Author Topic: Computer -Randomly- Freezes -Solved- (Read 40091 times)

silents429 · « **on:** November 21, 2014, 02:11:47 pm »

Hey long time no see, I have yet to have a problem not solved from this forum.

Anywho, Last post I made here was about my HDD and I was told my HDD was dieing and that it might be the cause of why my laptop would randomly freeze up. Made sense to me.

Just this past June I got a brand spankin new HDD, a WD 500gb 7200rpm.

As of right now, I still had occasionally freezes, I thought it only happened when things got overloaded or from heat, I have not been able to ever replicate the freeze, or find whats causing it, sometimes it happens while idle on the desktop, sometimes it happens when playing a game, watching a movie, etc. The laptop isn't always hot when it happens.

Anyway the past 2 days I have had a freeze 3 times, and its getting a bit old, and I don't know whats going on, I checked event viewer and it showed some critical errors followed by some warnings, I went ahead and attached them since I can't make much use of its information.

Now before its suggested I have in the past done disk checks, hard drive checks, SFC scans, etc. I have Bitdefender Pro, and Malwarebytes, and both claim I am clean so thats not it. I repeatably check my HDD health and no errors.

My hardware isn't getting any Yellow Exclamation marks in the device manager, and my drivers are up to date as far as I am aware. When the laptop freezes the fans are also no longer running, Just saying, and sometimes it will play a loud obnoxious tone til I turn it off.

Another thing I have done is unplug it, take the battery out and press the power button a few times. I haven't done any tweaking to my Window 7 OS outside of turning off a couple services that won't be used.

Does anyone know the answer? And sorry this was so long.

Boggin · « **Reply #1 on:** November 21, 2014, 03:21:23 pm »

This is what MS gives for one of the errors http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2080bd89-9f14-4845-b8da-1e073045f98d.aspx

And this is for another http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3336.event-id-1014-microsoft-windows-dns-client.aspx

You can get theses solutions by clicking on the blue Online help link when you click on any of the errors.

What % of free space do you have on your HDD and when did you last defrag ?

If you have more than one RAM module installed, just leave one in and run Windows memory test then repeat for the other(s).

Go Start - type memory then click on Windows Memory Diagnostic and follow the choices/prompts.

silents429 · « **Reply #2 on:** November 21, 2014, 08:36:21 pm »

Memory test as of last month had no issues, I have 384GB of 465GB free.

And I don't think the errors you linked about relate, The service mentioned in the first one runs just fine, the other one. I am honestly unsure whats going on, but I believe these errors happen after the computer freezes not before?

Boggin · « **Reply #3 on:** November 22, 2014, 02:35:06 am »

I've come across where Bitdefender has been a bit of a resource hog and changing the Paging File to the recommended max could help, which is also why I'd asked when you performed the last defrag as that can aid Virtual Memory. https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/sysdm_advancd_perform_change_vmpagefile.mspx?mfr=true

As a trial, uninstall Bitdefender and install one of the freebies such as Avast Free to see if you still get the freezes.

AV programs can also cause hiccups in connectivity.

The Event Viewer errors are repetitive and you also have this one for the 20th http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/19405a2d-cea1-464f-92b2-5e9a34f8f9b5.aspx

Click on the blue Online help links for each error and where they give a solution, work your way through those.

The Event Viewer can't report something until it has happened so one or more will be related.

Does the Reliability History give any more info ?

silents429 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 22, 2014, 09:19:45 am »

It isn't Bitdefender I have only had it for a short time after getting it for free for 6 months off there site, Its done this plenty of times even with MSE, or without an Anti Virus. Still I just upped the page file to what Windows considered recommended anyway.

And I can't even find the service you linked for a solution to fix, You sure its the right one? And I don't remember where the reliability history is.
I noticed in the logs after rereading that a driver was failing failed to load then the crash forms. On most of them anyway.

