One FIX, but maybe not for everybody

I purchased a new HP e9280t computer w/i7-920, NVIDIA GTX 260, 9GB, Windows 7.

Shortly after setting up this system it crashed for the first time. I rebooted, and it ran for maybe 20 minutes and crashed again. This happened continuously, though somewhat randomly, for the first 3 days. Many hours on the phone with HP support, and letting them remote-access the computer to try to fix it. No luck. They shipped me another computer (identical configuration) but it had the exact same problem. Very frustrating!

A guy at the local coffee shop overheard me talking about it, and commented about the anti-virus software. He said if it was Norton, to remove it. I tried that, and the system has NEVER crashed again. Luckily, the fellow warned me that a "normal" uninstall does NOT fix the problem. But there was a class action suit against Symantec, and part of the judgment was that they must provide a "removal tool" at their web site. I found it and used it.

So, for people not running the Norton software, I guess this information is not very useful. But for my case, removing the Norton software definitely fixed the instability problem, so I wanted to pass that along in case it could help others.

Hello,

Thanks for your response. I appreciate your time.

>> navigate to c:/windows/minidump and zip up your .dmp file/s

I looked, but could not find anything named "minidump" or similar. I Googled "Windows 7 minidump" and found this page:
How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging

Despite incorrect directions on that page (maybe it's not really for Windows 7?), I was able to find the Startup and Recovery panel, and saw that it showed the following:

Default operating system: Windows 7
"Time to display list of operating systems" is checked, set to 5 seconds.

No other item on that panel is checked, and the "Dump file" field is empty.

The "Write debugging information" dropdown list is set to "(none)".

I contacted HP support (this is a new computer) and tried to find out the proper settings for those items. The support tech eventually told me that the feature conflicts with the pre-installed HP diagnostics software, hence the Windows dump should remain disabled.

Your comments regarding the Norton 2010 software leave me wondering what else could be potential trouble waiting to happen, if the act of removing the software seeming to "fix" the crash trouble is only coincidence. Further research led me to this page which I find somewhat disturbing....

Hordes of owners complain of problems with HP Elite Pavilion PCs using Core i7
Hordes of owners complain of problems with HP Elite Pavilion PCs using Core i7 | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

Thank you again for your time and advice. I appreciate it.