Random freezes with windows 7 - 64 bit

+1 RandomFellow

I TOTALLY agree

Hi all,

Here’s my story so far, re-Win 7 64bit random freezing and re-boots.

System specs:

i5 2500K CPU LGA 1155 3.3GHz (no overclock-ever) CM Hyper 212 Plus cooler, arctic silver-5 TP

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3R Board (now GA-Z68XP-UD3R)

4x2Gb sticks of G-Skill DDR3 1600Mhz PC 12800 RL 9-9-9-24(CL9D-8GBRL)

Sapphire ATI HD 5770 Vapor-X  OC-Ed 1GB GDDR5 PCIe

intel X25-M 320s 120Gb MLC G3 SSD Drive (system drive)

2x320Gb Seagate ST3320620AS in RAID O (firmware upgraded from AAK to AAM) (programs & games)

WD 1TB 64M Sata3 WD1002FAEX (storage & backups)

Pioneer SATA DVR-219L DVD Burner

Corsair HX-620w PSU (now Vantec ION2 620w PSU)

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit

Fearing I had some faulty hardware as suggested in this thread, I have replaced the following;

Motherboard, from GA-P67A-UD3R (9mths old),(not B3 rev), to Brand new GA-Z68-XP-UD3R

PSU, from HX-620w (9mths old) to Brand new Vantec ION2 620w

All the rest of the hardware is less than 9mths old, and I refuse to fork out for MORE!

CPU passed 8hrs of prime95 torture testing

RAM passed 5 consecutive passes of MEMTest 86+ (64bit) after 3 consec passes of Windows RAM test

First off, I myself began experiencing these problems after I downloaded & installed “Windows Updates”. Prior to this, my daughter’s new PC was running fine!

I have updated the board’s BIOS from F4 to F6c, installed latest graphics drivers + all other drivers from manufacturer’s websites only. Re-installed (after low level formatting) OS to SSD drive 4 times (ACHI mode) BIOS set to “Fail Safe Defaults”. All other drives disconnected. Changed power settings to High (everything under “advanced settings” HDD, NIC etc, etc) no sleep state whatsoever.

Ran Malwarebytes, CCleaner 64bit, MSE.

Downloaded & installed Hotfixes;”Fix322397”,” Fix302249” = No joy!

No AV installed other than MSE.

Disabled all non-microsoft services in msconfig, (only others are intel services for SSD drive, as no other software is installed apart from MB drivers, no APPS)

The PC has gradually gotten worse, now won’t even install updates, (causes failure-freeze-then consequent reboot), will not stay “alive” long enough to perform a “Windows Repair” install. Freezes are totally random in nature, 30secs – 5 mins mostly, sometimes hours (provided you don’t do anything with the PC). Double reboots, freezes on loading OS etc. Easy to cause a freeze, just run either windows update, or “rate this computer” and BAM! Freeze & auto reboot. All while “Fail Safe defaults” set in BIOS F6c.

I’m so sick of seeing the “Windows was not shut down correctly” boot option screen! ARRRRG! It’s like the thing now has a mind of it’s own. I sat & watched  it do it’s own thing for an hour, reboot……freeze…..reboot…..download updates…..freeze… reboot, then tell me that updates FAILED and that reason is, Quote: My BATTERY is getting LOW? Seriously!?  It’s 240v mains power for christ’s sake! How much more power do you want???

 Hardware problem my a$$. This is clearly software run amuk!! And since it is only Microsoft’s software that’s on the damn thing???......

 First time I've ever had to use this forum! Apparently I cannot attach a system error report for your perusal?

I understand there is no easy (or none at all) fix for this with either the 32 or 64 bit version, and I'm not here to complain about it though I'm sure we all have a right to... 

All I really want to know is Microsoft still working on this issue?

This random freeze bug has been around for nearly a year and a half, and the "hotfix" they released the middle of last year did little to nothing for a lot of people. I've been as patient as humanly possible with this and I'm about at my wits' end with Windows 7 (as I'm sure most of you are as well). I've considered re-installing Windows XP just to avoid it and am certainly never going to trust another operating system from Microsoft if nothing is done about it.

I think the majority of us would be a little more patient with the issue if only we knew that Microsoft was at least trying to deal with it still.

Hi Creator,

I was running two physical HDDs, one SATA3 & one SATA2, but I disconnected the SATA2 to see if there was any kind of pwer management or time out issue. That made no difference.

I have a D-Link wireless-n gigabit router attached by ethernet and then to a cable modem.

I'm running Norton Internet Security 2011. Only about 3 weeks left on the subscription, but it's been stable since installation, unlike the Nortons of old. Norton is managing the Windows firewall and there is also the D-Link hardware firewall. This setup (specific anti-virus software apart) is unchanged in several years and has always been pretty stable, so wouldn't have thought it would be a problem?

I'm sometimes getting a 'not responding', but not always. The  main indicator of problems at the moment is whether the Asrock XFastUSB utility initialises properly (P67 Pro3 motherboard). Howver, even if that hangs, I can launch Firefox and at the moment can browse quite happily.

I've now been able to run updates on some of the Asrock drivers and utilities, but then a while ago, I went to click on the next file in ,my downloads folder and it all seized up irreparably.

I've run CCleaner everywhere and tidied up every issue that found. After leaving the system off for a while, I've now been able to run Windows Update, which has installed 3 updates but failed to install 4 others. I got seizures when I tried this several times earlier today, yet this time the updates at least ran; such is the variable nature of this problem. I've allowed Microsoft to install Security Essentials to check for malware, even though Norton is happy, and also to run the FixIt utility for another update failure.

Hi Stupid61,

Remove Microsoft's Security Essentials or Remove Norton. Having both installed, causing the computer to run very slow and can cause Lockups, if the same file is accessed at the same time, by two different programs.

Stupid61, you are using CCleaner. Try downloading TuneUp Utilities 2012 and install it. The Programmers give you a 15-Day Trial.

http://www.tune-up.com/download/

Run its TuneUp Registry Cleaner as well as its Broken Shortcut Cleaner and see what happens.