Freezes and spontaneous blue-screens

Here's a Copy/Pasta from TSG forums.

Originally Posted by Andy

Hey, I've got this brand-new laptop detailed in my specs for school purposes. Problem is, I've been noticing recent issues that have occurred over the past two or so days. My family paid almost two thousand dollars (USD) for this and it's been extremely reliable up until now. I really need it for school and I honestly have no idea as to why these issues would happen.

My machine will spontaneously freeze completely- that is to say everything will just completely stop and I will have no control whatsoever. The screen still displays the last frame I was on and nothing more. The only solution I've found to this is holding the power button in to induce immediate shutdown. This prompts the black screen "Windows has detected an improper shutdown, what would you like to do?" upon restarting and offers boot options in safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, and booting normally.

I've also been noticing that it will spontaneously crash to a blue screen that says "windows has encountered an error and needs to restart. If you get this error screen again, check to make sure your drives aren't full..." etc. I'd like to screenshot it, but as it automatically performs the restart moments after that screen shows up, and after the OS dies, I can't. However, when it finally does restart I get a window that looks like this:

I know my drives aren't full, I'm using about 10% of the 500 Gigabytes available on this harddrive. The only thing I've done recently is use CCleaner to fix some registry issues, that was about two days ago, and I've since used the backup to reverse any damage done. I know using any program to mess with the registry can cause a lot of harm, but I'm very inept at using computers and hardly thought it might result in issues this badly. As far as that goes, I've only installed Adobe Reader 9 and Cisco Clean Access, that's it. I'm using the 64-bit edition of Windows Vista.

This has been going on, as I said, for the past two or three days, and it's increasing in consistency. I don't think I can successfully boot the machine and shut it down any more one single time without this error showing up.

Can anyone possibly tell me what might be wrong or what might have caused it?

Originally Posted by joeten

hi try this then post the error codes
1/ Click Start button
2/ From Start menu Click Control panel
3/ In Control Panel Click the System icon
4/ In the System Window look on the Left hand side of the window and you will see a list of options. Click on the Advanced System Settings option
5/ Because Computer management requires administrative privileges you may find the the User Account Control will pop up. If it does then enter the required information (if you are not the administrator) or, if you are the administrator, click the Continue button
6/ In the Advanced Settings window look for the Startup and Recovery section and then Click the Settings button
7/ In the Startup and recovery window look for the section marked System failure and remove the 'tick' mark from the 'Automatically Restart' option. Now press OK button
8/ Finally click the OK button on the System properties Window and then close the system window

Originally Posted by Andy

I had user control turned off quite some time ago, so no worries there.

I appreciate the advice too, I've automatic restart disabled and will edit this post in or repost with the error codes if the problem persists.

Thanks.

My specs are as follows:
I have a brand-new Dell Studio XPS 1640 laptop with four gigs of DDR3 RAM, an ATi Radeon Mobility HD 3670 GPU, and an Intel C2D P8700 @ 2.53 GHz. I don't know very much about it other than that. It's completely stock and I haven't done a thing to it.

Kind of sucks. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Make sure you have all of the latest windows updates, and all of the latest graphics card drivers. Look on the Dell website and see if the product that you have has the issue listed. If you just bought the computer, chances are that some of the drivers are out of date.

EDIT:

Please don't insult my intelligence with posts like the above. I am inept and and a beginning user of computers and most technology, but I know better than that. I know how to update drivers and get windows updates and run malware programs. I also know how to do system restores, clean my cache, restart my computer, edit text, and change settings. Telling me things like updating my drivers or scanning my computer tells me nothing and really are just stock answers. If somebody didn't think to try those things first, then they need more help than people can give via forums.

For some reason, we had Vista Ultimate 64 bit on a computer and we had one ♥♥♥♥♥ of a time getting it to work too. It was doing exactly what you described, and we tried everything. And I mean everything. It finally became a stable machine again after we installed the Windows 7 beta. Maybe its compatibility with the hardware, just a suggestion.

It ran perfectly fine for an entire month, though. No problems really, no nothing. Several other people use windows vista on their laptops and have no problems. I'm thinking it could've been something I've done or picked up, but nothing is out of place or suspect.

And I really don't wanna poke around with Windows seven in any way. I've got a free upgrade when it comes out and I'll just go ahead and get it then.

