crashes

[tikitavi]

I upgraded from vista home premium to Windows 7 home premium 32 bit. Since then, my computer crashes randomly. The screen freezes, nothing works, even control alt del, all I can do is shut down the computer and restart. Nothing seems to be recorded in the event manager at the time, just starting up from a crash. This was happening several times a day. I replaced monitor, keyboard, mouse (I wanted a new monitor anyway) and now it crashes less often, but still crashes. I am getting new memory, because I want more, but I don't know if that is the problem anyway.

I entered what information I could about my computer when I registered.

Can someone help me figure out the problem? My husband says it will probably be fixed with some update, and there is not yet a new BIOS in order to flash the bios - those are his potential solutions. But I don't want to keep having it crash in the meantime.

 

[torrentg]

Your husband is a wise person. So be nice to him.

In your specs for motherboard is the bios edition, rather than the motherboard itself. The system itself is most likely a Pavilion RY873AA-ABA a6028x. I think the motherboard is an Elitegroup (ECS) MCP61PM-HM.

Update the chipset drivers from the motherboard manufacturer. That should potentially resolve most, if not all of the problems.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out after. It's good to update any drivers for the system whenever you find they're released.

 

[tikitavi]

Thank you. I will ask him to check the chipset drivers. How do I find the motheboard information? Under System Summary it gives System Name, Manufacturer, and Model, System Type, Processor, Bios Version/Date, SMBIOS Version. I put what it had in Processor under motherboard. AMD Athlon(tm) 84 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+, 2400-Mhx, 2 Core9s), 2 lo.. If that is not the motherboard, what is it? (My husband could tell me when he wakes up, I suppose, but he is new to Windows 2 too, and they have changed the way to get to things, it seems. Can't right click on Computer and get a Device Manager or something anymore.)

 

[torrentg]

You can use CPU-Z to gather information on the board. Use the mainboard tab. You're welcome.

 

[tikitavi]

The chip set does not need updating. It is from NVIDIA, according to my husband. He downloaded some update and performance programs from them. It does not crash as often as before I replaced some of the peripherals, but does crash at odd moments every few days. It crashed last night and two nights before that. Before it was with different programs, adobe acrobat, MS Publisher, etc. Last two times was with a game. But can't be due to the program, unless it was different things that was making it crash. My speakers make a buzzing sound off and on, so maybe I will try replacing the sound card now. After that, there does not seem much I can do but wait an hope some service pack fixes it. I don't really want to go back to Vista. And I don't really need a new mother board or processor. It is frustrating. My daughter just got a mac laptop, and it has no problems... But I can't switch, I do like playing games sometimes and bought Dragon Age and a lot of my work has been with MS Publisher, not available on a mac, and I don't have time to redo something like 20 or so 200 page or so manuals that are done with that.

 

[torrentg]

You can download chipset drivers from here. Just tell it you want nForce drivers for product type.

You could also use Winrar or zip the files at this location and attach to a post:

C:\Windows\Minidump


We could look at them and it could help very much to determine a range of possible causes or narrow it down to a specific one.

 

[tikitavi]

My chipset is updated. NVIDIA MCP61 rev. A3 I do not have a folder or file called Minidump in the Windows folder in C. A nonindexed search of that folder for minidump does not turn up anything. Could overheating cause the window and everything to freeze so that there is nothing to do but shut off the computer? My husband says if it was heating it would shut down, not just freeze. It happened twice yesterday, at random times in different programs/operations. One with acrobat, mspublisher, thunderbird open, one with a game only. I put in new memory. It can't be memory, I had 2 gbytes, now 4. Windows 7 is supposed to handle memory better than Vista.

 

[torrentg]

Try as a test, just running the brand new memory. Remove the old memory to see how the system is without it. If it still isn't working well, we can then be sure the old memory is not the cause.

 

[tikitavi]

