Windows 7 32bit build 7600 crashes

[tee786]

Hi, I recieved my copy of windows 7 today and after installing it on my pc which had XP pro running smooth, it keeps crashing.

When it crashes the screnn goes all fuzzy it locks up and I am unable to do anything apart from cutting the power off and back on. Ive had these in the past in XP when the graphics card was the culprit.

Ive run it for hours in safe mode everything seems fine, its just when I run it normally it crashes after a couple of minutes when im just navigating around.

Now my pc works fine in XP, so I know its not a hardware issue. When I installed windows 7 it automatically downloaded latest drivers, however I have tried different VGA drivers but to no avail I also tried windows own VGA driver and had no joy. Your answers will be much appreciated.

here are PC specs I know its old but anyway.
AMD athlon 64 3000+ 1.81Ghz
1.5Gb ddr ram
250GB WD HDD
Biostar Geforce 6100 m-9 motherboard

 

[Fishdoc]

Have you ran Download details: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor ?

Download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see if your PC is ready for Windows 7. It scans your hardware, devices, and installed programs for known compatibility issues, gives you guidance on how to resolve potential issues found, and recommends what to do before you upgrade.

 

[tee786]

I did just that and it seems that my GFX card is not compatible with aero hmm...

ive attached my report

 

[tee786]

I deactivated aero but Im getting same problem. After just general navigating around explorer it locks up.
An image enclosed of what screen looks like.

 

[tee786]

Well people after a few days Im still getting this problem with win 7 luckily I have installed it as dual boot along with my trustee XP as win 7 is not stable for me. So I am still pretty much dependant on xp as we speak.

Anyhow after much looking around I found that when I switch off all features of aero, I can be on it for up to an hour before it crashes but hence its not stable enogh.

So after much deliberation I have decided and taken a gamble, that I require a new graphics card as the on-board VGA is pants! ( only get 2.0 in windows 7 experience index). I have placed an order for a Powercolor Ati HD 4770 512MB (your thoughts on this will be appreciated). I know its a bit of an overkill at this stage but I will be looking to upgrade my whole system in the very near future. I am hoping that this will solve my win 7 problem for the short term atleast.

 

[Fishdoc]

It would be safe to assume, if you were using an integrated vga and 1.5 ddr ram. That could very well be where the problem lies. The 4770 should help, but if you Mobo can handle 2gigs, you might want to upgrade there too.

 

[tee786]

Yeh, I am using 256mb of the system ram as reserve for the VGA so actual ram system is 1.25GB. Ive got a spare slot so I might chuck in another 512mb. So with the gfx card I'l be freeing more ram.
Just a note, do you think an ATI card may pose potential problems on a nforce board, I chose the 4770 card due to its bang for buck and for the future, hopefully it should be ok. :-|

 

[Fishdoc]

I tend to use whatever chipset is on the Mobo but it all comes down to drivers. I am using a 5770 with ASUS Mobo with AMD chipset. My HTPC has Nivida chipset with a 250 GS. You should be ok, just make sure you get the latest drivers for the hardware.

 

[lyndon]

I have the same exact problem. My computer is virtually identical. Had Windows XP Professional installed. GeForce 6100-M9 motherboard. Everything was running perfectly. Installed Windows 7. Started freezing up. Got diagonal lines across the screen. Updated all the drivers. Nothing helps. Will crash at the slightest thing. Sometimes it will boot up, then immediately freeze. Only thing that works is to turn it off, and then back on again. Other times it will stay running for an hour.

Got a message in the Action Center notifying me that my video adaptor was not compatible with Windows 7 as Windows 7 required a card that could run at least DirectX 9.0. I checked with dxdiag, and my adaptor has DirectX 11.

The computer will freeze at the slightest thing. After booting, it can be idling and just clicking on the Start button will cause it to freeze with the diagonal lines, so I don't think it's a lack of memory on either the video adaptor or the system. I notice the sllightest thing will cause a spike in CPU usage. Even dragging an IM window across the desktop can make it spike at 100%.

If anybody can shed any light on this problem I would be very grateful. Not sure if I need to buy a video card or if that's even the root of the problem.

 

[Tews]

Your processor is 64bit ... if you are running the 64bit version of Windows, you memory is WAY below the suggestged minimum... I suggest you increase your memory to 4gb, or, install the 32bit version and increase your memory to at least 2gb...

