OK, I just did a fresh installation of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit on a brand new ASUS G751 laptop. The build is only a few weeks old, and I am starting to experience RANDOM FREEZES of the OS which necessitates a hard boot.
WTF?
Can anyone provide a clue as to why this is happening?
Thanks for any and all replies.
Welcome to the club.
Before adding my own comments, I mention that in addition to this new one from you complaining of "Windows random freezes" there are several other recent similar threads (on just this forum, not counting similar complaints reported elsewhere on the Interweb) complaining about the identical "random freeze" symptom, which you may not have already glanced through:
(a)
computer freezing on screen saver exit
(b)
random PC freezing - no pattern (this one is the one I've participated in actively)
Since this new thread from you is brand new and clean, I will post here a summary of my own facts and experience with this issue. You may find similarities or differences to your own situation, but sadly the bottom line for me is that I have not yet solved the problem!
(1) This started happening for me and my two ASUS-based homebuilt desktop machines sometime after Summer last year. I say that because I know I reliably recorded (using Windows Media Center on my HTPC machine) the 2018 Winter Olympics which was two straight weeks in February, and the Tour de France which was for three straight weeks in July.
Everything worked perfectly for these day/night 24-7 individual recordings which numbered in the hundreds and dozens respectively. In the case of the Olympics we're talking about recording multiple cable channels with a 6-tuner Ceton cablecard-enabled TV tuner card, and one OTA/ATSC channel recorded with a 4-tuner Hauppauge OTA/ATSC TV tuner card.
This had always been my experience with this ASUS Z170-Deluxe machine since building it back in January 2017. No problems, no freezes, just 24/7 continued steady operation that could go for weeks of uninterrupted continuous error-free behavior between Windows Update Tuesdays.
Hence my feeling that "something happened" after the summer either to my system, or to my LAN, or to my overaall environment, because ever since I've had nothing but instability and random freezes occurting as little as one every day or two to as many as five times in a single day. Sometimes the freezes happen when ZERO (with my involvement) is running (other than my regular background programs which always are running) and the machine is essentially idle. At other times it might freeze while I'm actually working in a program. At other times it might freeze very shortly right after or actually even during the startup and desktop stabilization period of Windows right after a re-boot.
(2) The initial instability/freeze which began on my HTPC (we'll call it Z170) sometime after the summer of 2018 soon "infected" my other older Win7 desktop on my LAN, another ASUS-based homebuilt desktop machine (we'll call it DFW) that I had also been using solidly and problem-free (without needing a Windows reinstall and from-scratch reinstall of all software since March 2014). This machine was based on an ASUS P8Z77-V Pro motherboard.
Remarkably, the symptoms on this second machine were extremely similar to that of Z170. In fact, DFW also contained both a Ceton TV tuner card as well as a Hauppauge OTA/ATSC tuner card, as DFW had previously been used as my HTPC before being replaced in January 2017 by the newer, larger, faster Z170 which became my new HTPC at that time. But DFW still was used to "play" previously recorded copy-protected content out to my Linksys DMA2100 "media center extenders" around my house that I had not yet had a chance to watch prior to January 2017 when I started using Z170 as my HTPC.
So I really had two HTPC machines (one actively in use for new recordings, and the other passively in use for "viewing-down old recordings"), both capable of delivering content (both copy-freely and copy-protected) to the four DMA2100 extenders/HDTV locations around my house through my wired CAT6 LAN. There is no wireless involved with my HTPC setup, although my Netgear R7800 Nighthawk router provides WiFi for phones, etc.
Both machines also had two Eizo 24" monitors attached (one via DVI which is HDCP-capable and therefore can play copy-protected content through WMC, and the other via DP which is not HDCP-capable and therefore cannot plan copy-protected WMC content). Both machines also had double-slot EVGA NVidia GTX 1050ti SC graphics cards in them running the latest retail NVidia drivers.