The memory was totally replaced. Two things happened just before the crashes started - The first thing is that I updated Window Vista to Windows 7. Since the Vista was 32 bit, I went with 32 bit Windows 7 rather than reinstall programs for now. The second thing is that we added memory. Then the random freezes started. My son had had trouble before when he had two kinds of memory, so we took the extra memory out and went back to just the original. The random freezes continued. We made sure all the drivers were updated, replaced some peripherals, because I had 2 monitors and one of them was old and I thought it was having problems, made sure the chip set driver was updated, checked for a new update to flash the bios (there is none). The freezes seemed to stop along the way, and so we put the 2 extra memory in again. Then there were freezes again. They only happen once or twice a day and some days not at all. So maybe the problem was never fixed. Anyway, we took the memory back out, and then we replaced the memory altogether with four brand new gbytes. It was fine for the day, and then that night there was another freeze. Two the next day. None yesterday. So now I am keeping track of the temperature, wit some NVIDIA System Monitor I downlowaded from Nvidia site and logging it, because I read that overheating causes random freezes. The freezes seem to have happened when I was doing a lot of things at once - 3-4 programs open, saving one, opening another, checking email, printing another. Or during a game. Didn't happen with same game on Vista, so if it is a temperature problem, then the issue came up the same time as upgrading to Windows 7. From what I have read, there is some way of setting some kind of warning if things overheat. I have not figured that out yet. I will ask my husband to replace a fan or two. But not yet. I want to wait until there is another freeze (there was none yesterday) and see what the log says to know if that was the trouble. I spent too much money already. I had wanted the new monitor and memory anyway but I wish that had fixed the problem.

 

[zigzag3143]

Hi and welcome Tikitavi

Morning

Your system specs are fine. Couple of questions

At the current time are you using the 2gigs of memory you initially had, all 4, or just the new memory?

Just in case, do you have the win 7 dvd?

Did you update the chipset drivers from the link that tews gave you?

I know its frustrating but I think we can get this worked out.

Thanks

Ken J

 

[tikitavi]

There is no new update to the chipset when we went to update it. It is updated. The memory was at first two kinds, but is now only one kind. It crashed twice after I replaced all the memory, all 4, with new memory. So two different kinds of memory was not the problem, or maybe some of the problem, since it crashes less often. It was crashing even when I had only the original 2. When I took out those two, and put in all the same memory, it crashed twice. But since then, for the last two days, it has not crashed at all. Maybe something has righted itself. I am still keeping track of the CPU temperature. So, the chipset has the latest memory, all the drivers are updated, the memory is all one kind. There have been two crashes since all that was done, three days ago, but no crashes the last two days. I am hoping something in there righted itself. I am still keeping track of the CPU temperature.

 

[tikitavi]

No crashes yesterday. Maybe it was just a temperature problem? I made no changes since the last two crashes except I moved the case. Thanks for your help, and I will be back if I start getting crashes again.

 

[tikitavi]

Well, it is not temperature. It still crashes with no rhyme or reason. I even bought regCure and cleaned my registry. That messed up my USB somehow and I could not connect (external nik) and one of the mice quit working and I had to unplug it and restart. Could it be having two mice? But I had two mice with Vista. Could it be AVG? But I had that with Vista. It happens with different programs. Not with a lot open, once just email and internet. I tried looking at event manager. Under administrative there are all these exclamation points in red circles for schannel. Could it be that? But there is no specific event just before it freezes and has to be rebooted, just the event that it was rebooted from an abnormal shut down. It will go fine for several days, then freeze. the screen freezes (once some wait icon was whirling and stopped) but the mouse keeps working for a second, then the mouse freezes. I do have a new mouse, but that is recent, and freezes were happening before that, so I don't see how it is the mouse, and I have checked firmware and drivers for that.

 

[torrentg]

Could it be AVG?

In every case, yes. Always AVG. Every time. Without fail. AVG is worst. That's all I've been saying lately.

Search my user name for AVG on the forum and you'll see lol.

 

[tikitavi]

What would you recommend for anti-virus and email scanner for Windows 7? I have a 3-computer license on AVG that is good for another year. The other two are not having trouble but they are still Windows XP. (I got my newer computer later after they came out with Vista, which I did not like so I upgraded asap.) But I will replace it on my computer if that stops the freezes. The firewall does not work on it, but I have Windows firewall going (They gave me a process to fix the firewall but I have not bothered yet). It has anti-virus and anti-spyware and web shield and email scanner. I had trouble with Norton, which I had before, which is why I switched to AVG. I switched to AVG because it has a free antivirus that the other computers had, which seemed to work fine, and I cannot afford all this anti- stuff for all the computers in my household. I do run spybot occasionallly, which I guess I could run regularly against spyware but I still need something for virus and email. I am willing to try something that you recommend. I will search your posts.

 

[tikitavi]

From looking over other posts, looks like I will try Avast and see if that works since it looks like I can try it for free. Since this happens sometiimes only every few days, it might be a while before I know if it works, like no freezes for more than 4 says.

 

[tikitavi]

Well, it has been quite some time and I have had no further freezes after replacing AVG with Avast. So either that was the problem, or I had multiple problems (with some attempted fixes the rate of freezing seemed to have gone down). Somewhat discouraging, since I had bought a 2-year subscription for 3 computers for AVG that was less than half over. The other two computers are still XP, and I suppose will stay that way until they have to be replaced. Thanks for the help here.