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Vista freezes up all the time

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 Big Bad T -
Hello,
I have an hp desk top with windows vista home edition. It was given to us as a gift ..i do not have the os disk. The computer freezes up all the time. I have to end up powering it off because it won't let me do anything at all on it. Very frustrating. Should I reformat it and reload the operating system back on it? Will this make it work? And how do I do this without the disk?? I did make up back up recovery disk but I have been told this won't fix my problem. I have had this computer for months and have barely been able to be on it at all. My other 2 computers in my home are windows xp. I am tempted to wipe off the vista and reload the xp, but I kind of wanted to keep one with vista to see if I liked it. I don't know enough to know if the problem is vista related or something else.

Thanks for any help/advice.

51 replies

Answer 1 / 51

Great post.


I have had the same problem with XP. The screen freezes but the mouse still works and I have to to a hard boot.

I have done everything from cleaning the fan, installing new drivers, replacing memory, deleting programs, booting in safe mode, virus software, removing eveythng from start up, you name it but nothing worked.


I have just done the power settings (turned them all off) an now it works fine. I do not know what cauused this as the PC is 5 years old but that has fixed the proble,

Thank you very much.
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Thanks "ashford man", you gave a place to start. My lock up problem started a couple of weeks ago. First with just IE, then with other programs (ie, quicken). Eventually the PC would totally lock up coming out of sleep mode after two or three mouse clicks, forcing me to cold boot my PC. After cold boot, it would work fine until I had to take PC out of sleep mode again.
I changed my power settings "computer/hard disks" to Never. I made a couple of other changes--setting my monitor to single GPU mode, and customized my power usage to be more efficient.
I did set up a system monitor on my CPU, Disk, Memory, and Network when I had the problem. Interestingly, my disk usage dropped to zero when the problem occurred. PC could not write or read from disk until I would cold boot the PC. I did do a scandisk and came up clean. I suspect my interface to the disk or the Vista 64 bit OS. Given the amount of discussion "out there" about Vista and Windows 7 Freeze ups on different PC's, I'm betting on the OS.
Answer 2 / 51

This power management solution worked!!!!
Answer 3 / 51

Very easy problem to fix. Reboot your computer when it's in the boot up stage just keep hitting the F8 Key. This will bring up the repair menu with a list of options. The hard drive in the Vista operating system is partitioned. This replaced your operating system disk from all previous operating systems as it is in a safe section of the hard drive out of the reach of viruses. You access it by hiting the F8 key during boot up. Start at the first option and work your way down until the problem is solved. Should take all of about 2 minutes.
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So you should click on Repair -- and then what?
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Yes you will lose all files and documents so a backup is recommended.
Answer 4 / 51

My internet and videos keep freezing up. It makes me mad bc sometimes they work and sometimes it doesnt. Today it doesnt. I cant even get youtube to work and I have high speed internet. Its not an internet problem bc regular videos on my laptop wont play either. I'm doing some updates and cleaning out my computer. I'm hoping that will work.
Answer 5 / 51

my compaq presario laptop would freeze up on certain website. I searched for months and finally found that if you check updates in the flash driver that some of microsofts updates there was a problem with updates for the flash drive I downloaded a version it said and mine has not froze up once since then might be coincidence but the realstate website always froze up and now its fine fine since.
Answer 6 / 51

I have 2 GB ram and Vista is always freezing up on me mostly when I've opened consecutive youtubes or videos that require buffering because I think it saps the random access memory and makes everything freeze up
Answer 7 / 51

In a lot of cases, these errors are caused by 3rd party shell extensions that are not functioning properly.

These shell extensions are responsible for creating the options you'll see on the menu when you right-click a file using Windows Explorer. Some 3rd party applications will add their own "action" to this menu, and this can cause problems.

If you look careful at the picture on the right, you'll see several non-standard additions to the right-click menu: "Send to Fax Recipient", "Scan with Norton Antivirus", "TextPad" and "Winzip".

To try and find if a 3rd party shell extension is causing your Windows Explorer to crash on certain actions, you'll need to download this handy (and free) utility: ShelExView. It will let you view & disable shell extensions.
Answer 8 / 51

Hey I got the same problem, but my pc is not a branded one it is a custom built one, and the problem dont occur because of hardware issues. it is a Vista Bug I am using a RAIDed partition for set up my Vista Ultimate, and I think there is no a fully functionable RAID manger on Vista . And I think when one Hdd is sleeping windows get messed up and stop working The os and freezes the screen . and then I set the power plan to high performance mode and then set the "hard disk tun off after" to "never" state, in the advance power management setting , And Now My PC Is running without Problems.