I say this second DFW machine got "infected" by the freezing symptom from Z170 because there seems to be a very close interaction between stability or instability of both of them. And in fact my research indicates that with multiple Win7 machines on a LAN there is a periodic (every 12 minutes, it seems) handshake done between them, even if there are no "mapped network drives" assigned. I don't know if this comes from just activating printer/folder/data "sharing" for one or more partitions or printer on each networked machine, or just being present on the same network.
But it's definitely seen that if one machine now freezes there's a high likelihood that the other "presumably still active" machine will either (a) have already frozen a while ago, or (b) will itself eventually soon freeze as well. Seems that the expected periodic handshakes between network machines need to be responded to in a proper fashion, and if not then some "unanswered" requests begin to build up until (and this is just my way of expressing it) some "thread queue gets exhausted of all of its entries" and this exhibits itself as a "freeze".
(3) Eventually, my original ASUS P8Z77-V Pro "DFW" machine froze so much, and required hard power-off/on reboot cycles to recover, that I apparently burned out either the PSU or motherboard or CPU or something. But eventually this machine physically dies and had to be physically replaced. I had a choice of doing another homebuild and doing a hardware configuration of my choosing, or "buying retail" and hopefully upgrading acceptably to add additional hardware of my choice.
I ended up deciding NOT to create another homebuilt machine, but instead purchased a Lenovo M910t desktop machine with Win7 Pro x64 pre-installed. Actually, I got a great deal from an online deatiler who happened to have TWO of the identical machines. So I purchased BOTH of them (expecting I might one day need to replace Z170 as well, so why not future-proof myself now given this special opportunity... since Skylake machines with Win7 pre-installed are not common today).
So one of these M910t machines (we'll call it M910t) was un-boxed and installed. Because the Lenovo motherboard in this machine has limited expansion slot capability, I was lucky to discover a single-slot Inno3D GTX 1050ti OC graphics card available from a Dutch retailer, purchased it (actually I bought TWO of them, one for possible future use) and installed it into M910t. I also transferred the two TV tuner cards previously in DFW, one from Ceton and the other from Hauppauge.
I also added a StarTech 2-port eSATA adapter bracket, because M910t doesn't have any available internal 3.5" drive bays for HDD use other than its one primary.bay which arrived already occupied. Since DFW actually had FOUR internal HDD drives in use I needed to expand M910t accordingly. So I replaced the primary 3.5" Windows-based drive with a Samsung M.2 NVMe SSD in M910t for Windows. And I replaced the Lenovo-delivered 3.5" HDD originally holding Windows with the 6TB 3.5" "data" drive previously inside of DFW.
The remaining two 2TB 3.5" HDD drives previously in DFW were replaced with two 4TB 3.5" HDD drives now housed in two OWC Mercury Elite Pro external eSATA enclosures, each connected via eSATA cable to one of the two ports of the StarTech 2-port eSata adapter bracket. Inside the M910t that StarTech bracket connected to two available SATA controllers on the motherboard. So now I had my four original HDD drives on DFW replaced by one M.2 NVMe SSD on the M910t, one internal HDD on the M910t, and two external HDD via eSATA on the M910t.
So... brand new M910t machine (not ASUS-based), brand new Lenovo-installed Win7 system. A few hardware upgrades of my own design, but otherwise should provided flawless performance once again. Right?
Wrong! Shortly after putting it into "production" use (i.e. after my complete software reinstall on M910t for all products previously installed on DFW, including driver/software support for the Ceton and Hauppauge TV tuner cards and WMC thereby accepting the "loss" of all copy-protected content recordings previously made on DFW which could no longer be played on the new machine because of DRM) lo and behold this brand new M910t itself began to "freeze"... same as my other two machines Z170 and DFW were doing!!
