My system is freezing/locking.

I've tried removing and replacing the non-system drives, checking memory, exiting software, running memory tests, just about everything I can think of. Finally I installed Debugging Tools, thinking that I could at least analyze a crash dump, but I don't know how to generate a crash dump, and it apparently doesn't happen automatically because I've crashed about a half dozen times since installing Debugging Tools and there's no *.dmp file to analyze anywhere on my system.

Symptoms: Everything freezes. The mouse and keyboard are both unresponsive (so I can't use CTRL-ALT-DEL to open the task manager), and even the time and date are frozen in the lower right corner. I am running Windows 7 Pro. The behavior started about two weeks ago shortly after installing an HP-PVR device, but I've tried unplugging that device and deactivating all the software and drivers associated with it, and I still experience freezes. I thought the system might be getting too hot, but the temps are in normal range.

What do I do now. How do I get something to analyze?

Hey freewheeling. We should take the rest of your troubleshooting over here, off of the other thread. I think the next step would be to update all your drivers. Try RadarSync. Its free, and it finds the most current drivers better than Windows' internal driver seeker does. (It also finds updates for all your installed programs).

stevieray said:

Hey freewheeling. We should take the rest of your troubleshooting over here, off of the other thread. I think the next step would be to update all your drivers. Try RadarSync. Its free, and it finds the most current drivers better than Windows' internal driver seeker does. (It also finds updates for all your installed programs).

That's inspired. Before you said it I got a program called "Driver Detective" that checked all my drivers, and found that the NVIDIA display driver was out of date. I also checked the event viewer, and found that most of the errors were in the Service Control Manager. These were the errors with the three largest counts:

21 Errors! (Event ID 7016): NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has reported an invalid current state 32.

15 Errors! (Event ID 7001): The Computer Browser service depends on the Server service which failed to start because of the following error: The dependency service or group failed to start.

11 Errors! (Event ID 7031): The Windows Driver Foundation-User-mode Driver Framework service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 120000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

I've been running a RAM test for the last eight hours just to make sure the RAM is OK, and there haven't been any errors. I suppose it's wishful thinking to believe that this was all because of an NVIDIA display driver that was out of date. It could also be the USB drivers, which have been problematic in the past, so I might get a PCI USB card, and use that exclusively for my HD-PVR. I also replaced the 32-bit Java, and installed 64-bit Java.

The other possibility, if none of this works out, is to install a different version of Windows (XP-Pro) on one of the drives, and see if that kicks up the same kind of fuss. If it does then it must be hardware.

Oh, it definitely could be nVidia related. their 190 series video drivers caused a ton of issues during the spring and summer... check out the older Seven forum or nVidia forums from that time and you'll see crashes, freezes and BSOD's due to the 190 video drivers all over the place.

Try the latest driver first, and if that doesn't work, the older 185 series drivers might work better on your system than the newer ones.

stevieray said:

Oh, it definitely could be nVidia related. their 190 series video drivers caused a ton of issues during the spring and summer... check out the older Seven forum or nVidia forums from that time and you'll see crashes, freezes and BSOD's due to the 190 video drivers all over the place.

Try the latest driver first, and if that doesn't work, the older 185 series drivers might work better on your system than the newer ones.

So far so good. It's been working now for over 12 hours (more on less constantly as an HD media server) without a hiccup. Thanks so much for your help, Stevie.

freewheeling said:

I've tried removing and replacing the non-system drives, checking memory, exiting software, running memory tests, just about everything I can think of. Finally I installed Debugging Tools, thinking that I could at least analyze a crash dump, but I don't know how to generate a crash dump, and it apparently doesn't happen automatically because I've crashed about a half dozen times since installing Debugging Tools and there's no *.dmp file to analyze anywhere on my system.

Symptoms: Everything freezes. The mouse and keyboard are both unresponsive (so I can't use CTRL-ALT-DEL to open the task manager), and even the time and date are frozen in the lower right corner. I am running Windows 7 Pro. The behavior started about two weeks ago shortly after installing an HP-PVR device, but I've tried unplugging that device and deactivating all the software and drivers associated with it, and I still experience freezes. I thought the system might be getting too hot, but the temps are in normal range.

What do I do now. How do I get something to analyze?

Type eventvwr in search. go to windows log>application tab. look for errors ( they have red in the left hand column) that have app hang, app crash, etc in their names. when you find them (there is a lot of data) use the snipping tool (built in see pic) to make a screenshot and the attachment icon (shaped like a paperclip) in the reply form

See Pics

Ken J+

Froze up right in the middle of a recording. I also couldn't install XP-Pro because I get a virus message suggesting that I need to run chkdisk. I don't think I've got a virus. I think XP had some kind of a problem with either my dynamic drive (with a hidden partition) or with SATAII drives in general. I've been running anti-virus software (Trend Micro) pretty religiously for years. I never open any email attachments unless I know before hand that they'll be sent, and exactly what they are. A virus is unlikely, but not impossible, I guess.

zigzag3143 said:

Type eventvwr in search. go to windows log>application tab. look for errors ( they have red in the left hand column) that have app hang, app crash, etc in their names. when you find them (there is a lot of data) use the snipping tool (built in see pic) to make a screenshot and the attachment icon (shaped like a paperclip) in the reply form

I sorted the errors by severity, and there are both application and administrative. The two most recent freezes happened today at 5:17PM and again at 9:12PM, determined by the fact that the time indicator froze.

I'm getting sort of desperate. Nothing seems to work, and there's not much to go on (at least for me).

Tews said:

I would bet dollar to doughnuts that this is a power supply/heating problem... You have a TON of peripherals for an unknown PSU... Find out the wattage of your power supply and what do you mean when you say your cooling is 30W??? Under powered and overheating?? let us know...

I meant 300W, but I've since upgraded to a 550W power supply and there's no change. I have three drives that I generally use, but they'll all SATAII and low power. The IDE drive I have on there was just something I stuck on recently to see if I could run Windows XP on it, but I was getting freezes when I only had one drive connected so I doubt that's it.

The CPU temp is 36 degrees according to the bios, and the system temp is 41 degrees. Overheating?? And the display hardware wouldn't be overheating, because I wasn't even using the display at the time of the last two freezes. It was turned off.