Win7 Ultimate 64-bit still lockin up after 3rd re-install

Specs are in my profile but I'll quickly give a couple here. I have an
HP Pavillion m9515y that I bought at a garage sale. This is a pretty meaty
desktop (Quad processors, 8 GB of RAM) that was a little over a year old when I bought this past July. It had Vista freshly (re)installed on it when I bought it. Vista ran well enough, although it had its own issues, none of which were like these Hard-lock auto-reboots I keep getting.

-original installed OS on the system? Vista, reinstalled from discs from the guy I bought it from
- an OEM or full retail version? 64-bit Ultimate that a friend who works in IT gave me.
- What is the age of system (hardware)? - 1.5-2 years old.
- What is the age of OS installation? About 1 month now, although I reinstalled it twice with other complications within one week before settling on the installation I have now.

I installed Windows 7 (with SP1 included) the first time in early Sept. and, after having done so, did an update of the drivers, most relevant were the network and display drivers. For some reason, after going into sleep mode the first time, it would not wake up. A hard reboot found that the wireless network card would not reconnect after doing this. Reading through some forums I found that others had a similar issue and had to reinstall, so I did. Also, I had installed overtop the preivious installation (which I thought I told it not to do), so reinstalling from scratch-scratch seemed like a good idea.

I blew away partitions, recreated them, formatted and reinstalled, and after reinstalling most of the programs, I finally did the critical windows update, which, ironically, only crtically crippled the machine. Apparently it was related to the display driver (which later I corroborated - see below). Updating the NVidia GEForce SE driver to the latest 5-2011 driver caused it to simply hang at a black screen, never allowing a log on screen. I lived with this for several days--always rebooting into the last known good config--and decided to reinstall. (Mind you, I tried to do a Restore but it wouldn't let me for some reason, saying it may have something to do with an antivirus running, which I turned off and it still wouldn't do it.)

So I reinstalled it a 3rd time about a month ago, resolving to do Windows Updates one at a time in order to 1) be able to roll it back just one update if it caused a problem and 2)discern which one/s were causing problems. Sure enough, the display driver recaused the black-screen login hang issue, so I rolled it back and chose not to reinstall it. As it is, I have the original 2009 driver. In a related issue, I believe the screen blacks out for several seconds on occasion due to this. I can live with that, but I can't live with the...

BSOD (Hard-lock auto-reboot), which happens every day or two. I have found it to lock up with some consistency when I'm browsing the internet (on mozilla or chrome) and then again sometimes when I'm listerning to music with media monkey. I just yesterday updated the sound card driver and it hasn't locked up while listening to music (yet).

I'm at my wit's end. I do not want to reinstall again because I'm in graduate school for literature and don't have the time nor patience to deal with it (at least not during the quarter), which is why I've enlisted the help of the technical community. I used to work in IT back in the 90s and early 2000s, and got out of it precisely because I wasn't all that good at it. Of course, this knowledge has helped me somewhat in this process, at least knowing how to install, reinstall and update drivers, but I am need of the community.

Anything you can offer in terms of suggestions or deciphering the Reports that I've attached is greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

Dasein47

dasein47 said:

Specs are in my profile but I'll quickly give a couple here. I have an
HP Pavillion m9515y that I bought at a garage sale. This is a pretty meaty
desktop (Quad processors, 8 GB of RAM) that was a little over a year old when I bought this past July. It had Vista freshly (re)installed on it when I bought it. Vista ran well enough, although it had its own issues, none of which were like these Hard-lock auto-reboots I keep getting.

-original installed OS on the system? Vista, reinstalled from discs from the guy I bought it from
- an OEM or full retail version? 64-bit Ultimate that a friend who works in IT gave me.
- What is the age of system (hardware)? - 1.5-2 years old.
- What is the age of OS installation? About 1 month now, although I reinstalled it twice with other complications within one week before settling on the installation I have now.

I installed Windows 7 (with SP1 included) the first time in early Sept. and, after having done so, did an update of the drivers, most relevant were the network and display drivers. For some reason, after going into sleep mode the first time, it would not wake up. A hard reboot found that the wireless network card would not reconnect after doing this. Reading through some forums I found that others had a similar issue and had to reinstall, so I did. Also, I had installed overtop the preivious installation (which I thought I told it not to do), so reinstalling from scratch-scratch seemed like a good idea.

I blew away partitions, recreated them, formatted and reinstalled, and after reinstalling most of the programs, I finally did the critical windows update, which, ironically, only crtically crippled the machine. Apparently it was related to the display driver (which later I corroborated - see below). Updating the NVidia GEForce SE driver to the latest 5-2011 driver caused it to simply hang at a black screen, never allowing a log on screen. I lived with this for several days--always rebooting into the last known good config--and decided to reinstall. (Mind you, I tried to do a Restore but it wouldn't let me for some reason, saying it may have something to do with an antivirus running, which I turned off and it still wouldn't do it.)

