Restored to factory defaults, still locking up

[Vincenzo]

I restored my friend's HP Vista desktop to factory defaults. When I attempted the first round of 91 Windows Updates, 50 of them came back as Failed to Install. I thought maybe the Recovery went bad, so I re-did the recovery to factory defaults. I was able to install half of the updates, (I decided to do half at a time), but now it is locking up at random times. I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostics, found no errors. I ran chkdsk /r from a command prompt, it found no errors. Any ideas where to look next? I'm thinking to open it up and look for swelled up capacitors.

Thanks

 

[beret21]

Check for temperatures and yep you should check the capacitors as well . . .
Is it showing blue screens ?????????

 

[bobafetthotmail]

I would do a real Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7, just because i don't trust recovery partitions (for a bunch of good reasons).

 

[Vincenzo]

I checked the caps, they all seem fine. I'll wait til it runs for a while and look into the temperatures.

No blue screens. It locked up once when it was rebooting froze on the "Configuring Updates" screen- not sure if it was shutdown or boot up. Then another freeze when I went to shutdown by pressing Alt-F4. It froze on the shutdown screen.

I've just reseated the RAM to see if that helps.

Thanks

 

[beret21]

Well no blue screens ! I think its the gpu then ..............

 

[gregrocker]

Depending upon how much bloatware comes with your model, Recovery is normally a pretty corrupted reinstall. Try these steps to Clean Up Factory Bloatware to see if it helps or you can pinpoint the corruption or problem.

I would follow the steps Bob linked above to get a perfect Clean Reinstall using the official Vista installer which can be compiled as shown here: Vista ISO download

 

[Vincenzo]

I got it going now. I did a clean reinstall from the downloaded Vista iso, and it no longer froze up.

But when I loaded the graphics driver for the GeForce, it would unload it on its own, and device manager had a message that Windows disabled the device because there were problems. Tried various things, could not get a driver loaded. I finally replaced the graphics card, now all is fine. Kudos to beret21 for suggesting that early on in this thread.

And the system is much peppier with the clean install than it was with the bloated factory default install, as gregrocker always says. Thanks to all.

By the way, I did not load any drivers from the HP website for this Pavilion a6250t. Device manager was not showing any issues. Do I need to load the chipset drivers, etc? It's running so well, I tend to want to leave it be.

Thanks

 

[gregrocker]

If there are no performance issues I would not change any drivers. Win7 tends to be the authority on what drivers it needs unlike previous Windows.

Stick with the tools and methods in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to maintain a perfect install.

 

[Vincenzo]

OK good. Thanks

 

[bobafetthotmail]

While Win7's generic wirless and ethernet drivers are pretty good, they don't offer advanced features like allowing you to create an ad-hoc network to share an internet connection (i.e. turning your computer with a wireless card in a short-range wifi hotspot) or using bridging to connect multiple networks your computer is connected to (if you have multiple network cards).

If you want such features, go look for drivers for your ethernet and wireless card.
But most users rarely need this.

 

[Vincenzo]

Thanks bobafett.

Greg,
In your tutorial I saw your recommendation:
Then enable hardware driver auto-updating and check for optional Updates.

Do you recommend that even for a computer that will be used by a beginning level user? I am concerned that it will install a driver that will upset an otherwise stable installation.
I noticed that when I enabled it on my computer, it installed a driver without asking, even though I am set for "Never Check for Updates".
Thanks

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Win 7 is usually smart enough to not download wrong drivers. The potential issues usually resides somewhere else.

I had to deactivate that because the guys at NVIDIA screwed up drivers for my oooold card in the win 7 release of the drivers (I have drivers made for Vista), and sometimes the auto-update downloaded the newest NVIDIA driver on my friend's gaming rig, too bad that the driver was not that good (black screen, a few seconds and then "the video driver stopped responding an was reset" messages) and the NVIDIA guys released a new version within weeks to fix bugs (again downloaded flawlessly by the auto-update).

Other than sometimes for NVIDIA drivers (and that is because of NVIDIA guys) people I know had no issues at all with it turned on.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks bobafett.

Greg,
In your tutorial I saw your recommendation:
Then enable hardware driver auto-updating and check for optional Updates.

Do you recommend that even for a computer that will be used by a beginning level user? I am concerned that it will install a driver that will upset an otherwise stable installation.
I noticed that when I enabled it on my computer, it installed a driver without asking, even though I am set for "Never Check for Updates".
Thanks

You should set Updates to Automatic and recommended Updates the same way as Automatic ones.

This is not XP. Win7 is the authority on its drivers.

The chance of getting a bad update are one in a million or greater.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks bobafett.

Greg,
In your tutorial I saw your recommendation:
Then enable hardware driver auto-updating and check for optional Updates.

Do you recommend that even for a computer that will be used by a beginning level user? I am concerned that it will install a driver that will upset an otherwise stable installation.
I noticed that when I enabled it on my computer, it installed a driver without asking, even though I am set for "Never Check for Updates".
Thanks

You should set Updates to Automatic and recommended Updates the same way as Automatic ones.

This is not XP. Win7 is the authority on its drivers.

In Win8 you don't even see updates and drivers being installed as it's all done in the background. The existing Win7 technology made this possible.

The chance of getting a bad update are one in a million or greater.

 

[Vincenzo]

OK thanks