Computer locks up randomly

cp2k said:

Thanks, as I say that was going to be my next plan. My only concern with carrying it out is the laptop does function now (but with the freezes), I was almost afraid to try the OS reinstall because if it starts freezing during the installs it'll no longer function at all compared to now. But I guess I have to take a gamble & go for it.

I guess it depends on the friend's priorities and whether the laptop is under warranty. Personally, I live in fear of underlying hardware wonkiness, especially on machines still under warranty.

Corpsecrank said:

I would bet money this is a software issue because I had the exact same thing happen when using security 360 and removing it fixed the problem.

I could put a list here of what could be causing this that would extend to the next page.
Both hardware and software issues.

The fact that your seemingly similar problem was caused by your 360 software doesn't mean this applies to the OP's problem.
If it would turn out to be the problem, it would be a very lucky guess at best.
The OP never mentioned he has 360 software installed.

After 20 yrs of troubleshooting I learned never to bet on anything.
You'll lose too many times.

But thanks for the suggestion.
If the OP does have 360, it's something he could try.

Greetings

SquonkSC said:

Corpsecrank said:

I would bet money this is a software issue because I had the exact same thing happen when using security 360 and removing it fixed the problem.

I could put a list here of what could be causing this that would extend to the next page.
Both hardware and software issues.

The fact that your seemingly similar problem was caused by your 360 software doesn't mean this applies to the OP's problem.
If it would turn out to be the problem, it would be a very lucky guess at best.
The OP never mentioned he has 360 software installed.

After 20 yrs of troubleshooting I learned never to bet on anything.
You'll lose too many times.

But thanks for the suggestion.
If the OP does have 360, it's something he could try.

Greetings

I'll bet you are right.

Don't use 360, and no new software was installed around the time of the incident or since. I actually don't think anything new has been installed on it in months, he typically only uses Office, Internet, etc (and yes I've done multiple virus, spyware scans, etc- it's clean). I guess the OS reinstall would be the best option to try now, that would rule out software for all intents & purposes. If it still does it when its back to Dell and the hardware issue.

Where do I collect?

Heck I would have reinstalled the Op system first thing. That is usually my first course of action when I have unfixable problems. And usually it's faster than trying to track down the problem since Win 7 installs in ten minutes. Now with XP it was another story altogether with it's rediculously long installation time.

Honestly, freezes can be so many things it's hard to say what it might be.

Phoscur said:

Hi guys,
I think I'm expiriencing a similar problem, split if you want the topics separated.
My history and description of the "bug":
I was first using Win7 build ~7200, till it ran out of support and I did a fresh install with Win7 RTM OEM 64Bit Ultimate. Running it I started expiriencing the bug.
Videos stop randomly for ~1-2mins and get of sync in WMP; Firefox turns to "no reponse" and gets white after I clicked on a link. Clicking on another programm (the mouse is not freezing) makes the program stop to "no response". This also happens to the taskmanager, I've always opened on my second monitor.
After the freeze for ~1-2mins, everything continues normally.
I thought something could be buggy with my Installtion and installed another Win7 Professional RTM 64Bit. Which I'm running now.
The some sort of this bug already happend without any drivers (running the pure OS), but I'm still not completely sure about it, if it's the same bug. I was sure it would go away with the fresh install and didn't, care I'm sorry.
Another issue:
Running WarCraft3 in windowed mode never took me down to 20fps, which is unplayable, it was ok as I had my new 24'' Monitor and tried to run it in window mode full screen on it to get down to 20-25fps on high grafics, but now it's 15-20fps really laggy on my laptopmonitor, which makes me think about my freeze bug.
Google couldn't help me, installing newest drivers and clean windows didn't help me.
I'm going to run Memtest86+ this night, bringing result tomorrow (for me it's 2:37 o clock, germany).
I didn't install new software until that bug appeard, so I guess it's a new driver (because I couldn't find the old ones) or Win7 new onboard driver problem.

@thread-starter:
Have you done any driver updates until that bug appeard for you?

Hi Phoscur,

You have to start your own thread on this matter.

The problems are likely completely different, and it is not done to hijack someones else's thread.

good luck