Computer "freezes" random intervals after installing SSD in IDE mode.

[VenomXX]

Computer "freezes" random intervals after installing SSD in IDE mode.

Hey guys and girls =).

Okay I have a serious problem with my rig and I hope someone will be able to assist me in diagnosing what's wrong with my computer.

Problem overview: Whenever I use my computer lately I'm experiencing randomly occuring (from 4 min to several hours after I booted up) "freezes" whereby my computer becomes completely unresponsive, mouse locks and ctl + alt + del doesn't work. The only thing that works is rebooting by holding the power button a couple of seconds. This also seem to happen whenever I leave my computer unattended for a while. When I come back the screen is completely black and my computer unresponsive and the only way to turn it on is to reboot.

Background information: My system is about two years old but I recently upgraded my hdd for a 240 gb SSD instead. (Since flashing my bios my computer was unable to detect my hhd and I decided to upgrade to a SSD because I wanted better speeds anyway)

Detailed problem info:

SO, I thought maybe the issue could be that when I installed windows I was unfamiliar with the ACHI mode vs IDE thing so I installed it in IDE mode. Maybe this could be why the system "frooze" so I did the registry edit detailed here and changed the settings in bios to AHCI. That worked fine and my computer actually seemed a bit snappier. Also disabled indexing and enabled trim. I clicked on the control panel and under devices + device manager I was warned with a yellow triangle that my system was missing drives for MS Bus controller and for USB host controller so I installed Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller Driver that windows recommended and then went in to install the Liveupdate utility from MSI and installed all the updates that it suggested including control center and video / audio genie, and pci network drivers etc. Okay

Computer still experiences freezes yet with reduced frequency. What now I said to myself and started looking on nvidia drivers .. so I went and installed the latest beta drivers for my graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570). But it is STILL occurring .. I need some assistance please?

Worth to note is that I have a g700 mouse and a qpad mk85 plugged in (the mk85 is a usb keyboard which also connects my headset to the audio outlets on my motherboard) maybe these units are not working propertly?

Also the usb keyboard is not working when I've just booted up so I need to use an old one to go into bios settings.

Also fun fact the system never freezes when I'm playing a game like BF3 or any full screen application really. It mostly happens just when browsing chrome or while doing stuff in windows (downloading in utorrent or in orgins etc)


Some summary re my rig

System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manufacturer MSI
Model MS-7673
Total amount of system memory 8,00 GB RAM
System type 64-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 223 GB
Disk partition (C 111 GB Free (223 GB Total)
Media drive (D CD/DVD

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Total available graphics memory 4096 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 1280 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 2816 MB
Display adapter driver version 9.18.13.479
Primary monitor resolution 1920x1080
DirectX version DirectX 10

Network
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Network Adapter Jensen AL nano
Network Adapter Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


for more detailed system information please see the added msinfo32.exe report.

Any ideas? Do I have to do a clean install again and lose everything? =/

Appreciate the help!

Thanks,

/Nate.

 

[stubbyhs]

This probably doesn't answer any sort of question at all, but no one seemed to be answering so here's an idea.

You said you didn't want to lose anything, what is it you would be losing?

In my experience it's far easier to wipe it and start over, it will probably end up being quicker as well. If you are worried about losing information on the windows partition and you can't copy the information within Windows you could boot up into an Ubuntu Live version and copy it through there.

 

[VenomXX]

It's just games, videos and school documents I mean it wouldn't be the end of the world to lose it, it would just be annoying cause right now. I have a really slow internet connection and it takes forever to download BF3 and my steam game collection

also, I had configured all the settings to my liking and customized all the sounds, mouse pointers, wallpapers and themes etc so I would rather try to "fix" the problem b4 wiping the drive and starting over .. but thanks for your input! If I don't manage to fix it I will indeed follow your advice!

.. Fun fact, it seems as long as I have battlefield running the freezes won't occur .. maybe I will just keep bf3 running minimized indefinitely

 

[VenomXX]

Maybe I should try updating the ssd's firmware?

 

[Layback Bear]

This might be of some help to you.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

 

[VenomXX]

.. Hey there. I've actually done those steps already b4 enabling AHCI in the bios settings but thanks for the effort

 

[Layback Bear]

In the lower left of this post is (My System Specs). Take a peek. If yours where there they would follow your every post. That way for those that want to help could just tick there and not have to look through many post trying to find them.
This would help us help you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
When you installed Windows 7 on the SSD was the other hard drives installed?