Try That

And By the way their is a recovery disk manager provided by HP in start menu applications
open it and follow the instructions , insert empty dvd disk's one by one and it helps to create a set of HP recovery disk's
then insert the disk when computer boots up {simply, boot the computer from recovery disks ]
then it opens the HP recovery manager
Select the Reset Factory Defaults Then wait
it will automatically sets your computer to the factory default settings and installs a fresh copy of Vista

Important : Backup your Private and important data to a portable disk or something...

Good Luck

And Sorry For The Bad English
Answer 9 / 51

my machines been freezing up too.
it is'nt just vista though.
this what I have.
asus striker 2 extreme motherboard.
intel core2 quad 3.0 pross.
2, 1 gig ddr3 mem cards, brand is OCSZ think.
nvidia geforce 9800 GTX+ graghics card
800 watt power supply.
maxtar sata 320 gig hard drive for my os.
oddball sata 320 gig hard drive for media.

was running window xp pro when I first set up my machine.
no probs. ran good, could run anything with out glitching slowing up or freezing.
games were sweet. had it bout six months it started locking up. tryied figuring out couldnt find anything wrong.
hardware all seems fine drivers seemed good. updated when ever new updates. reinstalled o.s. and drivers. was good. till I updated and put games on. then started doing it again. would lock up during game play and during normal applications. tryied xp home edition same thing. well figured its all new hardware motherboard is vista ready. got vista on it now and did same. reinstalled vista and this time selectivly put drivers on left my energysaver chip drivers off. and evrything that applies to it. kept original drivers for graghics card, did not update. the ion update from nvidia for my card would lock my machine right up.
runs alright right now and no prob during game play. but when I shut a game off it hangs up and my o.s
glitches for awhile.
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Dude you seem like the only person that isnt an idiot on that forum, thankyou for that, I found the same problem myself. I'll try your resolution.

Dont worry, I had XP, thought a new OS would fix it (now have Vista Ultimate) have also tried Windows 7RC. Reset the Clock on my CPU.All updates etc installed. alot of time and patience went into this, so my custom PC must be fixed! I will try it out without the Nvidia Ion drivers and test your theory If it works I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am a computer systems engineer (i hate incompatible drivers).

Intel Quad Core O.C. 3.8Ghz
Corsair 2x2GB DDR3
Asus GTX280
XFX 790i Tri-SLI motherboard
2x 750GB samsung HDD
850Watt Antec PSU
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> alex_da_gr8est
let me know how that works without the ion driver update. I like messing around with the hardware and pretty good at figuring out whats works pretty good but, as far as software goes, I suck. it be like feeding me a line of french.
Answer 10 / 51

MY SOLUTION: I had the same problem,one of you (here or in another forum) suggested changing the sleep or hibernation setting. I tried that and it worked beautifully: when I set it to never go to sleep or turn off the hard drive (the high performance plan in power management in my case) the videos that I couldn't play before- that would freeze my system- worked perfectly. I didn't even have to reboot after changing the setting. I had the freezing problem for a while, and I couldn't understand why sometime it would work (windows media center with TV tuner, some video player, some video streaming from internet-but only in full screen mode) and some time not. Now I think it is because I was going back and forth from the sleep allowed to high performance power setting... TRY it and post the results
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Normally, if I am on my computer for 5 minutes my computer freezes up....I also have Vista Home Edition, my computer is only a year old, been doing this now for about 6 months(consistant freezing, can only use for 5 min periods or less). Turned off my hibernation, and sleep settings, also set at High Performance, and have been online now 10 minutes and hasn't frozen YET!! Very surprised....I hope that this is the solution for my freezing problem!!! Yipppee, so far so good....online now 15 minutes!!!
Answer 11 / 51

notice it is only the Quad proccessors that have this problem though. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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Well I have to say that I have a ADM Phenom II X3 720 and whenever I play games (It was bought as part of a gaming rig) the games hang, when ever this happens the DVD and HDD light activity lights turn on, then the DVD one stops then the HDD and nothing have to hit the power button. Have a HD4870 with 1 Gig of DDR 5 ram. There is also 4 gig of DDR 1066MHz ram and a 1TB HDD. Running Vista Home Premium 64 bit. Also find that when browsing the net and doing other mundane tasks the window will suddenly stop responding and then about 5 seconds later kick back in. Have not found any solution yet and very frustrated.
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> Glundar
I am running the same video card as you but only with a AMD Phenom 9750 CPU 4x...
During games my graphics go all messy and flash dots/pixels (dont know if they are pixels because they are too big for my resolution (1680 x 1050)) and when I exit the games it shows up in the catalyst control centre aswell....
Though for some reason this is only in single players games and not during multiplayer....

