Windows 7 Freeze and Possible Time Server Problems

[spaceboy1976]

Hi, I am hoping that someone can help me resolve a problem that i have been having since day 1 with windows 7.

The problem is that my PC will occasionally freeze requiring a hard reset.

The PC itself is solely used as a HTPC with Media Center running on it 24/7. Its running Win7 64 bit. There doesn't seem to be any common tasks that it will freeze up on, although a possible slight propensity for it to happen at 100% CPU use (encoding).

Its not heat on the CPU (it has also happened when at idle), all my drivers are up to date, I thought it might be Catalyst Control Center but it froze without this too, bios was updated the other week and yet i had three freezes in a day today.

The main clue (I think) is that there is always some problem with the time when it reboots after the freeze. A lot of the time it will wake up and think that its 2000, exactly 10 years to the second has been lost from the system clock. obviously this affects the scheduling of tasks, scheduled recordings and so on. Until recently there's been very little detail in the event log, often i have seen the last 1/2 hour to 5 hours missing completely and showing the wrong date when it resumes.

The last three freezes it has (seemingly) been able to retain all the even log and i have noticed that there is a event relating to synchronising the system time shortly before the freeze. When it has rebooted on each occasion, if i go through to changing the internet time settings, it tells me that the time server has stopped. It will restart if I attempt to sync and picks up the right time but this must be more than coincidental?

i am just about out of ideas. i thought that the bios update last week seemed to have fixed everything but now i feel back to sqaure 1.

i would be very grateful for any help, this is the last thing that is really stopping me from enjoying my HTPC

 

[gpmark]

Have exactly the same problem but at least I think I've found out why. The culprit appears to be searchindexer.exe.
My freeze is fairly random except that it will always occur when the tv listing update runs in the early am.
My setup:
- Windows 7 home premium
- Originally an ATI 4300 video card - now it's a Nvidia 430
- Hauppage PVR
- Asus N4L motherboard with 2M memory
- Home Server for pictures, music, etc.
I've gone thru a heck of lot of testing. Here's what I did:
1. Replaced the ATI with Nvidia. I too was seeing a bunch of errors and suspected the flood crippled the system. Didn't fix anything. Nothing in any of the system or media center logs; system just froze and required a reboot.
2. Replaced the hard drive and cable. Denada.
3. Replaced the memory. Denada,
4. Replaced the hard drive. Denada.
5. Double checked and reloaded all the latest drivers. Denada
6. Killed all the services that I could reasonably kill. Denada
7. Cleaned out all of the extraneous autoruns. Denada
8. Rebuilt the entire Windows 7 media center. Turned of aero and only loaded Total Media Player. Set up Home Server. Went thru the autorun and service cleanup. Downloaded all new drivers. Turned on monitors for temperature of CPUs and GPU - all remained fine. Ran memory test for two days with no errors. Denada and still not a single event log error posted - the system just stopped.
9, After 6 months of frustration, 3rd party and system software tuning, and hardware replacement I was pretty convinced that the problem was in Windwos 7 or Media Center. Finally set up sysproc internals and process explorer let them run all the time displaying results on a second monitor. That way when the system totally locked up I could see what was running at the time. Here's what I found when the system hung:
- ehshell running at 51% (media center key module)
- searchindexer - 37%
- sidebar, wmplayer, wudfhost, and svchosts running but all less than 10%
Searchindexer was off the chart with updates to WHS and directory. Ehshell was obviously not a problem so I killed searchindexer. For the first time in 6 months my system has not frozen at night! Continued running next day and had another freeze running TV. There was dwm.exe running even though I had turned of aero (selected classic windows as a theme). Killed dwm and have run a day without problems.

Please anyone else - if you are having the problem try killing searchindexer and see if it fixes your problem.
Please Microsoft - step up and address the problem rather than pointing at 3rd parties, memory, drivers, etc. There's a real problem here that you need to fix.

 

[spaceboy1976]

hi, thank you very much for the response. I'm not sure we have exactly the same problem but you have certainly helped give me some ideas on how to track down mine.

i looked at your instructions and found the searchindexer process. the only way i could see of permenantly ending it was to disable the wsearch service which it seems to be linked to. things looked ok for a while but this morning i found it had frozen again. mine doesn't seem to happen according to a schedule or dependent on any other event, it seems totally random.

anyway, what i have done is tried running the task manager and now the resource monitor on a small second screen i have to see if i can see where things are going wrong post freeze. what software did you use for this? you mention sysproc internals and process explorer but i don't seem to be able to find anthing on these.

i still think mine is someway related to the windows time service. it doesn't seem to start properly. its set to manually start at present, i assume this is default because i don't recall changing this. even when set to automatically start it doesn't though. is this normal?

thanks for any further info!

 

[CarlTR6]

Hi, I am hoping that someone can help me resolve a problem that i have been having since day 1 with windows 7.

The problem is that my PC will occasionally freeze requiring a hard reset.

The PC itself is solely used as a HTPC with Media Center running on it 24/7. Its running Win7 64 bit. There doesn't seem to be any common tasks that it will freeze up on, although a possible slight propensity for it to happen at 100% CPU use (encoding).

