WIN 7 FREEZES & REBOOTS?

[Fee]

Hi All. I'm having a problem with my laptop with win 7. It randomly freezes then automatically reboots while in the frozen state. It sometimes does it constantly even after the reboot and other times it probably happens every 40min or so.

When windows reboots i get the windows error message which takes me to the error dmp file but i cannot open it and even if i could i would not understand it to determine the problem.

Initially i thought it was overheating so i did the thermal paste over and checked the fan. doing this did bring the temperature down but still did not eliminate the problem. The temperature now hovers between 40 to 60 degrees.

I then checked the ram, that too was in order.

can someone please help me identify the problem. It an HP Pavilion DV3 laptop with a intel 2.1GHz core 2 duo and 3gig ram.

[GforceD]

Windows 7 is a super stable OS which fixes itself automatically, it is never to blame if your pc is slow and or freezing you must have it too close to a black hole or something.

[ViperGTI]

Which anti-virus are you using?

[Arthur]

Win7 isn't the problem, though that's where you 'feel' it.
Could be duff driver, duff apps, duff hardware.

[robertwj]

Have you run a chkdsk on your hard drive? Maybe bad sectors?
Before all that open up msconfig and disable any weird or unwanted startup items.

[NomNom]

Yeah I'm thinking your hard drive is at fault for your problems.

[Ho3n3r]

I had this once when my heatsink wasn't fastened properly.

[Pada]

Here's an old post of mine that is applicable here to some extent:

Disable the "Automatic restart" by going to your Computer's Properties (which you get when you right-click My Computer and selecting Properties) -> Advanced system settings (on the left pane) -> Advanced tab -> Startup and Recovery's Settings, and now uncheck the "Automatically restart" option.

You can download and run BlueScreenView to get the details of the previous BSOD's. This utility should show you what driver caused the issue.

Questions I have for you:
a) Are you overclocking at all?
b) What is your system specs (brand and models if you can): CPU, RAM, motherboard, graphics, HDD/SSD & PSU
c) Have you updated your Windows 7 to SP1 and ensure that all the latest updates are installed? Don't install hardware drivers via Windows updates.

The past few weeks I've been having issues where my PC stalls on the Windows boot screen where you see the Windows logo shining. Sometimes I just reset the PC and then it goes into Windows - where as other times I had to disconnect & connect the SATA cable again, which I now suspect of being broken.

So take a look at bluescreenview and also have a look at your drivers.

I would also suggest that you use HWMonitor to ensure that ALL your system temperatures are OK and not just the CPU's temperature.

[robertwj]

I had this once when my heatsink wasn't fastened properly.

Remember he's using a notebook

[Fee]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. When i run the standard checkdisk in windows it comes out fine. Is there some software i should be using to test it? I even formatted the laptop and did a complete reinstall but still nothing. Im using AVG Free 2012. The system is basically exactly the same as it was before i started getting these problems so its not to say i might have installed software or drivers recently that may be the problem.

When running the bluescreen viewer i see everytime the computer crashes its caused by the same driver (ntoskrnl.exe).

I dont understand what that means so maybe someone can advise?

[ghoti]

Your subject was in all caps. Based on that I assume you have a lot of spyware installed

[ponder]

Boot a linux livecd and see if you still have problems. This could eliminate all hardware issues except for the hdd.

To check the hdd run mhdd or something like that.

[Fee]

I forgot to add that seconds before the laptop freezes the mouse starts jerking, thereafter the wifi gets disconnected then it freezes for a few seconds and just reboots after.

If the wifi was already off then the mouse starts jerking then the wifi light goes on then the laptop freezes and just reboots. Very strange.

[Captain Beer]

Does it happen when running on AC or battery?
Someone brought me a laptop the other day which was doing the exact same thing. Turns out the cable on the power supply had been damaged, he had tried fixing it up but switched the polarity.

[ViperGTI]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. When i run the standard checkdisk in windows it comes out fine. Is there some software i should be using to test it? I even formatted the laptop and did a complete reinstall but still nothing. Im using AVG Free 2012. The system is basically exactly the same as it was before i started getting these problems so its not to say i might have installed software or drivers recently that may be the problem.

When running the bluescreen viewer i see everytime the computer crashes its caused by the same driver (ntoskrnl.exe).

I dont understand what that means so maybe someone can advise?

Try uninstalling AVG.

I had similar issues a while back, although most of the time my computer froze dead (mouse pointer stuck, had to cold reboot). I eventually tracked the issue to AVG which is why I'm using Avira now. In my specific case, AVG caused the freeze when I'm connected to the internet via Network Connections (rather than having the router self configured to connect to the internet automatically).

It might not be AVG in your case, but it is worth a try. I know many people are running AVG without issues, but in my case I had done a clean install of Windows with only AVG installed and the problem persisted. Only after removing AVG (kind-of a last resort), the problem magically disappeared.