Windows Randomly Freezes and Recovers

[aceroom]

So I recently purchased a new HP pavilion laptop. It has a Core i7 Gen 3 processor, with NVIDIA GEFORCE 630M and a Broadcom wireless chipset. It came with Windows 7 and I upgraded it soon after purchase to Windows 8 using a promo offer. Well, now I am back to Windows 7 due to some crashes but I noticed this problem in both operating systems.

The system would hang completely, save for mouse movements (No clicks though) and I would not be able to do anything. The strangest thing is that within a minute or so, it would recover. I thought, initially, that the problem was with flash (And I use Google Chrome) so I changed the plugins option to on-demand and the problem still persists. I do have all the latest drivers for all the devices. I am wondering now if the problem is with either the Wireless card (Either wifi or bluetooth). I had a similar sort of problem isolated with Microsoft Word (Meaning only that application froze and recovered). My friend told me the he had the same problem on his Dell Laptop and disabled this particular bluetooth transmit addon which remedied the problem.
Now, I am disabling the Bluetooth network adapter and checking if the issue persists but I cannot do the same with the Wifi as that is quite necessary.

Does anyone have any idea as to what might be the problem and how I could rectify it? Thanks.

Here is my driverlist.txt from SF Diagnostics.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83674441/SF_19-01-2013/DriverList.txt

And my dxdiag:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83674441/SF_19-01-2013/dxdiag.txt

 

[gregrocker]

Is this the HP Factory Preinstall or did you run Factory Recovery to go back to Win7? If so HP has the worst load of corrupting crapware in the industry, which throttles Win7's native perfect performance. That's why most tech enthusiasts prefer to Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. Read the Special Notes for HP Owners at the end.

At the minimum I'd Clean Up Factory Bloatware.

Otherwise work through these Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 starting with the hardware tests.

 

[aceroom]

I did the HP Factory Reset (Went back to the way I got the laptop) including all the HP software. I would not prefer to do a clean install again. I did the factory reset only two weeks back. I'm trying out some of the things on the Factory Bloatware page. I'll let you know how it goes. There are a couple of things in the startup that I am not able to figure out:
HP Auto
HP Client Services
HP Quick Synchronizatio
HP Software Framework Service
HP Service
HPWMISVC

The Beats Audio technology, the HP CoolSense and HP 3D Driveguard (For enhanced audio, for better cooling - uses the accerelometer apparently, to protect the HDD in case of falls respectively) are services that I would like to keep enabled. I'm wondering if disabling these would affect that.

On a sidenote, If the problem indeed is with the bloatware, I'd prefer to stick with Windows 8. I bought the upgrade offer for very less. I was not able to download an ISO. If you're suggesting a clean install with the bare minimum of the HP software, how can I do that with the Windows 8 upgrade.

 

[gregrocker]

Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade

You should always burn the ISO to a DVD or write to flash stick so you have a reinstall and repair method. You own the OS for life to reinstall as often and in the way you want.

I always disable all msconfig>Startups and >Services except AV after Hiding MS Services. The ones you mention may provide useful safeguards and enhancements but may just as easily cause issues since they probably duplicate superior versions built into the OS. It is up to you to weigh this to decide. If it has a driver associated with it as some HD monitors do then I tend to let it ride along. Even Windows Update will often provide this driver.

 

[aceroom]

All right. Thanks for your help. I've done the disabling of these sevices minus one or two for the safeguards. I'll try to see if the issue is still prevalent in the next two days.

On the Windows 7/8 debate, what would you recommend for a laptop computer? I've been a long-time Linux user (On my older laptop) but want to use Windows on this PC because configuring the graphics drivers is too big of a pain right now. Assuming that I will only be using Windows, which is a better option. The last time I upgraded to Windows 8, I got a BSOD within 3 days (Of both installing the OS as well as buying the PC) but this could have been due to the bloatware. And within a couple of weeks, it somehow got FUBAR. I did like the new desktop theme on Windows 8, enjoyed the boot speeds and the login screen.

 

[Juxxize]

hi aceroom, i'm no techie but i had the same issue with my HP windows 7 laptop and i had to factory reset it mine too.

 

[gregrocker]

Without touchscreen I'd go with Win7 which provides a more productive desktop experience if that's what you want, or in Win8 recover the Win7 start screen using Windows 7 Start Menu for Windows 8.

If you prefer the social media functions as primary purpose then Win8 simulates Ipad pretty well for this. It's basically a phone or tablet GUI.

Juxxize, HP Factory recovery reinstalls the worst load of crapware in the industry, which throttles Win7 from its native performance. Best to Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 which are essentially the same steps for 8.