How could this be, unless there was something either in the software I'd just installed, or in the LAN environment (including all LAN-based devices, like DMA2100 extenders, smart TVs with wired internet connections, six Netgear GS105 and GS108 switches, smart Oppo BluRay players with smart internet connections, two Roku Ultra streaming devices, two Netgear WNRD4300 routers running as "access points" to provide WiFi to remote locations around the house not reachable from the main R7800 router, etc.), or the mere presence of a second Win7 machine (Z170) on the LAN which itself was still freezing (and then "taking down M910t) which was responsible? Or might the mere presence of two Win7 machines on the LAN itself, and some resulting recent change in handshake protocol be responsible for taking down ANY two Win7 machines? I don't know.
(4) In addition to now having a completely different manufacturer's motherboard involved on a brand new Lenovo M910t machine that obviously is not ASUS-based as Z170 is and DFW WAS, I have tried replacing lots of external hardware. Now remember, all of this hardware had previously been working perfectly and flawlessly for various machines and upgrades in use over the past 10 years. It's only since last summer or thereabouts that something's changed, but nevertheless I was willing to explore the possibility that there might be something in my peripheral hardware devices (also in use on both machines) that could be causing my problems.
For example:
(a) I've tried replacing my old wired IBM PS/2 keyboards (which I still love) going through an Adesso PS/2-to-USB adapter with straightforward Lenovo-provided basic wired USB keyboards. No change, still freezes.
(b) I've swapped out my Logitech MX Revolution and Performance MX wireless mice with straightforward Lenovo-provided basic wired USB mice. No change.
(c) I've replaced my external 2TB Verbatim USB 3.0 drives (SATA3 Toshiba drive inside the enclusure) with my own OWC Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 enclosure (with a new WD Black SATA3 drive inside). No change. I have also tried another external enclosure, this time filling one bay of a 2-bay Vantec external USB 3.0 enclosure with that WD Black SATA3 drive. No change.
(D) I've turned off screen saver (I was using Windows "mystify"). No change. I've turned off "turn off display after n minutes" (putting it in power-save mode, so that it then has to come out of power-save mode after the mouse-jiggle. No change.
(e) I've turned off "sleep hard disk after 15 minutes", thereby avoiding any HDD spin-down which would then require spin-up (and short delay) when next required. No change.
(f) I've tried not starting ALL of my optional "auto-start background software" (which had been running perfectly for decades). This includes Aida64, PERFMON.MSC, DUMeter, and Clockwise. No change. I've tried assorted combinations, some active some not. No change. So none of these products appears specifically responsible for the "freeze".
(g) I've tried disconnecting many of the LAN-based objects, as well as Z170 (i.e. letting M910t run all by itself on the network). No change. This was quite astonishing, as it points to something OTHER than that network sharing handshake issue that seemed so promising as a possible culprit. Kind of points to something else in the M910t itself (that I must have added), such as the use of WMC and its related software, hardware and drivers.
(h) I've tried leaving both monitors on as well as powering both monitors off indefinitely. No change. I've tried disconnecting one of the two monitors completely, revering each machine to a 1-monitor desktop. No change.
(i) When DFW was "still alive", I tried reinstalling Windows 7 from scratch and reinstalled all software, suspecting that maybe something had gotten corrupted in my 5-year old Win7 system. I seemed to have stable performance for a few days, but then the "freeze" returned to my amazement! Again, false hope I'd found the culprit.
(j) Initially I had ALL partitions on BOTH machines "shared" with "full use" permissions, and also "mapped as network drives" from the other machine. In other words all partitions of all desktop machines were "lettered" and therefore instantly accessible by drive letter to Windows Explorer etc. functions from the other machine.
I thought that might be contributing to the network handshake issue that I suspected was crucial, so I have now disconnected ALL of these "mapped network drive" assignments on both machines. I can still get to any drive simply by manually specifying \\Z170\ or \\M910t\, but there's no permanent network drive letter mapping on either machine. No change. Furthermore even so, it still seems that there is regular (i.e. every 12 minutes) handshake going on between the two Win7 desktops.
