Random PC Freezing - no pattern

Thanks. It still looks like rolling it back helped but only time will tell.

wither 2 said:

Thanks. It still looks like rolling it back helped but only time will tell.

Since the re-boot performed by my friend on Tuesday afternoon, the machine has now remained up and operational continuously for 1 day 21 hours. That includes two full 12-hour sessions of Australian Open recording plus a few other random programs.

Before he left my house on Tuesday I confirmed that I could connect through both Team Viewer as well as RealVNC, just to eliminate the possibility that a first-time network interrupt could "disturb" the serenity and stability as it possibly did earlier on Tuesday when the machine froze just as checked in from NY. So every few hours now I check with Team Viewer to be sure all is well, and it still is.

We'll see how long this lasts. But for now it's almost two days without a freeze.

Dead again.

Great!

I wonder if Aardvarkly has tried it?

I'm still out of town and won't be back home until next Wednesday. But I have a new plan for trying to identify (or exclude) assorted possible network-related possible culprits. I am suspicious of network-related villains more than anything else, as I've now kind of proven to myself that it's seemingly not apparently related to actual compuiter hardware or expansion cards or USB connections. Instead I will focus on "network anomalies" (including what happens when I remote-in through either RealVNC or Team Viewer).

My plan is to literally disconnect as much as possible from the new M910t machine, letting it run almost standalone in essentially a non-networked environment. It will be connected to the TV coax, and to one main switch->router (so that I also have WiFi) which is connected to a modem. This will allow me to get to the internet from that machine for mail etc., and will support "watching TV" on the second monitor. But I will physically disconnect all other LAN cable connections to that main switch which feeds all other network cable runs and remote device nodes throughout the house.

This will hopefully allow me ascertain that the new M910t is actually working perfectly or not, and that it is either the TV tuner card and supporting drivers along with WMC, or possibly some other software I've got installed on the machine which is actually the culprit or not. Everything external to the M910t and its own direct internet connection to the one main switch and main router and cable modem will be eliminated from the environment.

I can live with this severely restricted home environment for a week, if it holds up 24/7 100% proving that it is NOT within this very limited kernel of hardware/software where the cause is coming from. Or, if the freeze still occurs then at least I will have most likely eliminated yet other additional causes from outside the M910t itself along with my use of it for WMC functions. And then I can focus on trying to isolate what within the hardware/software of the M910t might be at fault... although honestly it really does seem like it surely will come out of the test innocent.

Depending on the results of that one week of solitary isolated confinement I will then slowly and carefully add back specific single ethernet cable connections to the main switch which relate to the devices or other connections pertinent to that specific cable. One by one I will try to check out or find guilty specific LAN components, and then proceed from there based on whatever evidence results.

I do have quite a bit outside of the M910t on my LAN, but it does seem as though a network hiccup (not coming from the NIC in the motherboard) is seemingly always involved. I have 30 devices in my "addfress reservation table" of the router, although typically only 6-12 of them might actually be on and visible//active at any one time. I have four primary CAT6 runs from the main switch/router to the rest of the house. I have three GS105 switches and three GS108 switches. I have eight Linksys DMA2100 WMC extenders connected to my two HTPCs. I have two routers (connected to switches) running in "access point mode" providing remote WiFi signal strength. I have a pair of Netsys "ethernet over coax" gizmos providing one remote location which didn't have a CAT6 run possible to it with wired internet over a coax cable that was already there.

That's a lot of network action going on, and a lot of cables and connections and devices, any one or more of which might be a contributing factor. Of course this all worked perfectly for many many years and without a glitch until three months ago when all of this started. So I really do have a hard time accepting that some "wire in a wall" has now gone bad.

Nevertheless, we shall see what we shall see. One thing at a time. First things first. Hopefully an answer comes out the other end of this diagnostic project.

Just checked in and... DEAD AGAIN. My friend re-booted it 12 hours ago.