 

[VenomXX]

Okay, Sorry. To answer your question: No, there were no other disks connected at the time of installation. I replaced the old hhd with my new SSD and did a clean installation of windows.

 

[Cornelius III]

I know this is an old thread but did you ever find a solution? I've been having exactly those issues after installing a Samsung 850 EVO SSD. Only recourse is to hard boot. Have done a clean install of Win7x64 twice, to no avail.

 

[AddRAM]

It has to be your install media, the Samsung 850 EVO works perfectly.

Where did the Windows 7 Ultimate install dvd come from ?

Did you buy it (is it retail) did you download an iso and burn it to dvd ?

Are you installing in Legacy mode with AHCI enabled ?

 

[Cornelius III]

SSD Freezes Machine

Hi AddRAM. Well, the list of what I've tried is long, but here goes at attempting to describe most of it. I've reinstalled Win7x64 onto a clean drive, twice, using an ISO USB boot from MS Windows download site. The second installation was after having replaced the drive with a second SSD (via Amazon, who didn't quibble.) After both installations, I immediately updated Win7 (with a few hundred updates) before installing Office 2010 and other programs, but overall the machine is lean and clean, without bloatware. I thought it might be my graphics driver because of the way the machine just locks, arbitrarily, and then the mouse, keyboard, everything is frozen with the only recourse being a hard boot. But I've rolled back the graphics driver to the one provided on the SONY support site for my machine (a VAIO VGN-SR29-VN) and the problem has since reoccurred, so it's not the graphics driver.

I've read on another forum where someone else had the same issue and resolved it by switching from AHCI to IDE mode in their BIOS, but my BIOS is so lightweight that I don't even have that option. My Samsung Magician software informs me that AHCI is enabled, and that's it. I can't disable it in BIOS and try running IDE mode. I've checked that all the ATA connections are solid and secure.

I have just disabled 'RAPID' Real-Time Acceleration mode via the Samsung Magician software, but I don't yet know if that will help as it's not been long enough since doing it to test whether the issue will reoccur.

A bit more background: I installed the Samsung 850 EVO in my SATA II VAIO. It's around 7 years old, but it's in perfect nick and it's running an Intel Centrino Duo-Core 2.4Ghz so I thought it was worth the investment. Whenever the issue occurs the machine simply freezes and I have to perform a hard power off reboot. Immediately after doing that I see a DOS screen saying "WARNING. Hard disk failure imminent. Backup all important files and data and press F1 to continue." Which I do (press F1, that is) and then select 'Start Windows Normally' and just carry on. Another issue (although probably related) is every few hours or every day or two, you can never tell when it will happen, Windows Explorer simply stops working. When this happens I still have mouse and keyboard functionality, so I can 'restart Explorer' without having to do a hard reboot.

 

[GokAy]

Can't say much about the shutdowns but wanted to comment on:

- You should really use AHCI with an SSD.
- RAPID mode uses your RAM as cache, and looks like it increases performance but in case of a power failure, you can lose data that was still on RAM, which wasn't written to the SSD yet.

Also, install chipset drivers first. And if you decide to reinstall once again, do it in stages perhaps?
- Install Windows, install chipset drivers - use for a while
- Install SP1 - use for a while
- Install some of the other updates - use for a while
- Install 1 driver at a time - use for a while
etc.
See if you can pinpoint the culprit.

Also if you ever decide to reinstall right before you do it, maybe you can just use sysprep to strip drivers all together, and see if you will get freezes after the mini setup. I really wonder how others will respond to this kind of idea.

 

[Cornelius III]

Cheers for that, GoKay

Thanks, GoKay. I forgot to mention in my previous post that I did run the intel.inf utility and right after OS install and before Windows updates. Actually didn't find anything, so I guess I already had the correct chipset drivers (basic Win7, I guess.) Still using AHCI (I don't really have any other option). Since disabling RAPID mode I haven't had a freeze-up just yet ... been about 24 hours, but that doesn't necessarily mean the issues solved. I'll want to give it a few more days to see ...

 

[GokAy]

Good going