(k) Because I've now returned to letting all of my regular auto-started background programs run again, DUMeter is presenting its ongoing monitoring of network traffic. As such I can see graphically the network traffic (both LAN-based internal IP and internet-based external IP) for the past 5 minutes or so, both for uploads from and downloads to the PC. When the freeze occurs it also affects screen updating of the DUMeter graphical window. So I can see the network traffic for the past 5 minutes just prior to the freeze.
I have repeatedly observed a "spike" (from something) in the "download" graph from DUMeter appearing at a time point about 40 seconds eariler, before the graph then freezes 40 seconds later. I am trying to find out if I can produce some type of logging that will tell me what that "spike" is.
(4) Assorted other observations include the fact that:
(a) my two Win10 laptops (Lenovo Thinkpad P70 and W530) NEVER FREEZE! Nor do their presence on the wired LAN seem to have any impact on the status of Z170 or M910t. If either one or both Z170/M910t have frozen, the two Win10 laptops nevertheless seem to remain up and perfectly functional. So their network presence seems to be isolated completely from the failing Win7 machines.
Of course the two Win10 laptops have no Windows Media Center hardware or software in them. Clearly I'm VERY SUSPICIOUS of WMC in Win7 being involved.
(b) Also, while one machine had already frozen but the other machine remains totally active, and before when I "disconnected" my mapped network drives configuration so that I still had easy drive-letter access to all partitions of either machine through Windows Explorer, I observed that until the freeze (on the still-active machine) finally took it down as well, or until the failure to respond by the frozen machine to Windows Explorer on the still-active machine finally exhausted all entries in some thread-queue (again, my own characterization), it was still possible to communicate with the seemingly externally frozen other machine via Windows itself.
In other words I could still navigate through the folders/files of the frozen machine using Windows Explorer on the still-active machine, clearly showing that it was NOT the entire Windows system that was frozen on the seemingly frozen machine. It was only the mouse cursor, or mouse clicks, keyboard, or screen display (for selected program screen output but not for all screen output, like "clock", which continued to be displayed and updated normally), which had frozen on the frozen machine. But behind the scenes Windows was still active and running (e.g. clock output still updated on screen) and Windows Explorer still running and providing folder/file output to other machines on the LAN, at least until the effect of the screen-freeze built up to some threshold and all output from the frozen machine finally ceased.
(c) If the freeze occurred on M910t while a WMC recording or playback was in progress, that recording or playback would continue uninterrupted! The scheduled recording would even stop on time, but new recordings scheduled to start while a freeze was already in effect would not start. Playback-in-progress would continue to play, but interactive response to the associated DMA2100 extender would no longer be functional. So I could no longer use the remote to pause or stop a playback-in-progress. In fact this is how I knew a freeze had just occurred on M910t is while watching TV via the DMA2100/HDTV in the kitchen, and suddenly losing remote control over that playback (e.g. to skip forward past a commercial).
(D) I was very suspicious of a large number of USB-connected devices (either directly or via hubs), either USB 2.0 or 3.0, being somehow involved. All USB-related drivers are at latest versions. I've tried disconnecting as many unnecessary non-vital external USB devices as I could live without, but again no change. Still freezes.
(e) The freeze is very definitely mouse/keyboard/screen related. I, too, was supicious that a dropped USB interrupt from a USB mouse when trying to come out of screen-saver mode had caused the cursor to freeze, or other USB input devices to get "blocked out" because of some un-freed "queue entry" (again, my characterization) not getting released, eventually backing the entire Windows system up to its total lockout. For sure during the freeze even if the mouse cursor itself is free to move about, the mouse-click doesn't work. You can't start anything via left-click from the taskbar or Windows Start Button, nor does right-click on the notification area icons do anything. Mouse and keyboard input is blocked.
(f) Often, when re-booting after a freeze it appears that the "network" object is slow to enter its "connected to the Internet" state. This, in turn, delays or impacts the simultaneous startup of other internet-enabled background apps with their own icons in the notification area. These other apps may fail to start, or may start in an "impacted" status. Seems I have to sometimes re-boot twice or even three times in succession in order to "clear out" whatever "harmful" might have been left in some hardware (I am still suspicious of USB connections) that is somehow impacting properly activating the network adapter promptly.
