Solved Windows 7 randomly freezes, sometimes starts up without Desktop

[NatX]

Hello all,
I think my problems are of various nature and I start to think it might be hardware related but not too sure. Let me explain a bit about the history.

Around April this year it started, that my Windows 7 pro 64bit system, which was running fine for 2 years had it's hicups. When running Chrome or Skype it just started to freeze every now or then apps didn't run at all. I believed it's was an application issue, but in the end I wasn't able to fresh install Skype anymore so I ran a Malware check.
But no malware was found.

So I thought maybe the registry is so messed up that I might have to look into a fresh install. Also I thought that way I get a fresh clean system and remove old entries that just slow down my machine. I didn't mind doing a clean installation at this point.

I had various problems during the reinstall and ended up till now with roughly 8 reinstallations of my system. All went fine up to the point, when I had to update the netframework. At that point, the updates just failed.

With the latest reinstallation I just skipped the windows updates from 2012 alltogether and it ran fine for a while. Now I get again random freezes (black screen, like if the monitor just switches off) or on boot up it can't find the Desktop and tries to configure it for around 5 minutes.

I ran malware checks, used ccCleaner and avast. Everything looks fine. I also ran the svc check that I found somewhere to do, but wasn't sure how o interpret the data.

I now don't really want to go through another re installation of the system and believe it might be some hardware failure.

I have 4 hdd's in my computer all of the same brand and size. WD 250GB HDD, one is the system drive and I want to clone now my installation over to another drive to check if it's maybe a hardware issue. Now I did read somewhere else that Windows might store the bootloader on one of these extra disks.

How can I make sure all is on one disk. Is there a good Cloner that helps me with that?
What other possibilities and things should I check? Do you believe I'm on the right track that it's a hardware issue? I mean it happened now over and over, though what makes me also suspicious were the failing windows updates.

Thank you all

my System Specs should show up somewhere, as I did add them to my profile

 

[gregrocker]

Please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Mgmt Drive map and listings, using the Snipping TOol in Start Menu. We can see if its configured correctly from that.

Then start working through these Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

If you withheld installing all Windows Updates after a reinstall then you are not running Win7. YOu should install all Updates and run with Updates set to Automatic. The possibility of Updates messing up your PC is less than one in a million so there is something else wrong most likely.

I would look over these steps which spell out how to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 as if you stick closely to them and use only the tools and methods within then you will be assured of having a perfect install. You can then backup a System image in case it becomes irreparable, used to reimage the HD or its replacement in 20 minutes.

Installs should also always be done with only the target HD plugged in, to avoid interference from other HD's. This alone could be a problem which we should be able to see from the screenshot.

 

[NatX]

Hi gregrocker,
will do further testing and go through the list. I already did run 6 passes of memtest86+ last night without any errors.
Will keep the updates posted here, if I have more news.

 

[NatX]

Here a screenshot. Looks alright to me though.
For explanation. D is a external RAID system that I have connected via eSATA.
Don't know why Windows assigned it the Drive D, but that was always like that. Even before I started to have problems.
A lot of project files reference also files in that Drive D.

Will now check for other problems.
If you have more ideas and things to look at please share them

Thanks a lot.

 

[NatX]

Looking through the event viewer a lot of services just fail and stop. If I restart them they fail shortly after again.
How can I permanently fix those services to stop working?

• Windows Management Instrumentation
• Multimedia Class Scheduler
• Application Experience
• Computer Browser Service
• User Profile Service

And a few svchost.exe_Winmgmt application errors..

 

[gregrocker]

I would unplug the RAID storage to see if the problem occurs, because if it doesn't then that is the culprit. Win7 has nothing but problems with dated RAID technology.

The Troubleshooting steps sequence how to run repairs:

SFC /SCANNOW Command to see if damaged system files will repair.

If not run a Repair Install

as a last resort before getting the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 which steps are the same for retail.

Have you had a perfect reinstall following the best practices for Win7 install which are not at all like XP? If not then I would focus on doing that. It would likely take less time than troubleshooting a corrupt install that may have never been done correctly in the first place.

 

[NatX]

No RAID? What's up with Windows. For Data safety I don't really want to miss my RAID. It's an external Hardware RAID System where I keep all my important Data that I don't want to loose. Everything that matters.

Or do you just mean no RAID during installation?

 

[gregrocker]

Did I say no RAID? I said to unplug it to see if it is causing the problem, that's all.

What's wrong with RAID is dated technology that doesn't even offer redundancy since if you lose a HD you most often lose all of your data.

And you should always unplug all other HD's during any installation.

 

[NatX]

RAID 10 is mirroring and striping my data. It should work quite well if a disk fails. How do you protect your data?
I'm still working through my checks and fixes

 

[gregrocker]

I keep my data sync'd to free backup on Skydrive and other HD's also sync'd.