Its not heat on the CPU (it has also happened when at idle), all my drivers are up to date, I thought it might be Catalyst Control Center but it froze without this too, bios was updated the other week and yet i had three freezes in a day today.

The main clue (I think) is that there is always some problem with the time when it reboots after the freeze. A lot of the time it will wake up and think that its 2000, exactly 10 years to the second has been lost from the system clock. obviously this affects the scheduling of tasks, scheduled recordings and so on. Until recently there's been very little detail in the event log, often i have seen the last 1/2 hour to 5 hours missing completely and showing the wrong date when it resumes.

The last three freezes it has (seemingly) been able to retain all the even log and i have noticed that there is a event relating to synchronising the system time shortly before the freeze. When it has rebooted on each occasion, if i go through to changing the internet time settings, it tells me that the time server has stopped. It will restart if I attempt to sync and picks up the right time but this must be more than coincidental?

i am just about out of ideas. i thought that the bios update last week seemed to have fixed everything but now i feel back to sqaure 1.

i would be very grateful for any help, this is the last thing that is really stopping me from enjoying my HTPC

Hi, spaceboy, and welcome to the forum. Follow the instructions in this tutorial and upload the files. We will take a look at your system and drivers. It does matter if you have not had a BSOD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

 

[spaceboy1976]

attached to first post, thanks

 

[CarlTR6]

Hi, Spaceboy. Thanks for uploading the files. I have some errands to run and I will be back in about three hours.

 

[spaceboy1976]

thanks , i appreciate any help you can give, i had another freeze this morning just after 6am, the last entry in the event log is syncing the time.

 

[zigzag3143]

Hi, I am hoping that someone can help me resolve a problem that i have been having since day 1 with windows 7.

The problem is that my PC will occasionally freeze requiring a hard reset.

The PC itself is solely used as a HTPC with Media Center running on it 24/7. Its running Win7 64 bit. There doesn't seem to be any common tasks that it will freeze up on, although a possible slight propensity for it to happen at 100% CPU use (encoding).

Its not heat on the CPU (it has also happened when at idle), all my drivers are up to date, I thought it might be Catalyst Control Center but it froze without this too, bios was updated the other week and yet i had three freezes in a day today.

The main clue (I think) is that there is always some problem with the time when it reboots after the freeze. A lot of the time it will wake up and think that its 2000, exactly 10 years to the second has been lost from the system clock. obviously this affects the scheduling of tasks, scheduled recordings and so on. Until recently there's been very little detail in the event log, often i have seen the last 1/2 hour to 5 hours missing completely and showing the wrong date when it resumes.

The last three freezes it has (seemingly) been able to retain all the even log and i have noticed that there is a event relating to synchronising the system time shortly before the freeze. When it has rebooted on each occasion, if i go through to changing the internet time settings, it tells me that the time server has stopped. It will restart if I attempt to sync and picks up the right time but this must be more than coincidental?

i am just about out of ideas. i thought that the bios update last week seemed to have fixed everything but now i feel back to sqaure 1.

i would be very grateful for any help, this is the last thing that is really stopping me from enjoying my HTPC

Love to help but there were no DMP files included in the upload please try this method.

If you wish to have others assist you with your computer's BSOD symptoms, upload the contents of your "\Windows\Minidump" folder. The procedure:

* Copy the contents of \Windows\Minidump to another (temporary) location somewhere on your machine.
* Zip up the copy.
* Attach the ZIP archive to your post using the "paperclip" (file attachments) button.
* Briefly describe the problem history and circumstances in the same post. Somebody will attend to your query as soon as possible.

 

[spaceboy1976]

Hi thanks, I don't have a minidump folder in the place you noted. But this is not a BSOD problem, just a freeze. I think I followed the instructions correctly

 

[CarlTR6]

I have looked at the files. I think a lot of your problem is caused by obsolete software and the resulting obsolete drivers. Software and hardware designed for XP is not going to run well with Win 7. I recommend that you download and install Revo Uninstaller (free) and use it to completely uninstall CyberLink and LogMeIn. If there are Windows Seven compatible versions available, install them. Here are the outdated drivers I find loaded on your system. Those in red font are really obsolete. Update these drivers or eliminate them by uninstalling the software with which they are associated.

000.fcl 26/09/2008 - CyberLink FCL Driver. Video editing software, Multimedia Software and Blu-ray playback software by CyberLink.

CLBStor.sys 04/06/2007 - Cyberlink Storage Helper Driver. CyberLink Software Updates

CLBUDF.sys 04/06/2007 - CyberLink InstantBurn. Cyberlink UDF Driver. CyberLink Software Updates

RaInfo.sys 04/01/2008 - LogMeIn/RemotelyAnywhere Kernel Information Provider. RemotelyAnywhere - Remote Access Solutions

lmimirr.sys 10/04/2007 - RemotelyAnywhere Mirror Miniport Driver or LogMeIn Mirror Miniport Driver. https://secure.logmein.com/US/home.aspx

lsi_fc.sys 09/12/2008 - LSI Logic Fusion-MPT FC Driver (StorPort). Support and Downloads

lsi_sas.sys 19/05/2009 - LSI SAS driver. Support and Downloads

lsi_sas2.sys 19/05/2009 - LSI SAS driver. Support and Downloads

lsi_scsi.sys 16/04/2009 - LSI SAS driver. Support and Downloads

Rt64win7.sys 26/02/2009 - Realtek RTL8168D/8111D Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC. Realtek.

