Random freezes with windows 7 - 64 bit

Opetero is obviously more tech savvy than I... but... the ONLY change that has been made to my computer has been stopping the use of a particular wireless mouse, and this fixed it, totally, permanently, a couple months ago.

I also have my data in a separate physical drive, but of course I agree that its a problem in the system drive... obviously the system drive is required to access the other drive if Windows is loaded so I am not sure what significance is being placed on this? Of course if you use 3rd party software to access the data drive instead of Windows you are going to avoid any problems with Windows?

Everyone is blaming particular programs, events etc.. but everyone has a different problem. I maintain, despite the many expert opinions and experiments in this forum, that the problem is a driver, at least in my case.  Its only the MS V5000 mouse that is an issue with my system.. no other mouse, wireless or otherwise, causes the problem, and this mouse causes the problem instantly in other 7x64 machines.

I believe there are a selection of various devices that people are running into that dont have decent drivers to go with them. In my case, it was a V5000 mouse. If this isnt the case, then somebody, anybody, tell me they are using THIS MODEL mouse without problems? I am betting no-one is.

If you arent using a V5000 mouse, and you are having problems, then I strongly suggest you start disconnecting hardware and see if you can discover a different problem.. its worth a try isnt it?

I believe there are a selection of various devices that people are running into that dont have decent drivers to go with them. In my case, it was a V5000 mouse. If this isnt the case, then somebody, anybody, tell me they are using THIS MODEL mouse without problems? I am betting no-one is.

If you arent using a V5000 mouse, and you are having problems, then I strongly suggest you start disconnecting hardware and see if you can discover a different problem.. its worth a try isnt it?

I am pretty sure that 1. There is  problem in W7, 2. There are multiple triggers that will bring it on, 3.  They may be hardware, drivers, or settings.

So, I say that 1. Check virtual memory setting (automatic too small) and Bios memory speed.   2. Drivers up to date, especially audio/visual.     3.   Disconnect hardware.  (that was the first thing I did, my wireless mouse is Logitech, also I had a crash in my XP boot, that appears to have been an old parallel cable next a power cord)

Knock on wood, think I am fixed since Virtual memory and Realtek driver, both were done same day, so who knows which.      (the driver was a "recommended" MS  update.)

I've been dealing with this problem since Windows Vista came out. I have even had fresh installs lock up on me, without even allowing any drivers beyond the generic defaults to install. I have used many different software and hardware combinations. I have two desktops in my possession, a new gaming computer and an older one with the old parts from the first computer. The new computer always has windows 7 lockups, but the one with the older parts (which had the same lockups when it was in my gaming computer) doesn't ever lock up. Not even one. I have tried dozens of things, most of which seemed to help for a day but then the problem returned.

Now, seeing as most of us have tried to fix something after having a working windows install, has anyone tried putting different drivers in the windows 7 install disk itself? Perhaps the Windows 7 disk doesn't have the right hard drive driver or something, causing it to install correctly but act as if everything is peachy. Or, perhaps a bundled driver could be causing these lock-ups, but nothing happens to people without that specific hardware.

I would really like to see some more developer action on this issue. This is a big problem. In my IT department, we are having problems with Dell laptops crashing yet Dell says that windows 7 runs fine on Latitude E4200's. (Although I think the E4200 is just a big failure of a laptop - don't tell anyone!).

The most fascinating thing for me is that running more than one application quadruples the chance of windows crashing. I've had it crash while idle on the desktop though, so no clue what's up there. Playing music/video raises the chances significantly, as well as flash or java web pages. yet this is also inconclusive, because I've run every single program on my computer simultaneously (and there's some big stuff like Autocad and photoshop on there), and it ran for 12 hours like that with no issues. With Vista I always had it crash while playing games (I got a bluescreen and it locked up while on the bluescreen!), but with Windows 7 it never crashes while in a fullscreen game unless I'm also playing music. Oh, and it doesn't matter what game or music/music player.

P.S. Uninstall Quicktime, if you have it installed. Quicktime made it crash way, way more often. Get K-Lite codec pack or something to replace it, come on people.

P.S.S It's definitely NOT memory, as I've had this on 2 different motherboard/memory combinations where the memory was completely fine AND it was on the motherboard memory compatibility list. Also, I can run Ubuntu just fine on this computer.

EDIT: I have searched the forums for every manufacturer of every bit of software and hardware currently on my computer. There are several things that people are getting the freezes with:

-Nvidia drivers (Especially the newer 195.XX-197.XX drivers)

-Steam

-AVG

-Firefox

-Foobar2000 (just a handful, and most claimed to be using Firefox as well)

Most of the people on the Nvidia forums believe that running video or playing games exacerbates the frequency of the crash. If you have an Nvidia graphics card, I highly recommend grabbing one of the archived drivers on the Nvidia website.

I would like to know if anyone from Microsoft reads these forums? Does anyone know if it is possible to contact Microsoft and how to do it?  I just can't work out what the problem is and I think people should be able to contact Microsoft about such problems. The whole thing sucks!!!