(g) I have looked through the Windows Event Viewer extensively, producing a number of "customized views" of all sorts of entries of all types that I hoped might give me some insight into either patterns of messages or what they indicated, and thus might be helpful. To some degree this has been (I think) a productive effort, resulting in some appropriate corrective tweaks to my environment which have eliminated some of the messages. But others still remain and occurring regularly, some "on predictable schedule" and others more randomly.
(h) I have tried backing out assorted software from the latest versions, to what I presumed were the "stable" versions running in early 2018 or even back in 2017, but to no avail. This includes older NVidia graphics drivers (which is responsible for screen saver), older DUMeter, older Aida64, completely uninstalling Dyn Updater (which I use to support remote connection to my two desktop machines through RealVNC Server running on both machines), letting TeamViewer (also used for remote connection) run always or not start it, all to no avail. Still freezes.
(5) I don't know what else to add. I have been fighting this problem now on three different Win7 machines for the past 7-8 months, still with no success. I've lost one of those machines to "physical death", but the replacement brand new "retail" machine also is subject to the exact same freeze symptom.
If I'm lucky, I can keep one or both of the WMC-enabled Win7 machines up (and un-frozen, and otherwise working perfectly as they always have including for WMC recording/playback on both WMC-enabled PC's) for more than a day (perhaps 24-36 hours). I've even reach a day and a half before getting frozen. More typical on M910t is 5-18 hours before the next freeze, either with me working on it or when "comletely idle" and/or recording/playbing WMC content. I've sometimes had to re-boot repeatedly because a freeze occurred actually during the Windows boot process and desktop presentation, so that it never finished producing a normal stable usable Windows desktop!
I don't have a Win10 desktop to compare, but I do have two Win10 laptops and they both seem to be totally immune to the symptom.
At this very moment, I had to re-boot both my frozen Z170 and M910t yesterday at about 9PM. So they've both now been up and running again for about 20 hours.
As a way of trying something new late last night I was watching TV through one of my DMA extenders/HDTV. When I was done I decided not to power off the extender, but rather just leave it on and power off the attached TV. The Windows Event Viewer reports the power-off of an extender as a an RDP disconnection and "enforcement" event, since the extender is connected to WMC using Remote Desktop Protocol (same as "remoting in" to the HTPC using RDP sessions). In fact each extender IS established in Windows as an RDP "user" (i.e. each extender appearing in C:\Users with a unique name).
Anyway, that extender TV watching session from late last night was ended by my turning off the TV, but leaving the extender still "on". And both machine have now been up for 20 hours, even while M910t has been recording things all day long (including the Players golf match) and has not yet frozen. After 8 months of "false hopes" I am not naive enough to believe yet (or ever) that this might fix something, but it does seem to have been helpful, or it might just be yet another coincidence and before long one or both machines will again just randomly freeze!
Sorry... I have no answers for you, yet. Just my empathy. We are (as are others too, apparently), all experiencing the same symptom.
I had thought perhaps it was coming from the hardware/firmware/BIOS/Windows updates last year which were applied globally and for all Intel-related machines and to Windows itself, due to Sceptre/Meltdown. This was obviously a VERY significant problem and solution update, applied for various manufacturers at around the time this "freeze" started to happen. The fact that (for me, anyway) it seems to affect only my Win7 systems (both old as well as brand new, not only ASUS but also Lenovo) points to some presumed common cause that is outside of at least these two specific manufacturers. Perhaps Win7 (or for me, WMC functionality in Win7) is somehow unintentionally the "victim" of these hardware/software "fixes" for the Intel vulnerability. Perhaps it's something in the BIOS/firmware updates that just was improperly handled by the corresponding Win7 updates, that don't impact Win10 the same way.
I don't know... for now. But I'm still in here fighting for my life, and 24-7 stability for weeks on end once again.
