How can I trouble shoot frequent video feezes on a new install?

Hi everyone, and thanks in advance for helping.

I have a Toshiba Satellite P205D-S7436 here. CPU-z reports the following specs:

CPU name: AMD Turion 64 Mobile TK-53
CPU specification: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core TK-53 1.7GHz
Motherboard: Toshiba JASAA 1.0 with ATI chipset RS690/RS690M and Southbridge SB600
BIOS: Toshiba V1.4 (2/25/2008)
RAM: 2 Gig of DDR-2 (original)
Video: ATI Radeon X1200
OS: Fresh install of Win 7 Ultimate x64 SP. 1 fully updated

The issue is frequent screen lock up. It does not go to BSOD, but simply stops. So the screen displays a frozen snapshot of the moment of failure, and the PC will not respond to input from mouse or keyboard.

Things I have already tried:

Ran memtest all night with no errors.
Looked at mfg website for drivers. None seem relevant to the hardware, so I just went with what Windows Update provided.
There is one error in Device Manager. It's for USB mass storage device. There is a physically damaged USB port on the machine. Looks like it was mangled at some point in the machines life when someone tripped over a cable and yanked it out. Computer owner reports that this occurred a long time ago and the machine functioned normally for a long time after that.
There are numerous entries in event viewer. I don't understand what any of them mean. (can provide dump file to anyone who would be kind enough to help educate me.)
HWMonitor reports no information as to GPU temperature or Fan speed on this particular hardware, but unit does not feel excessively hot, and I believe I hear fans and I feel what I guess is an adequate amount of hot air coming out.

I have a lot to learn about this stuff, but the reading I have done so far suggests this is likely a heat issue and leads me to the conclusion that my next step should be disassembly for the unit to look for obstruction of airflow or a poorly seated GPU heat sink. I'm hoping someone can tell me something I've missed or help me gain some insight from the output of Event Viewer before I go to that option.

Thanks again,

Eddie

I see my post was moved. Sorry, mods. New guy here. I wasn't sure where was the most appropriate place for this post.

TVeblen,

Thanks for your reply. That tool did prove a little bit helpful. It provided a link to a driver that I had mistakenly thought was not needed, which did resolve my USB Mass Storage issue in Device Manager. It also reported that the ATI X1200 video chip and all other hardware are compatible with Win 7 x64 and have proper drivers installed.

Where do I go from here? How can I learn more about or get help interpreting the error information that appears in event viewer? What other steps might I take to resolve the video freeze up issue?

TVeblen,

Thanks again for your insight.

Toshiba provides a full suite of drivers for download for Vista x86 and also, a display driver for Win 7 x86. Nothing 64-bit.

I also tried out the AMD Driver Auto Detect Utility, which detected my display hardware and OS and informed me "The best driver for this device is:______________" (Blank Space.) Then it opens the download page in IE to the Vista x64 Catalyst driver. There it says this hardware is not "officially supported" for Windows 7, but if I choose, I can install the Vista driver.

If I had this to do again, I would check the Toshiba site again, and not install an OS beyond what the manufacturer provides drivers for. In this case 64-bit Vista, which is what the machine originally shipped with. But having gone this far, I might try the Vista 64-bit driver and benchmark the heck out of it to see if I can get it to freeze again.

Having said all that, I am reluctant to invest much time in trial and error with drivers. I have no issues showing in device manager or in the compatibility tool you recommended, and as you point out, this may well be a hardware issue. I don't know the status of the hardware functionality before I got my hands on it as I am reviving this unit from a long time on a shelf after a HDD failure.

I came here in hopes of finding some expert help in interpreting the output of Event Viewer. Wouldn't the Critical Errors I see there give a more solid basis for an informed decision on how to proceed if I understood what they meant?

Thanks again,

Eddie