Windows 7 freezes

[jjero]

I am so relieved that I am not the only one, and have been battling with this problem for the last two months or so trying to troubleshoot. What is annoying is that I had no problems with vista. I have tried almost all the suggestions mentioned except installing on a different hard drive (anyone recommend good free ghosting/imaging software? Busting my cap with all these reinstalls due to the massive windows 7 updates) and going back to vista! I was actually going to upgrade to a p55 system until I found this thread and see that people are still having this problem with i5.

My problem differs in one way though. It occurs almost always in association with LAN activity between other windows 7 pcs.

I get hard freezes with 4GB of RAM installed (all passed memtest86 and tried other RAM), where no peripheral responds, cannot ping computer etc. On the other hand I get 'soft freezes' with 1, 2 or 3GB of RAM installed where one of the computers network gets disconnected (the computer that gets disconnected is random - note there are 3 windows 7 PCs in my house and LAN activity between the other two results in much lower frequency of crashes say once every week versus every time with LAN activity with the problem PC)

Configuration:
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium Professional 64 bit
CPU: E7200
Motherboard: ASUS P5K SE/EPU
RAM: 4x1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 CL4
GPU: ATI HD 4850
System Hard Drive: 320gb western digital SE16
Secondary Drive: 640GB western digital SE16
PSU: Corsair 450 watt
PCI cards: Nova T 500 HD
Router: Siemens Gigaset (phoned siemens in austria and spoke to a supervisor who could not find any known windows 7 compatibility problems)
Antivirus: Avira (although occurs with AVG and avira too)

 

[kitesurfa]

For every one of these complaints about Windows 7 when in fact it is hardware related only creating doubt for those thinking about trying Windows 7.

Agree - certainly making me think twice at the moment...

also this thread is getting very confusing - but I have spotted some interesting comments...

The interesting bits for me about Win7 freezing is the Anti Virus stuff because on my works PC (running XP Pro) I have Symantec - Endpoint Protection and this freezes XP when doing a scan anything from 10 - well over 60 mins making the PC useless until the scan finishes.

 

[hobbe]

I would be curious to know how many of these freezes are due to Windows 7 trying to work with WDDM 1.0 compliant hardware. Windows 7 uses WDDM 1.1 to render aero effects. If you do not have WDDM 1.1 compliant hardware, maybe it is time to think about upgrading your graphics adapter or stay with Windows Vista. For every one of these complaints about Windows 7 when in fact it is hardware related only creating doubt for those thinking about trying Windows 7.

That's not the issue since my setup is quite new.

E6750
8800 GTS
4gb ram 800mhz
1 tb.

It still freezes but it been reduced alot since i turned off dmw. Or so i think, havnt frooze in a long time (weeks) now.

 

[Drew]

Just a thought, one of the issues might be with AMD proccesors and power scaling. My system is as follows:

BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M9 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Toledo 2.2GHz
OCZ Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
ZOTAC ZT-84MEH3P-FSL GeForce 8400 GS 512MB

Originally I had Ubuntu Linux installed on this computer and I ran into the same problem everyone else seems to be having with Windows 7. The computer would just freeze randomly. It took me about a week of searching but eventually I found forums where other people had the same problem with Linux and the workaround was to disable AMD's power scaling feature by editing one of the configuration files.

I finally got a copy of Windows 7 ultimate just a couple of days ago and started having the same problem. Windows would freeze up within 5 minutes to a half hour of booting up. The only way to fix it was to hit the reset button.

I tried daleebob's suggestion from the second page of this thread to change the power profile to high performance. My thought is that when you do that it might shut power scaling off.

I've got about 2 hours of uptime now so I don't know for sure if that fixed it for good but it looks like it might have.

 

[svbackstreets]

I changed to "high performance" about six hours ago, no freeze. I had a bad problem for weeks.

 

[Drew]

I think this fixed it, I've been running since yesterday with no problems.