 

[lyndon]

Well, I am using 32-bit. My setup is virtually identical to the original poster's, except that I have 1GB of memory installed, and he has 1.5GB. Having said that, I don't think it's a memory problem at all. The memory usage is modest at the time of the freezes. It seems to run with about 450-550MB of memory free under normal circumstances. I would like to get more memory for sure, but I would like to find the source of the freezing first. I haven't installed my applications yet because of this problem, so there is really nothing running that would eat memory. Sometimes it will just freeze up when the computer is idling and I do something simple, like move the mouse. But the CPU usage does spike at odd times.

I did get that message saying that my video adaptor was incomptible with Windows 7 as it didn't support at least DirectX 9.0, but running dxdiag revealed that it had DriectX 11, so even the error report seemed to be in error. Early on, the screen would go blank for a few seconds and I would get a message that the video driver had stopped responding, but had recovered. I have updated the drivers and am no longer having that problem.

My computer froze 4 times just while writing this reply. No other applications were running. At some point in my typing, the machine would just lock up. I am in Safe Mode with Networking now. Like the original poster's, this machine runs very solidly in Safe Mode and under Windows XP Professional. As soon as I boot up in normal-mode Windows 7, the freezing begins even with no applications running. Like the original poster I have a suspicion that it is the graphics adaptor. I am not using Aero.

I would be interested to find out if his new video card helped matters at all.

 

[tee786]

Well, I am using 32-bit. My setup is virtually identical to the original poster's, except that I have 1GB of memory installed, and he has 1.5GB. Having said that, I don't think it's a memory problem at all. The memory usage is modest at the time of the freezes. It seems to run with about 450-550MB of memory free under normal circumstances. I would like to get more memory for sure, but I would like to find the source of the freezing first. I haven't installed my applications yet because of this problem, so there is really nothing running that would eat memory. Sometimes it will just freeze up when the computer is idling and I do something simple, like move the mouse. But the CPU usage does spike at odd times.

I did get that message saying that my video adaptor was incomptible with Windows 7 as it didn't support at least DirectX 9.0, but running dxdiag revealed that it had DriectX 11, so even the error report seemed to be in error. Early on, the screen would go blank for a few seconds and I would get a message that the video driver had stopped responding, but had recovered. I have updated the drivers and am no longer having that problem.

My computer froze 4 times just while writing this reply. No other applications were running. At some point in my typing, the machine would just lock up. I am in Safe Mode with Networking now. Like the original poster's, this machine runs very solidly in Safe Mode and under Windows XP Professional. As soon as I boot up in normal-mode Windows 7, the freezing begins even with no applications running. Like the original poster I have a suspicion that it is the graphics adaptor. I am not using Aero.

I would be interested to find out if his new video card helped matters at all.

Hello lyndon,

In reply to your question, about windows 7 freezing. I would like to confirm I was using x86 version which is indeed (32 bit). Yes my new graphics card rectified this issue. FYI it was a Powercolor ATi HD 4770 that I installed. Theres pleny of others out there that should clear this problem.

However After I installed the GFX card the PC stabilty went from 1% to about 35%, as I was still having stability issue's. The pc would last anything from 30 Mins to around 3-4 hours max before crashing. At the point of the crash, Instead of diagnol lines across the screen, they were just random lock ups where the screen (mouse cursor) freezes and was unable to do anything but cut power off and back on.

I also tried another stick of 512mb ram so in total it had 2GB ram and 512mb video memory, still this didnt solve the issue.

Its could that if you replace your GFX card, it may solve your problem completley, but its something you will have to think about.

My personal perspective is that, I was going to upgrade to a new tower at some point anyway so thats as far as I went with my pc. Ive recently built myself a nice new rig running windows 7 smoothly .

So all in all did the GFX card help??

A little but not enough for my liking, as I wasnt prepared to be reseting my machine every few hours.

My advice to you would be either carry on running XP pro on your system, which Im sure it runs spot on, mine does . Im in the process of selling it now. Or if your really inclined on using Windows 7 you best off upgrading to a newer PC, as you'll probably spend too much time trying to fix stuff on the current machine.

Other than that if theres anything I can help with just ask

 

[lyndon]

Thanks for the information.

