Windows 7 PC freezes with LAN access

There are two windows 7 PCs in my house. Ever since I bought a new hard drive (seagate 7200.12 1TB) whenever the other windows 7 PC tries to access stuff from it about 1/3rd of the time (has happened about a dozen times so far) the PC (with the new hard drive) will freeze completely. I have waited a couple hours once and it didn't fix itself. Theres not even a blue screen. You can't even alt control delete. Nothing is responsive whatsoever. Even shutting down the other computer doesn't fix it. You have to restart.

I have updated my network drivers (atheros L1), turned harddrive sleep off but neither fix the problem. Nobody else seems to be having this problem when I googled it. I am at a complete loss!

My system specs are as below. The router is a Siemen Gigaset SX763.

That is indeed a rare and weird problem.

On the computer with new disk, run this command from an elevated command prompt and report back anything good, bad or indifferent.

chkdsk /f followed by the new drive letter and :

for example

chkdsk /f C:

You could also try turning off simple file sharing. To do so, open Computer (Windows Explorer.) Click Organize, top left. Then folder and search options. View tab. In advanced settings pane, scroll to the bottom. There is a check box for "use sharing wizard (recommended.)" Uncheck that and hit ok. Do this on the machine with new drive also.

Disable IPv6 and IP Helper service if you are not using Homegroup.

Thank you for the reply. Troubleshooting this is completely beyond my ability.

Chkdsk turned up no problems "Windows has checked the file system and found no problems"

I have now turned off "simple file sharing", Unticked IPv6 in local area network properties and unticked IP Helper on the services list in msconfig. Done this on both computers.

I will report any freezes in the morning (nighttime here)

The computer still freezes, unfortunately. (by the way the weird thing that I forgot to mention is that my xp laptop does not cause any freezing - if that helps at all)

Is the next step to RMA the drive?

bump

Can the PC with the "hanging" issue consistently access its own shares without a problem? (Start, run, \\OwnName)

Does the mouse pointer still move when the box hangs?

Can the "hanging" machine still be pinged from the other computer once it enters the "hung" state?

Does the same symptom occur if you boot the problem PC to [safe mode + net]?

Statistically, the most likely cause is a 3rd-party firewall or anti-virus filter driver. I understand what you're saying about the new disk, but at this stage I'm going to put that down to coincidence.

You were right , it wasn't the drive, it was just a coincidence.
The same problem did not occur when accessing my own share
The mouse pointer did not move.
The machine could not be pinged.
The same problem occured in safe mode+net.
Uninstalled antivir, problem solved!(for now, no way of knowing for sure as the problem didn't always occur) Oh well, I guess back to avast.

jjero said:

You were right

Click to expand...

Statistics have shown this to be true on most, if not all occasions. Good one H2S04.

torrentg said:

jjero said:

You were right

Click to expand...

Statistics have shown this to be true on most, if not all occasions. Good one H2S04.

Click to expand...

Thank you sir. The School of Hard Knocks is a very prestigious learning institution

We might have been in the same class, only I didn't learn as much. lol

H2SO4 said:

torrentg said:

jjero said:

You were right

Click to expand...

Statistics have shown this to be true on most, if not all occasions. Good one H2S04.

Click to expand...

Thank you sir. The School of Hard Knocks is a very prestigious learning institution

Click to expand...

I should explain the method behind the madness because this is a common scenario...

The "does the mouse move" question is actually much more important, and the answer is much more telling than it perhaps seems. Deep in the guts of the OS lies a prioritisation mechanism based around the "interrupt request level" (IRQL).

Everything that can be termed an "application" always runs at the lowest possible IRQL - 0 (zero), also called "passive" IRQL. Above 2 lie the so-called "Device IRQL" (DIRQL) levels assigned to particular hardware peripherals. For the sake of the argument, say the USB mouse works at IRQL=2 and the PS/2 keyboard is assigned (say) 17.

There's a very interesting rule which says that once the processor is running at an elevated (non-passive) IRQL, it cannot be interrupted by any tasks whose IRQL is less than or equal (sound familiar? IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL). The kernel's own "dispatcher" which chooses which thread will run next runs at IRQL=2. Hence, if something should cause the IRQL to go to 2 or above for extended periods of time, even the dispatcher will be unable to run until the IRQL comes back down below 2.

The key point is that you have to be a kernel-mode component in order to raise the processor IRQL. In other words, you're either the kernel itself, one of the OS drivers, or a 3rd-party driver. Apps and code running in user-mode are completely prevented from messing about with this stuff.

In this instance, the fact that the mouse pointer wasn't moving was strongly suggestive of a hang which occurred at elevated DIRQL above that of a (USB or PS/2) mouse. Something had raised IRQL to a high level and then gotten stuck, to the detriment of the rest of the OS which was no longer able to obtain processor time.

By a process of elimination, it's not the OS or it would be happening to all of us. Hence, it's a 3rd-party driver running in kernel-mode. Which 3rd-party driver? Obviously, one which would be interested in the fact that somebody had just attempted to access a share.... some type of "security" driver.... the AV or a 3rd-party firewall.

That explanation does in fact demystify IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL to me. At least I have basic understanding when before I had none at all.
Thanks!

Thanks for the help!

Whoops, accidental post.

hello again (bump)

I have been having the same freezing issue again since a couple days ago. (windows 7 freezing completely when it is accessed by another windows 7 pc or vice versa) I haven't installed anything new. The freezing increased in frequency until it started freezing every time the computer was accessed. I then uninstalled media browser (media browser) because I thought its the only unusual program i have to explain the unusual crashing symptoms. This actually stopped the freezing....for ~24 hours, and then the whole cycle started again and at present it is freezing every time again.

I tried all the previous tips (uninstalling avast, safe mode with networking etc) but they don't help.

System specs are the same.

bump

Just formatted and reinstalled windows 7 on both computers. The freezing still occurs on the same computer with both computers running vanilla windows 7.

Does this mean its a hardware problem?

Visit the manufacturer's site of the new HDD and see if there are any firmware updates for it. I see on Google that there are!

If you go to apply one, backup the data on the HDD first. There is a chance it will be wiped out with a firmware update.

Make sure that there is no physical jumper on the drive set.

Check that this is right for your drive and install it.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931&NewLang=en

I have the firmware cc37 (It seems to be the latest?). When I enter my serial number (9VP21P3E) it gives me the message "No download available for this serial number" . I've done some basic tests using the seatools program from seagate but no errors come up.

Some extra info: when I transfer files between a vista laptop and the freezing computer, there are no problems.
Also, there doesn't seem to be any freezing with small files (e.g. word documents).

I'm going to get access to another windows 7 computer in a couple days so I'll see what happens.

Thanks again for the reply.

EDIT: some more (confusing?) info: with 1GB, 2GB and 3GB of RAM plugged in I get an entirely different problem - the network dies (a cross goes over the computer icon and I can't access the internet or view the network. Auto-troubleshoot doesn't help), but I can still use the computer i.e. no freezing. So the freezing problem only occurs with 4GB of RAM. I will run memtest86 now.

No errors on memtest86