 

[Airb0rn]

Freezes on Acer aspire 7738G

I have an Acer aspire 7738G.

my laptop also freezes randomly, i'm trying to fix this as long as the release of Windows 7.
i still have no clue how or where the freezes come from.
The only thing is to wait until the computer/laptop shut itself down in order to repair itself.


after shutting down, an Windows 7 popup will apear, its says "Windows shut down unexpectly and repaired itself" Send an report to windows and the freeze will stop.

atleast for now. i will post more if i know what the freezes cause.

 

[kitesurfa]

I found forums where other people had the same problem with Linux and the workaround was to disable AMD's power scaling feature by editing one of the configuration files.

Please can you post the workaround and full details of the editing required...

 

[Airb0rn]

Solution found

​

when Windows 7 freezes, "Do not turn the power off".
windows 7 will reboot after several minutes.
when he does, he will restore himself.
the freezes we call them are just "blue screens" so don't be afraid.

the source of this problem is still not clear, but i hope this will help people to solve this problem.


( restore itself need to be done a couple of times, so don't bother if he freezes again.)
​

 

[kitesurfa]

Solution found

​

when Windows 7 freezes, "Do not turn the power off".
windows 7 will reboot after several minutes.
when he does, he will restore himself.
the freezes we call them are just "blue screens" so don't be afraid.

the source of this problem is still not clear, but i hope this will help people to solve this problem.

​

Thanks, but for me this is not an acceptable solution. I havent got time to waist waiting for the PC to reboot and restore each time it freezes - Windows should not freeze in the first place...
Judging by the number of views this thread has had, over 81,000 at time of posting, this problem is a major issue and experienced by far more than the few who have posted in this thread.
Finding the source of the problem is the REAL solution so W7 never freezes....

 

[Airb0rn]

Thanks, but for me this is not an acceptable solution. I havent got time to waist waiting for the PC to reboot and restore each time it freezes - Windows should not freeze in the first place...
Judging by the number of views this thread has had, over 81,000 at time of posting, this problem is a major issue and experienced by far more than the few who have posted in this thread.
Finding the source of the problem is the REAL solution so W7 never freezes....

with everybody sending reports to microsoft, eventually they will find the source of this issue, so don't switch the computer off Manuel. its also very bad for your computer or laptop to.

see it this way, when you are driving on a highway lets say 120 km/h, and you suddenly switching your motor off, would that be good for your car?
i dont think so.
my point is, just let your computer restore the issue itself.

 

[andrewtn]

FIXED .. finally .. after days of reading forums and visits to Best Buy to upgrade hardware... this solution costs nothing so hopefully it will work for you.

#0 .. Before doing anything else make sure your drivers are all up to date. I tried this solution first and it didn't help at all but it may help some folks and its a good thing to do anyway.

#1
I found that most of my problems occurred when using P2P applications such as Bittorrent and Limewire. Changing these programs to run as Administrator and also run with Windows Vista Compatibility GREATLY reduced the amount of freezes.

#2
No freezes since finding and making this change.
Power options. Apparently the default setting in Windows 7 wasn't providing enough power for my system to opperate properly, such as when running P2P applications, even Firefox at times. Solution is simple.. Search for "Power Options" from the Start Menu search. You will likely see that your current power option is "Balanced". Balanced is great if you like your system to freeze all the time. Change it to "High performance". Note that you may need to click "Show Additional plans" to see this option.

I hope this helps someone. This seems to have fixed my Windows 7 problems. Also, since I found the Power options solution last it is possible that this solution will work in and of itself so you might just try it first.

I have YET to have a single freeze since changing my Power options. Before implementing #2 I was freezing every 20 - 30 minutes or so. Before #1 it was within minutes of running my usual apps. Ultimately I think that the Power Options is probably the TRUE solution.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Thanks andrewtn

I have seen several people post that power option solution for freezing. I agree with all three steps being a very good idea to trouble shoot freezing. I do hope it helps others the way it has helped you.

 

[Veedaz]

FIXED .. finally .. after days of reading forums and visits to Best Buy to upgrade hardware... this solution costs nothing so hopefully it will work for you.