Originally Posted by Andy

It ran perfectly fine for an entire month, though. No problems really, no nothing. Several other people use windows vista on their laptops and have no problems. I'm thinking it could've been something I've done or picked up, but nothing is out of place or suspect.

And I really don't wanna poke around with Windows seven in any way. I've got a free upgrade when it comes out and I'll just go ahead and get it then.

I'm not saying install it now, but it might be a good idea. I think if you upgrade from the beta all your files stay intact. Really all you can do is call customer service or bring it to a professional.

Yes, I knew that. I was just hoping someone with more experience then I might know a thing or two on various forums I visit before sending it in.. You see, I kind of need my laptop. :/

Do you have the error codes?

There really are no error codes. The closest thing to error codes that come with the message are:

***STOP: ***Stop: 0x0000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF80002016B81, 0xFFFFFA60017EE798, 0xFFFFFA60017EE170)

Exactly as it appears right there. But those random letters and numbers change every time it happens.

Also, for some reason windows randomly decided to report the error, after it had happened some 15 times. It directed me to a KB article that said an update (KB973879) had caused this, and directed me to uninstall that update. I did, and so far so good. We'll see if this works. Not entirely solved yet, but possibly.

I'm pretty sure that is a kernel error. If you only have seen it once then it really isn't a problem, but in your case because it has happened multiple times then its a pretty big issue.

Biggest thing you can do is undo any major changes that you have made recently to the computer, which you have. System Restore is also your friend.

System restore did nothing. I've actually not made any changes to my computer either.

It hasn't blue screened since I uninstalled that update. In fact, it's only frozen twice, too. Thankfully.

I think we may have problem solved.

Honestly sounds like it could be either malware or a corrupt operating system install, but it could also be ****ty device drivers. If you want to get your machine in pristine shape for classes, I suggest backing up and reformating. If there are hardware problems then that will root them out. Since it's your school laptop, I only recommend updating drivers if you have issues, because a stable machine is your number one priority, not one that may perform 2% faster.

Originally Posted by Andy

System restore did nothing. I've actually not made any changes to my computer either.

It hasn't blue screened since I uninstalled that update. In fact, it's only frozen twice, too. Thankfully.

I think we may have problem solved.

Well, good luck. And it really isn't as painful as most people make it out to format and reinstall if the problem persists.

some friendly advice, don't spend $$$$$ on a laptop. better to get a cheaper lap and a midrange but more powerful desktop... even an mATX sized desktop works.

download OCCT, run it.

I don't know what OCCT is.

Getting a cheaper laptop and a midrange desktop would cost a lot more than this laptop costed. I'm not made of money and my family paid for this.

The problem is more or less fixed. It's frozen once or twice but the frequency is becoming a lot lower.

And I know it's not malware. And if it's ****ty device drivers I'll be pissed because they're still the stock ones that came from dell. I haven't done anything to them.

This is a far reach, but it helped me.

Tighten all your internal cables.

My computer started having periodic freezes (the mouse cursor would not even move). It was very frustrating. I dual boot Ubuntu and XP, and my computer would freeze in either system. One day, I got lucky and noticed that, after a hard freeze, I noticed my CD-ROM was missing from My Computer. I opened my tower, tightened all cables to the CD-ROM and motherboard, and rebooted. The freezing went away entirely!

Again, I'm taking a stab in the dark, but this is the only time I have ever successfully diagnosed a freezing problem. It is worth investigating.

Also, probe for possible overheating.

It's not overheating. It happens like immediately on boot if at all.

And if you'd have read, you'd realize it was a laptop and so tightening the internal cables would be dangerous and probably void the warrantee.

Originally Posted by Andy

I don't know what OCCT is.

Getting a cheaper laptop and a midrange desktop would cost a lot more than this laptop costed. I'm not made of money and my family paid for this.

The problem is more or less fixed. It's frozen once or twice but the frequency is becoming a lot lower.

And I know it's not malware. And if it's ****ty device drivers I'll be pissed because they're still the stock ones that came from dell. I haven't done anything to them.

I meant IN GENERAL. not right now. if money is spent, it's spent...

and OCCT is a testing program which makes sure that your hardware runes properly.

Where is this program located and is there a learning curve to it?

You really shouldn't be satisfied with "it only crashes a few times a day". It really should not crash at all.