I give up for now. Can't bother him again, as there obviously is no point. I have my laptop with me and can survive completely fine as I am. I'll watch the Australian Open on ESPN while I'm still in NY.

Research project phase #1 underway.

I had my friend re-boot one more time, and I confirmed from my remote connection that all was well. Then I disconnected, and had him remove the ethernet cable from the back of the PC.

I will see when I return home Tuesday night if the machine is still up, or if it's dead.

P.S. - after the re-boot Windows advised that there was a BSOD, which is unexpected. This isn't normally what I see in the event log upon re-boot. I usually simply see a power kernel message that the machine was re-booted without being shutdown normally previously. I don't recall actually having a blue screen. Oh well. Ethernet cable is out, so let's see what Tuesday brings.

When I got home last night the Win7 M910t PC was STILL UP!! It had been running for almost 4 days, and had NOT FROZEN!

Naively optimistic I plugged the ethernet cable back in, and the machine continued to operate normally. I went to sleep.

This morning I started working with my Win10 laptop (that I had taken with me on my week-long trip) in order to "sync" various folders and files with my home desktop PC counterpart. Looking at File Explorer on the laptop it appeared the desktop PC was still operating normally and un-frozen. All the mapped network drives still were available and seemingly responding.

I then tried to connect to the desktop PC RealVNC "server" using RealVNC "viewer" (i.e. client) on the laptop. No response. In fact, all indications were that the desktop PC had frozen. I went downstairs to check, and sure enough it was frozen. Hmmm...

So, I've now taken a timeout to regroup and collect my thoughts. Seems when the PC is "isolated" from the network it runs properly. This suggests it's not software on my PC which is at fault, but something external somewhere on my home LAN which intermittently triggers the freeze on the PC.

I've now turned off the screensaver and power-save mode on the monitor so that I can see if/when the freeze occurs from the clock on the screen. Also, I've re-booted and again disconnected the ethernet cable, and of course it's been up now for more than 8 hours.

I will now very slowly add LAN connections selectively, e.g. WMC extenders 1-4 one at a time, in an attempt to expose the villain component. I will try to eliminate switches, and/or unwanted ethernet connections to switches, and/or wireless access points, so as to bring online only the selected LAN component I next want to investigate. So I will have plenty of unplugged ethernet cables dangling, until I get to the bottom of this... hopefully.

Malwarebytes yesterday publicly released 1.0.527 of their component package, which after much testing and beta testing help from their users they are certain has now corrected the "freeze" problem they caused with something they did back in 1.0.508 relating to (a) web protect, and (b) multi-processor CPU machines, and (c) Win7. I'm not exactly sure what (b) means, but I'm willing to accept their announcement along with the fact that many many people had been affected.

This morning I upgraded Malwarebytes on both of my desktop machines as well as my laptops. I also plugged everything back into the LAN (including my new M910t HTPC), and started up all PC's (including my upstairs desktop which I'd turned off for a week). This is the way I should normally be running 24/7, with no concern about stability no matter what is going on at any machine and no matter whether I'm recording TV or watching TV.

So far it's been 12 hours and not a freeze. I have used RealVNC to remotely connect into various machines from other machines, and I've watched TV programs, and I've recorded TV programs.

I'm not trying to be overly optimistic and am honestly prepared to see a freeze on one or more machines sometime in the next few hours or days. But we shall see what we shall see, and go from there. Didn't really get to implement my "selective connection" project to try and isolate LAN components as either being or not being culprits yet, but if a freeze does show up again I'll have to be serious about really getting to the bottom of this.

Note that I did look at the Intel Network Adapter Driver for my machines, and they're all dated from back in late 2017. So it's most likely unrelated to the NIC drivers. I'm more suspicious of something relating to RealVNC, or Team Viewer, or Dyn Updater, and remote connections. Also note that WMC extenders (for viewing TV around the house) run as Remote Desktop Connections, which is another variety of remote connection from one machine (extender) to another (HTPC).

Thanks for the information about the malwarebytes update. Hope you don't have any more problems.