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Quick background. I had trouble installing the Windows 8.1 update - it continually crashed on installation. I contacted Microsoft Support and they directed me to this site: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/1e1adbc5-b78e-4b2a-9661-4139d13cc7d3/0xc1900101-0x30018-error-during-update-restore-win8?forum=w8itproinstall
In the end, I was able to install Windows 8.1 by disabling all of my onboard devices (audio, networking, etc). When I re-enabled them, I found that the computer would crash anywhere between 0 - 2 minutes after logging in. I assumed a driver issue and, in those 2 minutes, was able to update each driver via Device Manager (requiring several reboots).
Everything worked fine for a few days. Now, the computer has started to freeze again. Disabling the built-in networking solves the problem, but I would obviously like to access the internet. On top of that, it's inconsistent. Once the freezing starts, I *must* disable networking via BIOS. But then if I re-enable networking, it doesn't automatically lead to a freeze - I'm writing this post from the troubled computer right now.
I've confirmed that it's related to the network card because I tried a dozen things, but it kept on freezing. Disabled the network and boom - freezing is gone.
I don't know how long I'll have a grace period. If I only need to disable the networking once a week, I can live with that.
Thoughts? Drivers are updated. The install is as clean as possible since doing the update required me to wipe my system.
I'm certain that going back to 8.0 will solve the problem, but I like to keep my system current.
Hardware: Asus G73JW Laptop with Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless (as reported by Device Manager)
Thanks!
***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
If any of the previous solutions in this thread continued to be a solution months after they were implemented, would you fine folks please post that information? I'm still running Windows 8 on my Asus G73JW-A1 but would very much like to move to Windows 10.
Regarding thermal paste specifically: I definitely need to replace my old thermal paste regardless, but will that resolve the Windows 8.1 freezing / blue screens?
Hi,
After many freeze/lock ups and plenty online searches, it was apparent to me that these ASUS G73JW Gaming laptops, such as mine, were notorious for having short thermal paste lifespan on the GPU and CPU. This has caused many issues for many owners. Being that I am capable of building tower PC's, I finally took the plunge and dismantled my G73JW all the way down to the CPU and GPU. I cleaned up the old thermal paste, which BTW, did not look good. After installing new thermal paste and resetting the CPU and GPU, and putting the laptop all back together, everything is running just great. I would not recommend this for the faint of heart, but if you have computer build knowledge, it is certainly doable. Just take your time and be extremely careful of the connections during the dismantle and reassemble process. I know we all like easy remedies when we have issues, but to properly fix these types of laptops, a full dismantle seems to be the only true cure. There are videos online that show the dismantle/reassemble process.
Thank you for sharing your solution -- I will try it now. I never found the user experience with the touchpad input device on the G73 series to be any good -- I prefer my wireless trackball.
I know this is an old post but I just overcame this issue today and wanted to share my fix. I cannot say this fix will apply to everyone's scenario but it is worth a shot.
I also have the same machine as the op with similar symptoms (also Windows 8.1). Very randomly, and after a short delay after boot, the system locks up. It can also freeze up in safe mode with networking, but never in normal safe mode. I can stop the freeze ups by disabling network components but that is obviously not a solution. In addition, my system event viewer would get lots of random errors (mostly network services) on boot up right before the freeze. Initially that directed me to something network related but the issue ended up being something else. After a clean install, everything worked fine at first. Then I reinstalled my drivers. After the driver installation I immediately started getting the similar event viewer errors and random freezes. I uninstalled one at a time, rebooting each time, and the one driver that was causing the freezing/errors was the Synaptic touch pad driver. After uninstalling that, I reinstalled all the other drivers, one at a time, and none of them created any event viewer errors or crashes.
TL;DR
Try uninstalling the Synaptic touch pad driver and see if that fixes your problem.
The issue with the G73 for ME was the drivers for the keyboard back-lighting (yeah, lame) as soon as I removed that it was all good, but I liked the keyboard back-lighting enough to go back to Windows 7