WpdBusEnumRoot\UMB\2&37c186b&0&STORAGE#VOLUME#_??_USBSTOR#DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_STORAGE_DEVICE&REV_0220#7&20ECBA03&0#
Status 3221226341

Boggin · « **Reply #5 on:** November 22, 2014, 09:45:47 am »

If you scroll down through the errors, you will see one dated 20/11/2014 01:42:45 for the Service Control Manager Event ID 7000

For the reliability history, go Start and begin to type reliability and you'll see View reliability history highlighted at the top then press enter or click on it.

What is the date and event ID of that driver you have listed ?

silents429 · « **Reply #6 on:** November 22, 2014, 10:39:55 am »

Here's the reliability history.

Shane · « **Reply #7 on:** November 23, 2014, 11:28:05 pm »

That is the hard part, tracing down what the cause is. Why? because about 1,000+ different things can cause it.

I just helped a user who was having the random freezes as well, all hardware checked out fine. But after spending hours on the system I finally decided to look at the smart status of the hard drive. The smart status showed it was in a pre fail state. The reason why is it was randomly just cutting out, which was causing the freeze up.

I have also had windows itself, drivers, 3rd party programs, heat, over clocking, weak power, bad hardware (Video, network, motherboard, memory hard drive), attached devices through USB (Such as a fault printer or thumb drive) and the list goes on and on of the possible reasons for the freezes.

So the only thing to do is a process of elimination. You have done a new drive, wouldn't hurt to check the smart status of it, this is the one I use
http://gsmartcontrol.sourceforge.net/home/index.php/Downloads

Also see if you can find any common factor of when this happens. But the hardest part is if it doesnt happen very often then it will be hard to test if something we try works. Such as disabling any and all 3rd party programs to make sure they are not the cause of it.

Shane

silents429 · « **Reply #8 on:** November 24, 2014, 06:25:47 am »

I use CrystalDiskInfo..

Anyway the health status is "Caution"
And the yellow spot says

"Reallocated Sectors Count"
Current=199
Worst=199
Threshold=140
Raw Values=000000000009

Please don't tell me this new hard drive is on its death bed already. I spent like 80 dollars on it.

Probably doesn't help my above suspicion but I think every time its frozen up I am downloading something. I'm gonna run diskcheck anyway.

Shane · « **Reply #9 on:** November 24, 2014, 06:45:15 am »

It does look like it, if the smart data is correct anyways. The drive should be under warranty though.

Shane

silents429 · « **Reply #10 on:** November 24, 2014, 08:39:23 am »

Just did a disk check, still the same as before.

I know it has a warranty, I just don't have a clue how to use the warranty, I bought it off amazon, and I don't have the packaging or any of that.

I'm not fully convinced this hard drive is already broken. It seems to unlikely..

silents429 · « **Reply #11 on:** November 24, 2014, 08:49:37 am »

Refusing to believe it ain't so.

I went to Western Digitals website and got there diagnostic tool, and my HDD just passed with a green check mark and everything.

I don't know who to believe.

Boggin · « **Reply #12 on:** November 24, 2014, 02:04:32 pm »

Run HDDScan-3.3 to see what that gives http://hddscan.soft32.com/

You can click on S.M.A.R.T. and/or click on the HDD symbol to choose other tests.

As an added but longer method, you could use Sea Tools for DOS http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/seatools/

You need to create a bootable disk which you can do with ImgBurn http://filehippo.com/download_imgburn but read the user guide for Sea Tools for DOS.

As you say the freeze is more common when you are downloading, see if it happens when downloading either of those programs.

If it does then check Event Viewer for the time stamp then try the downloads in Safe Mode with Networking to see if it still happens.

silents429 · « **Reply #13 on:** November 24, 2014, 11:20:14 pm »

But the freezing is entirely random, I can download things sometimes, its just it seems when HDD activity picks up it freezes.

Trying to run your first program is only having the process added and nothing else.

I don't really think more then 2 different programs scanning my HDD is needed?
I mean one of them was from the hard drives website.

I guess I can try safe mode tomorrow, I don't really want to spend an entire day on it..