 

[spaceboy1976]

Hi, thanks for the response. Logmein is the latest version, I use it all the time and it auto updates. So I don't understand what I can do about this

The cyberlink stuff is my blu-Ray player and I suppose I could uninstall this. Would this cover all of the things you identify in the list above? I can see the realtek driver needs updating but what are the others?

 

[CarlTR6]

CyberLink seems to be a problem with Win 7. I understand that it is paid software. You might go to their website and see if they have a Win 7 version. That 000.fcl is the problem. The "magic" date for third party drivers and Win 7 is 13 July 2009 or later. There are some Vista drivers that work fine in Win 7. These are dated in 2009 prior to 13 July.

LogMeIn simply is not updated for Win 7. 2007 and 2008 drivers are going to cause conflicts. You can check their website and see if they have a Win 7 compatible version. I suggest that you try Team Viewer. The latest two versions work well with Win 7. I use it.

All of the drivers I listed are out of date; they all need updating. If you update the drivers or eliminate those drivers in red (I forgot to put one of them in red), I think you will see a marked improvement in your system. You could possibly have a hardware issue, but those 2007 and 2008 drivers are more than enough to created problems.

 

[spaceboy1976]

the cyberlink software was part of a bundle but i'm ripping my blu-rays to disk for compression so its not an issue that i have removed this

i can lose logmein also as i mostly used this while setting up, plus i have it on my laptop if i need to access anything. teamviewer may replace this.

i don't know what the lsi stuff is though? and the realtek driver i see in device manager for my network adapter shows a later date 14/05/2009 and can't find any updates.

lastly, you didn't answer regarding the time service,is it normal that the internet time tab in date and time always reports that the windows time service is not running?

 

[spaceboy1976]

hi carl, another freeze again this morning after removing both cyberlink and logmein and restarting so we don't seem to have made any progress yet.

i could run the two reports foryou again to see what has changed?

 

[spaceboy1976]

hi carl, is there any more advice you can give? i can't see where you got the information about the drivers from to check if they have been removed.

does anyone else's windows time service never start? does it matter?

 

[spaceboy1976]

hi, i don't want to appear ungrateful but you've kind of left me hanging here. i removed 2 peices of software at your suggestion but i'm still seeing freezes and i haven't resolved the problems i came here with or the problems you identified from my reports.

i've done some more investigation based on the reports generated and i seem to have got rid of some of the drivers you identified, but not all. Some of the one you identified i can't find either on my system or in the reports generated but this may be me. How can i work out what driver relates to what, uninstall it and check? in particular i seem to be struggling to get CLBSTOR to stop. I can see its attached to my blu-ray player but i can't see how to uninstall it.

I can't find any sign of cyberlink fcl, rainfo and rt64win7 in the reports generated before or after removing the software (and i didn't do anything with the realtek stuff) so I can't see where you identified these problems from or where i can check them on my system.

i'm still clueless on the windows time server. it doesn't start on my HTPC, surely this is a significant problem? it starts on my laptop.

is this the wrong place for these questions? did i offend someone?

 

[CarlTR6]

Sorry for the delay. I was not online much yesterday and the day before. We are all volunteers here. We get here when we can and as often as we can. You have certainly not offended anyone. Please upload your latest dumps.

Regarding Windows Time service, is this the tab you are asking about: View attachment 130302 If so, notice how mine is setup. The service will only be running when it is actually synchronizing the time. It does this according to the preset schedule. Does this answer your question or did I misunderstand your question? You can always sync the time manually.

Regarding CLBSTOR.sys, I see this in your dump and you can get a list of all your drivers by -
Typing cmd in search
Then in cmd type driverquery.

 

[spaceboy1976]

hi carl, thanks for getting back to me. its the tab in the attachment i was talking about. This is the message i receive on my HTPC while on my laptop it tells me its set to automatically sync. at the very least this seems a problem because it won't automatically sync?

i've attached my latest dumps as well. i think i have a problem with CLBSTOR. most seem to be gone but this one is still hanging around. how does it look to you?

thanks

 

[CarlTR6]

Open Services (type services in the Start window and click on Services at the top). How is this service set to start? Disabled? Manual? Automatic? If it is set to Disabled, set it to Manual. Double click on Windows Time to open that tab. The tab I posted above is from Services. Here is a snip from my services list.
View attachment 130574

Here is a snip of my Date and Time tab.
View attachment 130575

There are no dumps included in your upload. You can do a search of your C: drive for CLBSTOR.sys and rename it from .sys to .old. This will break whatever it is associated with.

 

[spaceboy1976]

yeah the service is set to manually start but it never does, this is what i was trying to describe

ok clbstor.sys has been renamed and i'm just running the tool again. i see it is creating some bigger files this time