#0 .. Before doing anything else make sure your drivers are all up to date. I tried this solution first and it didn't help at all but it may help some folks and its a good thing to do anyway.

#1
I found that most of my problems occurred when using P2P applications such as Bittorrent and Limewire. Changing these programs to run as Administrator and also run with Windows Vista Compatibility GREATLY reduced the amount of freezes.

#2
No freezes since finding and making this change.
Power options. Apparently the default setting in Windows 7 wasn't providing enough power for my system to opperate properly, such as when running P2P applications, even Firefox at times. Solution is simple.. Search for "Power Options" from the Start Menu search. You will likely see that your current power option is "Balanced". Balanced is great if you like your system to freeze all the time. Change it to "High performance". Note that you may need to click "Show Additional plans" to see this option.

I hope this helps someone. This seems to have fixed my Windows 7 problems. Also, since I found the Power options solution last it is possible that this solution will work in and of itself so you might just try it first.

I have YET to have a single freeze since changing my Power options. Before implementing #2 I was freezing every 20 - 30 minutes or so. Before #1 it was within minutes of running my usual apps. Ultimately I think that the Power Options is probably the TRUE solution.

Thanks Andrewtn

This is good information concerning the Windows 7 OS and will no doubt help other users :top:

 

[kitesurfa]

Bit early to tell - but is anyone else having any success with this fix - please post feedback to help find the solution ?

I read on a few forums about Power Managment options that some of the changed setting revert back to default each startup or reboot ?
so after a bit of searching I found this software:
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4883-power-plan-assistant-for-windows-7.html

Power Plan Assistant allows a user to:

1. Switch between the Windows built-in power plans (all power plans, including custom plans, not just 2 of them, as it is when operating via system Power icon);

2. Easily observe which power plan is currently active (dynamic application icon in a taskbar notification area changes in accordance with an active power plan, does not matter where it has been changed - in a Control Panel, system Power icon or in the Power Plan Assistant itself);

3. Instantly power off the display on user's demand (why wait at least one minute for it to be powered off, wasting the energy?). The display can be waked up then by pressing any key or moving the cursor;

4. Switch the power plans automatically:
- to 'Power Saver' (to preventively save the energy if the battery level goes low);
- to 'High Performance' (on plugging in);
- to 'Balanced' (on plugging out).

 

[Drew]

I haven't had my computer freeze since I changed it to High Performance. Over 3 days and no problems. I thought I was gonna have to reinstall XP Pro but it looks good now.

 

[plugerman]

Changed my settings to performance setting to avoid freeze after long low idle periods and no longer experience freezes. I already changed my power settings to no longer sleep. In my case there seems to still be something related to USB ports and power distributed within --- mouse freezes after reboot as if mouse driver didnt load.

 

[kitesurfa]

Has anyone been using the Problems Step Recorder, Reliability monitor or Event viewer to help find the problem ?

How do the results after each freeze compare ?

 

[quix]

Solved the issue on my system

I think I solved it for my system:

Asus P5E-VM HDMI
Intel E8200 C2D 2.66ghz OC'd at 3.62ghz
OCZ Platinum pc2-8500 at 903mhz, 4x2gb
win7 ultimate 64 bit
XFX ATI Radeon HD4850



My system would simply freeze irrecoverably at random times, beginning about 4 days ago, and getting worse until last night it would freeze consistently within 1 minute of startup. I read somewhere this was related to the power management settings, so I set everything to max, no cpu throttling, no sleep, nothing goes off. That didn't help.
I tried uninstalling all the drivers on my system, and that didn't help either.
A lot of the vista 64 systems had BSODs with ATK0110 ACPI related problems. I figured this would be a good place to start.
ACPI controller drivers CANNOT be uninstalled. Mine was installed automatically when I installed windows 7.
I tried going to Asus for a 64bit ACPI driver for my board, however the one they offer on the windows 7 page for my board, despite claiming to be 2000/xp/vista/7 32&64bit compatible, will not install on 64 bit systems.