 

[aceroom]

Nope, disabling those services didn't work. I'm going to try removing some of the default bloatware (UNINSTALL Completely).

 

[Jacee]

You can disable and stop them in services ... without a totall uninstall, to see if that helps.

 

[aceroom]

Had tried that initially, it did not work. I've uninstalled a majority of them now and checking if there is a positive effect.

 

[gregrocker]

The problem is that if you turn them off then they have no effect since they're not running, except for the registry keys they have installed which can interfere but aren't deleted in most cases even with Uninstall in Control Panel. That's why the Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 is vastly preferable to get the cleanest possible install.

 

[aceroom]

Okay, the problem definitely still persists. I think I should do the clean install as you suggested but before that, let me describe the problem in a little more detail and perhaps you could tell me if it can be due to some alternate issues (Perhaps even hardware).

The system would randomly freeze up. When this happens, I can only move the mouse but cannot click anything. Sometimes, the mouse does have the loading icon and sometimes not. I cannot even access the Ctrl-Alt-Del menu. After some time, once the system fixes itself, it would show me the Ctrl-Alt-Del menu (If I had tried that) and the action that I had done when it did freeze (Say right click on chrome).

Another weird thing that I noticed that I have not noticed on earlier systems is this:
I was downloading the Fedora 18 iso on Bittorrent and the "DISK OVERLOAD 100%" showed up in the status bar. The percentage stayed near 100%. Meanwhile, I was only performing Windows Update and nothing else.

 

[gregrocker]

Change the mouse.

Test the hardware from Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7. These were given to you earlier, so you may have not caught up yet. But to be thorough i would complete every step given in the thread.

 

[aceroom]

I don't think it should be the mouse. This occurs both with the default touchpad as well as a USB mouse.

I think I may have identified the problem: The event viewer helped a lot in this regard (Thanks for that).
I was getting this error: The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.
This was the Intel Rapid Storage Technology. This does seem like the kind of error that could cause this particular issue. I googled this further and one post did say he was getting 30 second lockups and updating this driver fixed the issue. This would also explain the 100% on Bittorrent. I did have this same version of the driver on windows 8 too. I've updated it. Let me see if this issue persists.

Thanks again.

 

[gregrocker]

Good work, Ace.

It's always nice to see someone willing to learn how to troubleshoot effectively.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[aceroom]

Thanks

I took your advice (After having isolated the problem) and performed a Clean Install on Windows 8 and installed the required drivers from HP and Windows Update. I noticed this error "Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued" by the iaStorA. Now if the problem is only being caused by the Intel Rapid Storage Technology, I'm thinking to myself, why not remove it and let Windows use the native drivers.

Have you had any experiences with this program and whether it indeed improves HDD performance?

Here is the link to the software: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-020784.htm

 

[gregrocker]

You don't need any bloatware package that accompanies a driver, just the driver. So you can uninstall it in Control Panel.

Was this software delivered by Windows Updates where you should have gotten most of your drivers not in the installer? If not and you had a driver needing importation, did you go to the HP Support Downloads webpage first to import it? The reason I ask is your link is from the Intel site which should not need to be accessed for the driver since HP may customize it or Win7 may have already provided it.

 

[aceroom]

Nope. It didn't download with Windows Update. I downloaded it separately and installed it. It offers Native Command Queuing. I haven't seen it crash so far actually but I could not get the chance to use my laptop much today. Let me try with it for a couple of days and see if there are indeed problems and decided based on that. When I installed it once, it gave me a set of things to do in case I have a RAID partition. I do have a RAID controller (But from what I can see, I am not using RAID) and an SSD slot (I am definitely not using an SSD though).

One last question I have. This is regarding Intel Turbo Boost. Initially, it was definitely working (I was noticing speeds of 3Ghz+ - My clock speed is 2.30Ghz). When I was playing a game, the PC was getting too hot. Then I tried to disable the Turbo Boost to hopefully reduce the heat. People suggested using the power management to set the maximum processor state to 99%. That didn't work. I remembered on the default HP install, I had never seen speeds >2.3Ghz s0 I installed the HP power manager. This seemed to somehow prevent Turbo Boost from working (The Turbo Boost monitor says "Intel Turbo Boost Technology has to be enabled to run this program"). And during the game, it was running warm, not as hot as it did earlier.
But assuming that I do want to re-enable it, I can't think of a way. There are no settings in BIOS regarding this. Any ideas regarding this?

Thanks again for all your help again!

---Edit----
Somehow, turbo boost was enabled again! The only change I made was from passive cooling to active. Perhaps that is how the turbo boost works. It needs an active cooling plan (Followed by a reboot).

---Edit 2----
And that is what it says on the Lenovo Forums.