After I posted that last message I got a reply from Biostar. (I had written them telling them of the problem.) In the reply they included a Beta BIOS. I installed that and so far no crashes. I don't know how long this will continue, but if it does, I will put off the upgrade for a while. Just wanted to explore every option before I took the plunge.

After I installed the new BIOS and booted into Windows 7, I got a message about new hardware found and Windows was installing drivers for the PCI to PCI bridge. I went to work and came back 6 1/2 hours later and the machine was still up, and it's still going.

If this doesn't work, it's upgrade time. I've tried everything else.

I'm sure you probably ran the compatibility program too and got the result that your system was ready to upgrade to Windows.

I know that eventually I will have to upgrade anyway, so if I have to get a new motherboard, no problem. I'm not going back to the XP Professional and let Windows 7 sit in the box, so if I can't get it going on this system, I will upgrade, but if I do upgrade I will probably go with a dual-boot system of XP and 7.

Good Luck!

 

[lyndon]

Well, I've had the new BIOS installed for 4 days now. Not one crash, or freeze. I'd say it that the Beta BIOS from Biostar solved the problem.

I did buy 2 more GB of memory as it seems to be swapping a bit. That will give me 3GB. The max for this motherboard is 4GB. I'm sure 3GB will be fine as I do no gaming or graphics programs.

 

[tee786]

Thats really good to hear, is that beta bios available from biostar website?

 

[lyndon]

Well, the one that comes up when you click on 'BIOS' on the GeForce 6100-M9 page on their website is at this URL:

BIOSTAR :: GeForce 6100-M9 :: Specification

is named 'CU51M119.BS' It shows an upload date of 2007-08-07, yet the file is dated 2009-02-20. So, going by that, it was uploaded before it was made. It is 3.52 MB.

HOWEVER, the one they sent me was 'CU51M828.BF'. When I look in System Information, it gives me the date of '8/28/2007'. That is the one that I installed and which has solved the crashing/freezing problems. I Googled it, and it is on the following page along with the BIOS I navigated to on the Biostar site. On the page, it gives a later date of 2007-11-23.

BIOSTAR

It says 'Fix Vista Unstable (beta). That file is only 512KB. I tried it. It works on my computer. If you try it, I hope it works out for you. It certainly did wonders for this machine.

 

[ishmiduti]

Hope you still get this. I'm having the same exact issue. I'm on an eMachine EL1200-01e that I had sitting around and it keeps displaying the same error. Is the bios file you had going to work for that model? Mine has a NIVIDIA GeForce 6150 se graphics card and a amd athlon 2650e processor. I just want 7 working!

 

[torrentg]

Hope you still get this. I'm having the same exact issue. I'm on an eMachine EL1200-01e that I had sitting around and it keeps displaying the same error. Is the bios file you had going to work for that model? Mine has a NIVIDIA GeForce 6150 se graphics card and a amd athlon 2650e processor. I just want 7 working!

lol you have to go to the manufacturer's website for your motherboard model. They are specific to the machine.

 

[lyndon]

Yes.

You need to contact the manufacturer of your motherboard to see if there is a BIOS update. That's what I did. The original poster and I have the same motherboard, and he was asking about the availability of the BIOS that runs on the GeForce 6100-M9 motherboard which seems to solve the compatibility problem with Windows 7.

 

[jkewl999]

Hi all.. ok i don't normally post solutions that I've figured out lol (stingy.. )... but i saw you guys all have the same problem with win7 and biostar 6100-m or similar boards. Solution is below to make win7 run stable.

Once setup win7 might freeze with fuzzy lines just restart.
Once in win7 goto secreensaver settings. then from there goto power settings. Change power profile to High performance instead of balanced and everything should be fine. Maybe something to do with link state power management or soemthing..

Ok once this prob is fixed let me know if you have sound. which driver you used. I havent tried the latest realtek but the older realtek ac97 drivers did not work. One set of drivers gave blue screen and winupdate driver just disabled the windows audio service everytime you try access the colume control.

PS Let me know if the power profile change fixes everyones fuzzy screen prob. keep this is in mind for all your setups on all desktop machines. Gotta change is to max performance otherwise you're wasting the PC hardware. THis also solves USB issues and possibly some VGa performance issues.