give me some ideas on how to track down mine.

i looked at your instructions and found the searchindexer process. the only way i could see of permenantly ending it was to disable the wsearch service which it seems to be linked to. things looked ok for a while but this morning i found it had frozen again. mine doesn't seem to happen according to a schedule or dependent on any other event, it seems totally random.

anyway, what i have done is tried running the task manager and now the resource monitor on a small second screen i have to see if i can see where things are going wrong post freeze. what software did you use for this? you mention sysproc internals and process explorer but i don't seem to be able to find anthing on these.

i still think mine is someway related to the windows time service. it doesn't seem to start properly. its set to manually start at present, i assume this is default because i don't recall changing this. even when set to automatically start it doesn't though. is this normal?

thanks for any further info!

CarlTR6 · 04 Jan 2011

spaceboy1976 said:

Hi, I am hoping that someone can help me resolve a problem that i have been having since day 1 with windows 7.

The problem is that my PC will occasionally freeze requiring a hard reset.

The PC itself is solely used as a HTPC with Media Center running on it 24/7. Its running Win7 64 bit. There doesn't seem to be any common tasks that it will freeze up on, although a possible slight propensity for it to happen at 100% CPU use (encoding).

Its not heat on the CPU (it has also happened when at idle), all my drivers are up to date, I thought it might be Catalyst Control Center but it froze without this too, bios was updated the other week and yet i had three freezes in a day today.

The main clue (I think) is that there is always some problem with the time when it reboots after the freeze. A lot of the time it will wake up and think that its 2000, exactly 10 years to the second has been lost from the system clock. obviously this affects the scheduling of tasks, scheduled recordings and so on. Until recently there's been very little detail in the event log, often i have seen the last 1/2 hour to 5 hours missing completely and showing the wrong date when it resumes.

The last three freezes it has (seemingly) been able to retain all the even log and i have noticed that there is a event relating to synchronising the system time shortly before the freeze. When it has rebooted on each occasion, if i go through to changing the internet time settings, it tells me that the time server has stopped. It will restart if I attempt to sync and picks up the right time but this must be more than coincidental?

i am just about out of ideas. i thought that the bios update last week seemed to have fixed everything but now i feel back to sqaure 1.

i would be very grateful for any help, this is the last thing that is really stopping me from enjoying my HTPC

Hi, spaceboy, and welcome to the forum. Follow the instructions in this tutorial and upload the files. We will take a look at your system and drivers. It does matter if you have not had a BSOD.

https://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-d...tructions.html

spaceboy1976 · 04 Jan 2011

attached to first post, thanks

CarlTR6 · 05 Jan 2011

Hi, Spaceboy. Thanks for uploading the files. I have some errands to run and I will be back in about three hours.

spaceboy1976 · 05 Jan 2011

thanks , i appreciate any help you can give, i had another freeze this morning just after 6am, the last entry in the event log is syncing the time.

zigzag3143 · 05 Jan 2011

spaceboy1976 said:

Hi, I am hoping that someone can help me resolve a problem that i have been having since day 1 with windows 7.

The problem is that my PC will occasionally freeze requiring a hard reset.

The PC itself is solely used as a HTPC with Media Center running on it 24/7. Its running Win7 64 bit. There doesn't seem to be any common tasks that it will freeze up on, although a possible slight propensity for it to happen at 100% CPU use (encoding).

Its not heat on the CPU (it has also happened when at idle), all my drivers are up to date, I thought it might be Catalyst Control Center but it froze without this too, bios was updated the other week and yet i had three freezes in a day today.

The main clue (I think) is that there is always some problem with the time when it reboots after the freeze. A lot of the time it will wake up and think that its 2000, exactly 10 years to the second has been lost from the system clock. obviously this affects the scheduling of tasks, scheduled recordings and so on. Until recently there's been very little detail in the event log, often i have seen the last 1/2 hour to 5 hours missing completely and showing the wrong date when it resumes.

The last three freezes it has (seemingly) been able to retain all the even log and i have noticed that there is a event relating to synchronising the system time shortly before the freeze. When it has rebooted on each occasion, if i go through to changing the internet time settings, it tells me that the time server has stopped. It will restart if I attempt to sync and picks up the right time but this must be more than coincidental?

i am just about out of ideas. i thought that the bios update last week seemed to have fixed everything but now i feel back to sqaure 1.

i would be very grateful for any help, this is the last thing that is really stopping me from enjoying my HTPC

Love to help but there were no DMP files included in the upload please try this method.

If you wish to have others assist you with your computer's BSOD symptoms, upload the contents of your "\Windows\Minidump" folder. The procedure:

* Copy the contents of \Windows\Minidump to another (temporary) location somewhere on your machine.
* Zip up the copy.
* Attach the ZIP archive to your post using the "paperclip" (file attachments) button.
* Briefly describe the problem history and circumstances in the same post. Somebody will attend to your query as soon as possible.

spaceboy1976 · 05 Jan 2011

Hi thanks, I don't have a minidump folder in the place you noted. But this is not a BSOD problem, just a freeze. I think I followed the instructions correctly

CarlTR6 · 05 Jan 2011

I have looked at the files. I think a lot of your problem is caused by obsolete software and the resulting obsolete drivers. Software and hardware designed for XP is not going to run well with Win 7. I recommend that you download and install Revo Uninstaller (free) and use it to completely uninstall CyberLink and LogMeIn. If there are Windows Seven compatible versions available, install them. Here are the outdated drivers I find loaded on your system. Those in red font are really obsolete. Update these drivers or eliminate them by uninstalling the software with which they are associated.

000.fcl 26/09/2008 - CyberLink FCL Driver. Video editing software, Multimedia Software and Blu-ray playback software by CyberLink.

CLBStor.sys 04/06/2007 - Cyberlink Storage Helper Driver. CyberLink Software Updates

CLBUDF.sys 04/06/2007 - CyberLink InstantBurn. Cyberlink UDF Driver. CyberLink Software Updates

RaInfo.sys 04/01/2008 - LogMeIn/RemotelyAnywhere Kernel Information Provider. RemotelyAnywhere - Remote Access Solutions

lmimirr.sys 10/04/2007 - RemotelyAnywhere Mirror Miniport Driver or LogMeIn Mirror Miniport Driver. https://secure.logmein.com/US/home.aspx

lsi_fc.sys 09/12/2008 - LSI Logic Fusion-MPT FC Driver (StorPort). Support and Downloads

lsi_sas.sys 19/05/2009 - LSI SAS driver. Support and Downloads

lsi_sas2.sys 19/05/2009 - LSI SAS driver. Support and Downloads

lsi_scsi.sys 16/04/2009 - LSI SAS driver. Support and Downloads

Rt64win7.sys 26/02/2009 - Realtek RTL8168D/8111D Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC. Realtek.