Boggin · « **Reply #14 on:** November 25, 2014, 01:18:58 am »

Just to recap, did you work your way through the blue Online help link for each of the recent errors in Event Viewer ?

For it to occur when the HDD activity picks up could point to memory but you've said it can also occur when just idle.

When a computer is idle there is still activity as Windows usually takes that opportunity to create a restore point.

When you did the memory test, did you perform it on individual sticks or with them all installed.

The latter can produce a false reading which is why the test should be done on individual sticks.

An example I've came across was where a computer had boot problems having had a successful memtest, but when the boot was tried with just one stick installed the machine booted up fine and not when the other stick was installed on its own.

silents429 · « **Reply #15 on:** November 25, 2014, 11:03:21 am »

I did one a month ago with both sticks in. I'm not able to remove them, the laptop is owned by my school, and they have the ram slot covered..?

But for some reason not the HDD panel. So I can't really do seperate slots.

Edit- Forgot, Yes I was trying to fix those event viewer errors, but they appear again. And then when I found out what the processes are for, and notice how they are running fine anyway.

silents429 · « **Reply #16 on:** November 25, 2014, 12:52:08 pm »

I believe I know the cause. Heat.

After paying absolute close attention to when the freezes the past 3 days my computer has been hot. Very hot.

Which would explain why it freezes during idle, because I leave it all day, and thanks to my house being a room temperature of like 79 and 60% humidity, it doesn't cool down easily.

Of course this is speculation, I'm gonna keep my mini desk fan on my laptop to cool it down and see if it happens.

Boggin · « **Reply #17 on:** November 25, 2014, 01:45:13 pm »

If the laptop belongs to the school, how come you had to pay for the replacement HDD ?

HWMonitor will show the temps which you can leave running http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/hwmonitor.html

Only click on the brown Download@Authors Site (32 bit) button in the top window.

silents429 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 25, 2014, 01:50:01 pm »

No the HDD that broke last time was my own.

I use my own because they have massive restrictions on there OS, Im unable to optimize it or replace there norton anti virus etc.
It was affecting my schooling so I just replaced the HDD, and I switch them out when I mail it back in 2 years.

Boggin · « **Reply #19 on:** November 25, 2014, 02:13:05 pm »

OK - have you downloaded HWMonitor and what is it giving for your temps ?

If it's intermittent then it may not be overheating which is why I'd previously mentally discounted that - those type of freezes or even shutdowns in extreme cases tend to be more regular, but see how the monitoring goes.

Shane · « **Reply #20 on:** November 26, 2014, 06:46:50 pm »

Heat can do it, and heat on the hard drive would cause the hard drive to stop responding and cause the system to freeze since the drive isnt responding.

I had a customer who had a old hard drive that would keep cutting out to the point where the bios wouldn't see it. It would do it only after it had been on for about an hour.

So turns out it was heat and something in the drive couldnt handle it any more. So I put to bags of ice between two towels and put the drive in the middle, and ice sandwich.

I was then able to copy all the data off the drive without it give out on me because I kept the sucker cold.

Heat and static discharge are the two biggest enemies to hardware. If you have done so yet make sure to blow air through the vents on the system and try to clear out any dust that might be clogging the heat sink fins.

Shane

silents429 · « **Reply #21 on:** November 26, 2014, 07:00:10 pm »

It has to be the heat, I have kept a mini fan on it all day and yesterday without issues.

Unfortunately the vents are clear so the laptop just heats up easily.

Shane · « **Reply #22 on:** November 26, 2014, 07:14:19 pm »

Sure does sound like heat to me as well. You kept a fan on it and now have improvements.

So you found the common factor and now you know the cause and how to keep it from happening :-D

Shane

silents429 · « **Reply #23 on:** November 27, 2014, 12:05:43 am »

Its not the best, This laptop has horrible usb slot placements, 1 in the back, and 2 on the right side, So having a cord poking at my hand and mouse is a bit obnoxious.

Boggin · « **Reply #24 on:** November 27, 2014, 12:38:28 am »

Did you download HWMonitor which will show your temps ?