I also keep a current and baseline backup image so that if Win7 fails I can reimage the OS and Programs in 20 minutes to the HD or its replacement.

 

[NatX]

sigh.
I think I couldn't safe it. Will do a clean reinstall and follow your link. Will report back how it goes.

Thanks

 

[NatX]

okay, I use this thread now to track my progress.
After multiple attempts of reinstalling Win7 from a USB drive (used the Microsoft tool to create a live USB disk) I switched to the easy 1 2 3 USB live tool that I've seen Greg posting and linking to in another thread.
That finally did work to get the basic installation working. All windows updates did install straight away successful, except the net framework 4 update.
That one continuously fails.

I haven't installed any other software than Windows and my motherboard drivers.
All external hardware has been unplugged before installation and there is only one physical hdd connected in my system. Yet Windows still installed with problems.

Internet Explorer constantly crashes and I can't use the web and research. InternetExplorer 32bit doesn't even start.
The ResourceManager fails on startup. sfc /scannow gives a few errors, that it can't fix.

I will try to post the report of sfc later the day, if I'm able to move the file to another machine and share the info.

As reported earlier, my memory is fine. memtest ran enough cycles and didn't find a thing. My harddisk is fine too.
Not sure what the issue is.

Hopefully a few more sfc runs will solve the problems. I will not install any software for now other than Windows 7 updates and fixes, just to keep the system really clean and to narrow down the problem.

Thanks

 

[gregrocker]

How close did you get to a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7?

Try it again and this time after install run all Important and Optional Windows Updates after enabling Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3).
There will be multiple rounds with restarts.

Then test performance before installing any programs.

After a day or so testing performance, begin program installs one at a time testing performance in between each.

Keep an eye on your logs and system resources as shown in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

 

[NatX]

Hi Greg,
that's basically what I tried to achieve.
The memtest I ran before and was always fine.
I checked the harddisk with the WesternDigital Tool and did a full scan. All sectors are fine.
Everything got disconnected.
I ran gparted and formated that one harddisk that was left in the system.
Installed Windows 7 SP1 from a USB stick.
Installation went through without any hiccups.
Then I ran my gigabyte drivers from CD and right after that only my windows updates.
The system has nothing else on it than Windows7 and The Motherboard Drivers.
I also haven't connected any other hardware.

The internet explorer seems to run fine now after running sfc, but I still have errors in my event logs.
Mostly Drivers.dll and ole32.dll

The sfc report is quite big so can't attach it. Is there a command that reduces the output to just the problems?

I might try another harddisk tonight just for testing and install again. This time I will not install the Motherboard drivers and just do the Windows updates only. What do you think?

 

[gregrocker]

I'd run it over and let Updates provide all the drivers. Mobo driver disks can contain crapware that bollixes installs. Win7 will tell you if it needs any drivers after all Updates are done.

Stick with the steps in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 and you can't go wrong. I'd even get the cleanest slate by running Diskpart Clean Command accessing DISKPART At PC Startup

 

[NatX]

Hello
Doing the diskpart with 'clean all' didn't do good at all. The installation on that hard diskkept on failing. It either complained about that something couldn't be installed, or it went into an endless restart routine to the windows logo and back to the bios startup...

In my entire history of selfbuilt systems and endless installations i never had so much trouble. Usually hardware is good, make sure system is clean, install, ready. But now Windows causes me more trouble to get a simple basic installation up, than anything else.

I tried now another hard disk. The basic installation did work straight away so far. Will now go through all the updates and check the performance... i hope so much that this time everything runs... will report back shortly.. fingers crossed

 

[NatX]

The initial check turned out to be fine. Windows offered me straight away 103 updates. I am not really sure if it's good to update that much in one go and why is windows not offering the updates dependent on their dates in chunks... anyway it blindly trust it to know what it's doing. Let's see in a few minutes what happened and if everything worked fine.

 

[NatX]

Not everything did install correctly and some errors show in the event history. Doesn't look too bad though. Will leave it alone and monitor it till i continue updating and slowly installing back software.

Thanks for the help

 

[gregrocker]

Nobody suggested Clean All command which is overkill. The suggestion was for the 10-second Clean command to wipe the boot sector.

Test the suspect HD with maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan so you'll know for sure if it was the cause of the probs. If it passes run a full Disk Check creating a full-disk partition in Disk Mgmt.

Remember that you will keep a perfect install as long as you stick with the tools and methods in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

 

[NatX]

Hi Greg
I followed the steps, which isn't too hard. I mean everything is detached and you basically only install windows. My hd check with the western digital hd tool resulted in no errors. The second hard disk i tested now. Seemed to be fine. I checked the event viewer and got only a wmi error which was connected to some cmi tool. When i was checking the online help the computer just went black...

The event viewer just complains about my cold reboot.

I can't help, but there must be something wrong with the hardware. Could it also be the motherboard, as the ram and hd seems to be okay? If graphic card would fail the errors would be different, right?