Random total freeze of pc

MacH52 · 12 Jan 2014

New member, hoping someone can offer advice please.

Earlier this year I upgraded from XP to Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Since upgrading I keep experiencing random total freezes of pc - mouse freezes, videos stop if playing at time, music stops if playing at time, ctrl-alt-del will not work. The only way I can get pc to work is by restarting (restart button on pc). When this happens I have always checked the event viewer but nothing is listed except for restart.

Prior to this post I had read that memory or graphics could cause similar problems, so replaced memory (checked with Memtest) and also upgraded graphic card. I should also mention that I have ensured that all drivers are up to date. All software is also up to date and pc has been checked for malware or viruses.

I should also mention that I do not use pc for games. I occassionally watch videos (You Tube) and do play music (Winamp or Virtual Dj). The last time this happened I was running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, but happened previously playing music, watching You Tube or sometimes just searching web.

Any advice would be appreciated.

badger906 · 12 Jan 2014

It could be hard drive related, especially as you say you upgraded from xp, so im guessing its fairly old.

Running hardrive tests may help, but half the time they will tell you a dying drive is fine. If its old old, id replace it regardless, as its better to be safe than sorry.

MacH52 · 12 Jan 2014

Many thanks for quick reply badger.

System hard drive approx' 2 years old, other approx' 3 years old, but will test both anyway and see what results I get.

MacH52 · 12 Jan 2014

Have now run Seagate Seatools and chkdsk on system drive and all OK, no errors.

Any other suggestions as to what might be causing the problem?

AddRAM · 12 Jan 2014

Was it an in place upgrade or a clean install ?

bigmck · 12 Jan 2014

I assume you got your Win 7 disk from a reliable source. Just to make sure the copy is good, right click on Computer and click on Properties. You should see on the right lower screen "Genuine Microsoft Software". == If that is good, at this point I think a Clean Install Windows 7 would be in order.

MacH52 · 13 Jan 2014

Yes copy of Windows 7 is genuine (OEM) and it was a clean install (disk partitioned and formatted before install).

bigmck · 14 Jan 2014

MacH52 said:

Yes copy of Windows 7 is genuine (OEM) and it was a clean install (disk partitioned and formatted before install).

How long after the Clean Install did the problem start? If a good amount of time elapsed, I think another Clean Install could only help your situation, if not solve it.

MacH52 · 14 Jan 2014

Clean install of Windows 7 was done June 2013 (This was when I changed from XP x86 to Windows 7 x64). Problem started quite soon after that. As soon as problem started I started checking various forums for a solution.

Have noted that the problem of "freezing" does seem a common problem (95 pages on one forum). In my case problem occurs mainly when playing music or playing a YouTube video, although on 1 occassion did occur when running anti-malware.