Specs:
AMD Phenom 9750 Quadcore 2.4 ghz
4 GB Ram
Asus/ATI HD4870
1 TB HDD (2 partitions)
Answer 12 / 51

I have a dual Core Dell 64 bit AMDX2 and my vista has started to do Almost the same thing....The Screen freezes but I can still move my mouse and use the CAD function...kinda weird im going to try the F8 option and see if that works
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Weird I have the same exact problem. I can still move my mouse and keyboard still works but everything else freezes
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its my friends laptop, its the same tthing but sumtimes the CAD dont work. it wont boot in safe mode either.
i deal with pc's that run xp so im stumped.
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My problem's slightly different than yalls. My tool bar freezes and I can't launch anything new, but the current program that is already open, runs fine. What's up with that? So far Vista has been the biggest failure I've ever seen.
Answer 13 / 51

Having the same problem, but only since I updated my system earlier today. I am currently investigating to see if its a virus, or a hardware conflict (as I run several peripherals, including 2 external HDDs) will report back if I find a solution.
Answer 14 / 51

Hi people, im having the same problem... another quadcore and a custom build.
I have it from 1 month and first I instaled Windows 7 RC1, installed the brand new drivers and had the freeze problem. I reinstalled 7 but didn't install the video driver for the zotac and it worked fine. Then (because some software didn't worket at all I turned back to XP x64 and had no problems until I got a virus XD. So I moved to Vista 64 and had the freeze problem again. I don't know what to do..

Im going to install Nvidia web drivers and see what happens

This is my pc:

Windows Vista x64
Intel QuadCore 8200 2.3 Ghz
4 GB Kingston RAM
HDD1 sata2 Hitachi 250 GB
HDD2 IDE Maxtor 40 GB
Zotac 8500 GeForce (by Nvidia)
DVD Rom LG
Answer 15 / 51

xchrisbobisx do you get a blue screen after it does that, if so it can be associate with a bad hard drive, memory or system board. I would run diagnostics to further investigate the issue. I had the same problem with mine and it ended up being a bad stick of ram.
Answer 16 / 51

It's not Vista64 bit either. Im running Vista Home Premium 32bit and it locks up during games. Sometimes if it sits for long enough it will unlock but only once. Its the video drivers conflicting with the OS. Time to wipe the HDD...AGAIN
Running Vista with:
1gb Dual Channel DDR2 533mhz (i know its slow as balls)
AMD2+ Phenom 9600 (Quad 2.3)
EVGA 730a mobo (running the onboard graphics)
Nvidia 8200 (running with the generic vista drivers, fully updated)
WTF, I don't care how much you vista lovers say the bugs are fixed. THEY ARE NOT FIXED. im going back to good old XP....
Answer 17 / 51

You should try to run fable or any game freezing by right clicking the shortcut and click on run as administrator it works for me windows vista buisness 32bit
Answer 18 / 51

I'm having the exact same problem. Vista, 2gb memory.
I don't have quad core so that's not the issue.

Does anyone have a solution for this? I've read all the replies but it seems to be mostly people restating the same problem rather than any solutions.

James
Answer 19 / 51

I have this problem, and getting sick of it, Been using Fedora 10 to see how it goes , plus Fedora finds my printer HP photoSmart 1000, although I can sub the drivers I donot get the same quality, But in Fedora everything is fine, is now just a case of sorting out wine. Plus Fedora is free and you get lots of software, it really does make microsoft look lame.
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I had the same problem after uploading some recent updates on Vista. I deleted the new updates, rebooted and it seems to be solved now....

I am no expert but if your system was working then stops working then something will have recently changed, system restore would have been a good idea but I had switched it off!!! it is now back on....
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> sergeant805
which recent vista updates did you delete? my computer doing the same freeze discussed in this thread since yesterday
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> jess757
mine did it twice started yesterday. must be an update issue.
Answer 20 / 51

I am also having the same issues with my high end machine. Vista x64 will freeze all the time now. it to the point that my computer is not not usable. 5 minutes in and it freezes. Any help or suggestion would be great. i've checked the Event view and nothing.

Computer Specs

Member: SLI-30315 CHolschuh
CPU: q6700 2666
Memory: 8189(8 GB)
Dual NVIDIA GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+|NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+
Sound: USB Audio Device|Realtek High Definition Audio
Hard Drive(s): C:\ (465.8 GB) D:\ (1.5 TB)
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pull a video card out and it will work ok.
I tried the drivers and it didnt work.
Windows 7 and vista cant run 2 cards?
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