So I reinstalled it a 3rd time about a month ago, resolving to do Windows Updates one at a time in order to 1) be able to roll it back just one update if it caused a problem and 2)discern which one/s were causing problems. Sure enough, the display driver recaused the black-screen login hang issue, so I rolled it back and chose not to reinstall it. As it is, I have the original 2009 driver. In a related issue, I believe the screen blacks out for several seconds on occasion due to this. I can live with that, but I can't live with the...

BSOD (Hard-lock auto-reboot), which happens every day or two. I have found it to lock up with some consistency when I'm browsing the internet (on mozilla or chrome) and then again sometimes when I'm listerning to music with media monkey. I just yesterday updated the sound card driver and it hasn't locked up while listening to music (yet).

I'm at my wit's end. I do not want to reinstall again because I'm in graduate school for literature and don't have the time nor patience to deal with it (at least not during the quarter), which is why I've enlisted the help of the technical community. I used to work in IT back in the 90s and early 2000s, and got out of it precisely because I wasn't all that good at it. Of course, this knowledge has helped me somewhat in this process, at least knowing how to install, reinstall and update drivers, but I am need of the community.

Anything you can offer in terms of suggestions or deciphering the Reports that I've attached is greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

Dasein47

These were caused by a memory exception. Please run these two tests to verify your memory and find which driver is causing the problem.


1-Memtest.

*Download a copy of Memtest86 and burn the ISO to a CD using Iso Recorder or another ISO burning program. Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

*Boot from the CD, and leave it running for at least 5 or 6 passes.

Just remember, any time Memtest reports errors, it can be either bad RAM or a bad motherboard slot.

Test the sticks individually, and if you find a good one, test it in all slots.

RAM - Test with Memtest86+



2-Driver verifier

I'd suggest that you first backup your data and then make sure you've got access to another computer so you can contact us if problems arise. Then make a System Restore point (so you can restore the system using the Vista/Win7 Startup Repair feature).

In Windows 7 you can make a Startup Repair disk by going to Start....All Programs...Maintenance...Create a System Repair Disc - with Windows Vista you'll have to use your installation disk or the "Repair your computer" option at the top of the Safe Mode menu .

Then, here's the procedure:
- Go to Start and type in "verifier" (without the quotes) and press Enter
- Select "Create custom settings (for code developers)" and click "Next"
- Select "Select individual settings from a full list" and click "Next"
- Select everything EXCEPT FOR "Low Resource Simulation" and click "Next"
- Select "Select driver names from a list" and click "Next"
Then select all drivers NOT provided by Microsoft and click "Next"
- Select "Finish" on the next page.

Reboot the system and wait for it to crash to the Blue Screen. Continue to use your system normally, and if you know what causes the crash, do that repeatedly. The objective here is to get the system to crash because Driver Verifier is stressing the drivers out. If it doesn't crash for you, then let it run for at least 36 hours of continuous operation (an estimate on my part).

If you can't get into Windows because it crashes too soon, try it in Safe Mode.
If you can't get into Safe Mode, try using System Restore from your installation DVD to set the system back to the previous restore point that you created.

Driver Verifier - Enable and Disable

ZigZag3143,

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I will indeed run the memory test as you've suggested, but please bear in mind that I won't be able to get to it until the weekend due to grad school obligations (and needing the computer for that - even though it crashes, it at least works for long enough periods of time to still be productive).

I will definitley post my results when I have them this weekend.

Cheers.

Dasein47

dasein47 said:

ZigZag3143,

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I will indeed run the memory test as you've suggested, but please bear in mind that I won't be able to get to it until the weekend due to grad school obligations (and needing the computer for that - even though it crashes, it at least works for long enough periods of time to still be productive).

I will definitley post my results when I have them this weekend.

Cheers.

Dasein47

Good luck with both

Hi ZigZag3143,

Sorry for the long delay. I finally got around to running both tests. The first one--the hardware memory diagnostic--I ran for a total of 4 passes with no errors. (Also, when I had Vista on the machine it never really locked up...) So I doubt it's memory.

The verifier test I just got done doing and after running it with the settings you had specified, it wouldn't boot, hardlocking and then rebooting in a loop. I had to boot to safemode and remove the verifier stress test.

This points to a driver issue. The questions is: which one?

Is there a log that this verifier has that reveals this valuable info?

Incidentally, I believe I have located one consistency for it locking up. When I run soulseek, a file sharing program, it locks every time. And when it locks at other times, I am 90% sure it's when I've just recently jumped on the internet.

If what I'm saying is true, wouldn't this point to the network drivers?

I have the most recent driver for the Atheros 802.11 a/b/g/n for windows 7 64-bit (8.0.0.376 on 11-23-2010),
although I must admit that the atheros drivers don't instill confidence in me. Maybe I should try an older driver?

Cheers.

Dasein47