Win 7 Pro x64 freezes completely

[MDDLMN]

Solved: Win 7 Pro x64 freezes completely

I installed Win7 Pro x64 on my PC Monday evening.
The computer is physically unchanged from when Vista Business 32bit was running on it with which it was absolutely stable.

The problem is that every 1 hour or so the system completely stops forcing me to manually reboot it. It does not give any error it just stops. No minidump is written. All diagnostics show no apparent error, the only thing Windows registers is that it was shut down incorrectly.

I updated Intel chipset drivers (This one), audio drivers from the Realtek homepage, ethernet drivers from the Realtek homepage and through Windows Update and installed the newest Nvidia drivers (191.07).

The problem occurs mostly during browsing but that might just be because I'm browsing most of the time. It happened both with Opera 10.01 and the newest Chrome. The problem began quite soon after installation before I had installed any software except for Opera (and maybe Acrobat Reader) and before I had updated any drivers.

I'm really out of ideas now
I read all the other threads about similar problems but none gave a solution that I haven't already tried (updating drivers).


[Edit:]
Changing the Energy Management setting to High Performance let's the system run stable for a week now.

 

[torrentg]

The problem is that every 1 hour or so the system completely stops forcing me to manually reboot it.

Can you please describe this in higher detail?

Can you move the mouse at all or does that freeze too? If you leave it alone, does it come back to responsiveness after a minute or so? Any detail you can think of will help us in this situation.

 

[harsaphes]

This is EXACTLY the same problem as i have...complete freeze up even while browsing..on all browsers i have had the problem. Might just go back to Vista 64

 

[MDDLMN]

It completely freezes, no mouse or keyboard input possible. Can't toggle NumLock on and off either.
I left it like that for 20min and it did not come back to live.
I wish I had any more details to describe but there is nothing really.

I saw your post harsaphes, but did not want to hijack your thread. The fact that we have such similar problems although completely different system specs means it's not a pure hardware incompatibility.

 

[saveliev]

I have the same problem too, with Seven 64bit pro.
I've tryed to update all the drivers, but the problem persists.

my config is:
ASUS P5K
core 2 duo 6750
Nvidia 8800 gt

 

[MDDLMN]

I tried the beta Nvidia drivers, no change. I will switch to an ATI card next to see if that changes anything.

System was stable in safe mode with network support, as far as I could tell. What services and drivers exactly are not loaded when booting in safe mode?

 

[torrentg]

If you go to start menu and tell the search box "system information" - hit enter - file | save. Rar the saved file and attach to post.

I will have suggestions for you to tweak your pc.

 

[MDDLMN]

I can do that but my Windows is in German and that file is in German as well.

Changing the graphics card from my usual Nvidia 7600GS to an ATI 1550 did not alleviate the problem, so we can rule out the GPU as the source of the problem. Switching off all start-up programs also did not help, as expected since the problems began even before installing any software.
I would thin it's the Ethernet chip that's the problem, but its drivers are loaded in safe mode as well when everything is stable.

 

[Antman]

A complete freeze up of the system is a common affect of overheating. 64-bit Win7 is running a lot hotter than previous/other versions.

Could be the CPU or the northbridge.

Rule out overheating by placing a large fan on high speed blowing directly into the open case.

Another common cause of the same affect is a bad CPU - this is the least likely cause.

 

[saveliev]

A complete freeze up of the system is a common affect of overheating. 64-bit Win7 is running a lot hotter than previous/other versions.

Could be the CPU or the northbridge.

Rule out overheating by placing a large fan on high speed blowing directly into the open case.

Another common cause of the same affect is a bad CPU - this is the least likely cause.

my cpu is 22° C and my mb 37° C..

 

[Antman]

my cpu is 22° C and my mb 37° C..

Hmm...

Must be in Canus scale.

 

[saveliev]

what "Canus scale" is?

 

[SquonkSC]

Ive seen mentioned from the original OP that no dump is saved.
This occurs mostly when the RAM is the cause of the freeze.

Can you check if the RAM is getting extremely hot?

Sidenote: I saw in your specs you have 64bit W7 running with only 2gb of RAM.
That is pretty tight and not recommended.

Greetings.

 

[MDDLMN]

The RAM is nor nearly used. At the moment, I have 1.4GB RAM free. Why should the CPU overheat? I use a Noctua towercooler with a 120mm fan and another 120mm case fan directly behind it.
The freezes happen when browsing when the CPU is loaded below 10%. The exact same hardware setup ran stable in Vista while gaming etc.

I will check the temps just to make sure though, but I do not expect them to be high at all.

 

[torrentg]

Can't hurt to run memtest for many hours. Perhaps there is a problem with ram. Overnight is the best test.

 

[MDDLMN]

While we're on the topic of RAM. I've been monitoring the RAM usage a little closer now. What it the concept behind most of my RAM marked as "Standby"? At one point I had 1.3GB marked as "standby" and only 3MB marked as free!
A quick Google search did not yield an explanation.

BTW, temps: 29°C MB, 17°C Core 1, 22°C Core 2, 24°C HDD, 50°C GPU

I have attached an English language hardware report generated by everest if that is of interest to anyone.

 

[SquonkSC]

While we're on the topic of RAM. I've been monitoring the RAM usage a little closer now. What it the concept behind most of my RAM marked as "Standby"? At one point I had 1.3GB marked as "standby" and only 3MB marked as free!
A quick Google search did not yield an explanation.

BTW, temps: 29°C MB, 17°C Core 1, 22°C Core 2, 24°C HDD, 50°C GPU

I have attached an English language hardware report generated by everest if that is of interest to anyone.

Those are good temps, very good even.

Just a question. You haven't by any chance disabled the pagefile have you?

Don't mind the free RAM, the standby RAM is what matters.

I am confused a bit. Do you have 2gb or 4gb installed?
Another thing, do you have a wireless connection active?

Greetings

 

[Quinz]

MDDLMN. I'm not hijacking just wanted to let you know I'm working through the exact same problems and I'll post anything I figure out here.

I'm working off a freshly built system so I'm gonna install XP for a day or two to make sure its not hardware related.

Keep the thread updated so I know what you tried.

 

[green98ls]

The problem is that every 1 hour or so the system completely stops forcing me to manually reboot it. It does not give any error it just stops. No minidump is written. All diagnostics show no apparent error, the only thing Windows registers is that it was shut down incorrectly.

I'm having this same kind of problem, but it doesn't happen every hour. it just happens randomly, and usually happens when I'm watching a video in WMP, but not everytime. except my mouse pointer changes and turns to a fuzzy straight line. (anyone know how to screen capture your mouse pointer?) nothing shows up in event viewer, and all my drivers are up to date. I can't seem to figure out what is going on either

 

[Antman]

After ruling out bad CPU/RAM, and after ruling out heat, we now turn to power.

Trying turning off ALL power management tools/apps - no Cool n Quiet, no Asus whatever, no power tweaks at all. Set power config to High Perf and CPU states to 100%

Test, report.

.