Hardware Freezes and significant hang-ups in Windows 7

[DaveS]

For about a week and a half now I have been experiencing freezes and hang-ups of Windows 7. They occur when there's some load, but not too much load.. They're significant enough to force a hard reboot. I have been mostly experiencing these freezes/lock-ups when browsing the net or trying to exit a program. Is this indicative of an impending hardware failure or is it time to wipe the existing Windows installation and starting a fresh new one?

 

[IronRain]

I would (out of experience) start with scanning for virusses, mal- and spyware. I've had enough cases were this was the issue. If your system is clean and you're still experiencing the problems, then you can further with investigating the hardware and the installation of the OS.

 

[Loru]

I'd check HDD for errors. AFAIK Exiting application (notably heavy one) involves massive movement in swap file so that may be the cause.

 

[Weirdo Earthtorch]

Bluescreens? I started suffering regular Win7 BSODs, and after much fiddling (with the likes of 'BlueScreenView', core temp monitors etc) I finally decided to disassemble the laptop, and re-applied thermal compound between the processor and heatsink. Seems to have done the trick - 'only' 3 BSODs in six months compared to several per day beforehand.

HTH.

 

[DaveS]

Bluescreens? I started suffering regular Win7 BSODs, and after much fiddling (with the likes of 'BlueScreenView', core temp monitors etc) I finally decided to disassemble the laptop, and re-applied thermal compound between the processor and heatsink. Seems to have done the trick - 'only' 3 BSODs in six months compared to several per day beforehand.

HTH.

I did suffer a BSOD when all of this began. I can't remember the details though. Can someone link up a way to retrieve old crash dumps? Right now I'm thinking that either the gfx card or HDD might be failing. My computer never gets very hot, it's regular stationary PC.

 

[jedidia]

Might be a virus, an update gone wrong or a hardware issue. Though Updates-gone-wrong usually destroy the system completely and leave it non-functional until you re-install. Have you ever tried to reset to a savepoint from before the trouble started?

I only really ever had BSODs in one case of system-destroying update and with hardware issues on Win7.

 

[DaveS]

A bit more information now that I'm actually using the PC and not my Android tablet:
The BSOD I was referring to was a System Service Exception in the file nvlddmkm.sys.

Here's the data from BlueScreenView:

Technical Information:

*** STOP: 0x0000003b (0x00000000c0000005, 0xfffff88005f65c75, 0xfffff8800b278210, 
0x0000000000000000)

*** nvlddmkm.sys - Address 0xfffff88005f65c75 base at 0xfffff88005677000 DateStamp 
0x51427b3c

---------- Post added at 11:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:10 AM ----------

Might be a virus, an update gone wrong or a hardware issue. Though Updates-gone-wrong usually destroy the system completely and leave it non-functional until you re-install. Have you ever tried to reset to a savepoint from before the trouble started?

I only really ever had BSODs in one case of system-destroying update and with hardware issues on Win7.

I have done a complete check of everything malware-related using several different scanners and all of them have come up clean or with just very minor annoyance detections.

I'll try rolling back and see if the troubles persist.

 

[orb]

The BSOD I was referring to was a System Service Exception in the file nvlddmkm.sys.

That's part of NVidia graphics drivers. It doesn't need to be related, but did you update them since that time, or just before the freezes started?

 

[DaveS]

That's part of NVidia graphics drivers. It doesn't need to be related, but did you update them since that time, or just before the freezes started?

I updated them after the BSOD thinking that a recent Windows update had broken the old ones. So far i haven't had anymore BSODs but plenty of freezes and hang-ups as well as slow-downs. Sometimes it freezes and locks up the pointer for 30 seconds or so and then becomes unfrozen. This mostly happens when i try to exit a background program or FireFox.

It can also happen when I exit Windows Explorer.

Edit:
I just checked the Windows Restore Points, and there's no pre-problem restore point available so that option is out.

 

[Hielor]

It's a desktop?

If you haven't cleaned it out recently... Turn it off, unplug it, open it up, apply a vacuum cleaner liberally to the CPU and GPU fans/heat sink areas.

Removing thick layers of dust can do wonders for improving computer performance. I have to do this about every 6 months or else I notice significant slowdowns.

 

[DaveS]

Already done as well removing dust from the various slots and connectors and checking the thermal paste which was not a problem.

 

[Hielor]

Do you have another graphics card (or even an integrated one in the chip or motherboard) that you can use temporarily to see if the GPU might be the problem?

 

[DaveS]

Do you have another graphics card (or even an integrated one in the chip or motherboard) that you can use temporarily to see if the GPU might be the problem?

Unfortunately, no om both questions. Just a NVIDIA GeForce 550 Ti. Anyone know of a Memtest86 but for graphics cards?

 

[Hielor]

Unfortunately, no om both questions. Just a NVIDIA GeForce 550 Ti. Anyone know of a Memtest86 but for graphics cards?

Anything that stresses your GPU would probably make a decent test for this. The free/demo version of 3DMark, for example, will pretty heavily stress your GPU/CPU/RAM, but not your hard drive.

 

[DaveS]

Anything that stresses your GPU would probably make a decent test for this. The free/demo version of 3DMark, for example, will pretty heavily stress your GPU/CPU/RAM, but not your hard drive.

Thanks for the tip on 3DMark. Ran it and had no issues and it definitely loaded the card as the GPU fan sounded like a jet engine. That or the ground purge units used to purge orbiters post-landing.

No crashes or hang-ups at all. According to the report, the PC is just fine.

 

[Hielor]

So, 3DMark isn't really a diagnostic tool--just because it says everything is fine doesn't mean it's fine.

But, the fact that it didn't cause any problems while running definitely suggests that the problem is somewhere other than your GPU, and also decreases the likelihood of it being your CPU as well.

At this point I'd suspect either RAM or hard drive...

 

[DaveS]

So, 3DMark isn't really a diagnostic tool--just because it says everything is fine doesn't mean it's fine.

But, the fact that it didn't cause any problems while running definitely suggests that the problem is somewhere other than your GPU, and also decreases the likelihood of it being your CPU as well.

At this point I'd suspect either RAM or hard drive...

Yes. Today everything has been stable but I'll continue to check for possible problems.

 

[n122vu]

If you can find an older copy of the Hitachi Drive Fitness Utility, I'd recommend it. Western Digital bought them it seems, and has changed their tool to run under Windows (which is fine I suppose, I just prefer the bootable version).

**EDIT** Found the legacy version here.

**EDIT2** Just noticed it only supports 32-bit processors. Dagnabbit.

 

[DaveS]

I had another freeze this morning after just 10-20 minutes of activity starting from a cold fresh boot and I have run a built-in self test that I found in the BIOS Setup Utility and everything passed even after 3 hours of continuous load. After all the other tests on the hardware, I feel certain that the hardware is alright and healthy, and it is Windows that is faulty. I'll complete the back ups and wipe the hard drive and do a complete fresh installation of Windows and see if that has any effect.

 

[Hielor]

Could also be a driver issue. That's rather more likely than Win7 itself causing the problem...

What was the built-in test testing?