Next thing I tried is booting into safe mode, and updating the ACPI driver.
Since you can't use the Asus one, and you don't have anything else, this involves a lot of chance regarding what version Windows update originally installed for you.

Once you're in safe mode, go to device manager, expand Computer, right click ACPI X64-based PC and choose Update Driver Software.
Next choose Browse my computer for driver software, then Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer. Choose the ACPI x64-based PC driver in the list and follow through with the installation.

I have no idea why this would fix the problem, considering this is probably the same ACPI driver that windows originally installed, but it did fix it for me. It's been 10 hours and I've had no crashes since. I'll update this as time passes.
Worst case if the crashes come back, then at least temporarily until somebody comes up with functional ACPI X64 drivers, you could run a scheduler script to reinstall this driver once every few days.


Edit: Froze again after about 14 hours.
Now it's back to freezing within 1 minute of startup again.

There is an Asus acpi driver for 64 bit, dated 5/5/2009, however whenever I try updating the acpi driver from device manager (which is dated to 2006, by the way), it tells me that the Asus driver isn't right for an x64 system... Any ideas?

 

[quix]

Tried a new approach: went into MSCONFIG, disabled all startup items and all services, system works fine (although nothing's running on it that way, but the point is it doesn't freeze with services and startup processes disabled, so the cause is one or more of them). After that I tried isolating the cause of the freeze-ups.

The result: Workstation in services is what causes my computer to freeze. Having left just that service disabled, the system seems to run fine. No freezes so far (only been 30 minutes, but hey, that's an improvement over 1 minute max after startup, so I'm going to be optimistic about it).

Process description:
Name: Workstation
Description: Creates and maintains client network connections to remote servers using the SMB protocol. If this service is stopped, these connections will be unavailable. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.
Status: disabled
Startup Type: disabled
Log On As: Network Service


What happens when you disable it? You can't join a network workgroups, homegroups, or set up shares on a LAN.
Since running the service renders the computer unusable, and not running renders the network useless, this is far from an ideal solution.
Anybody know how to fix the system service file? Or maybe just remove it and reinstall it? I couldn't find anything on this subject.


Again, system specs are:
Win7 Ultimate 64 bit
Asus P5E-VM HDMI motherboard with ACPI
Intel E8200 C2D 2.66ghz OC to 3.62ghz
4x2gb OCZ Platinum pc2-8500 running at 903mhz
XFX Radeon HD4850
HDDs: Seagate 250gb SATA2 7200rpm
WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA2 7200 rpm 32mb cache dual proc

I'd like there to be a better solution, as I do normally share a lot of things on the network, and I'm sure there are other applications and processes that depend on the Workstation service and will fail or become cripppled because of it being disabled. This is not ideal, but at least the system isn't freezing so far.


I want to see if this solves the problem for the rest of you guys as well.


Edit: up for 5 hours and no crashes so far. I've seen others for whom this didn't help, so it's not the only cause. But if your system works fine in safe mode, then go to msconfig and disabling everything in Services and Startup, then reboot into normal windows mode. Works? Great, you now know the problem is one of the processes or services in the list.
1. Enable all the startup items, reboot and see if it freezes.
No freezing: leave them enabled, continue to do the same with services.
Freezing: sort alphabetically and disable the lower half. Reboot, repeat until you find the process that causes freezing.
2. If it's not a startup item, repeat 1 but with services.

That was the easy part... Now you have to find a way to fix a (possibly) corrupted service...
What I've tried (not 2 minutes ago, and have yet to reboot and see if it worked) is this:
Find the associated dll file. In my case, the service is Workstation and the file is wkssvc.dll at %SystemRoot%\system32\. I had to take over ownership of the file in order to rename it to wkssvc_CORRUPT.dll, then run the system file check. This will repair the "missing" file by replacing it with a copy from the repository.
to do this, press start, type cmd and right click to run as admin. then type sfc /scannow and wait for the process to complete.