Vista freezes up all the time
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51 responses
i had the exact same problem,it was a pain in the arse and came after I upgraded from xp to vista.just the other day ther I decided to try reinstallin vista and ive had no problems since,i wud recomend itu
Mine froze 13 times yesterday. The screen just freezes, and everything goes dead, mouse won't work, keyboard won't work, nothing. My machine is really top of the line so here's my specs. The company that custom built it has no idea what's wrong:
Windows Vista Business 64 (service pack 2)
Intel Core i5 750 2.67ghz
8 gb of DDR3 ram
2 video cards (NVIDIA GeForce 9400GT's) - used for 4 monitor setup
Sound - VIA High Definiation Audio
HD - WDC WD 10EADS-0L5B1
Please help. This is driving me crazy.
ALSO NOTE, that the freezes got worse yesterday as the day wore on. It froze around 5 times in the first 5 hours of the day and around 8-9 times the second while I was trying to trouble shoot.
This is a BRAND NEW machine and has almost nothing on it other than SuperantiSpyware, Avast and Adobe CS4. I haven't been able to load it up with my other stuff because of the freezes.
Windows Vista Business 64 (service pack 2)
Intel Core i5 750 2.67ghz
8 gb of DDR3 ram
2 video cards (NVIDIA GeForce 9400GT's) - used for 4 monitor setup
Sound - VIA High Definiation Audio
HD - WDC WD 10EADS-0L5B1
Please help. This is driving me crazy.
ALSO NOTE, that the freezes got worse yesterday as the day wore on. It froze around 5 times in the first 5 hours of the day and around 8-9 times the second while I was trying to trouble shoot.
This is a BRAND NEW machine and has almost nothing on it other than SuperantiSpyware, Avast and Adobe CS4. I haven't been able to load it up with my other stuff because of the freezes.
Mine is also a custom built computer. My computer tech persuaded me to trial Win 7, started having problems with it constantly freezing, thinking it was a hardware problem, we pretty well rebuilt it.
Intel Quad Core, 8.00GB; Raid drive, but it still kept freezing. So did a clean install of Vista Ultimate 64 bit (was on Vista Business - no problems there) thinking it was a Win 7 problem. Took it back home and within 24 hrs it was freezing up again. Was not happy. Had thrown money at it, gave it more grunt, and still it freezes. Only loaded Office and Creative Suite, thinking perhaps it was a software problem. Then I discovered that there was a problem with drivers and 64 bit machines running dual monitors. Below is from Microsfot KB:
Video drivers
Systems which use XDDM drivers may completely stop responding in certain scenarios. The computer will not respond to CTRL+ALT+DELETE and you will have to cycle the power to restart the computer, with the attendant risk of loss of unsaved data.
Some activities which have been demonstrated to trigger this issue include, but are not limited to: Using Winsat.exe or using the Rate and improve your computer’s performance tool; Changing multi-monitor configurations; DVD or other video playback.
To avoid this, do not use XDDM drivers, but find an appropriate WDDM driver instead. If your video chipset does not have a WDDM driver (such as the Intel 915), use a VGA driver or an GPU that supports WDDM drivers. If this issue occurs at setup, either avoid unattended setup or uninstall the XDDM driver and use a VGA driver until setup is complete.
I went to the NVidia site and found the WDDM driver, and it's virtually stopped happening. Think it's only frozen maybe twice in the last four weeks. That is itself an improvement over freezing every time I switched it on. It worked for me.
Intel Quad Core, 8.00GB; Raid drive, but it still kept freezing. So did a clean install of Vista Ultimate 64 bit (was on Vista Business - no problems there) thinking it was a Win 7 problem. Took it back home and within 24 hrs it was freezing up again. Was not happy. Had thrown money at it, gave it more grunt, and still it freezes. Only loaded Office and Creative Suite, thinking perhaps it was a software problem. Then I discovered that there was a problem with drivers and 64 bit machines running dual monitors. Below is from Microsfot KB:
Video drivers
Systems which use XDDM drivers may completely stop responding in certain scenarios. The computer will not respond to CTRL+ALT+DELETE and you will have to cycle the power to restart the computer, with the attendant risk of loss of unsaved data.
Some activities which have been demonstrated to trigger this issue include, but are not limited to: Using Winsat.exe or using the Rate and improve your computer’s performance tool; Changing multi-monitor configurations; DVD or other video playback.
To avoid this, do not use XDDM drivers, but find an appropriate WDDM driver instead. If your video chipset does not have a WDDM driver (such as the Intel 915), use a VGA driver or an GPU that supports WDDM drivers. If this issue occurs at setup, either avoid unattended setup or uninstall the XDDM driver and use a VGA driver until setup is complete.
I went to the NVidia site and found the WDDM driver, and it's virtually stopped happening. Think it's only frozen maybe twice in the last four weeks. That is itself an improvement over freezing every time I switched it on. It worked for me.
Your info on wddm drivers seems to make alot of sense. I've just been on the Nvidia site, but could only find wddm driver 185.81 for Windows 7. Is this the driver you downloaded? And will it work with Vista 64? If not, is there another driver on their website that I may have missed? Would really like to overcome the crashes problem. I have an unusual setup... Nvidia GTX285 and an external Matrox Triple Head to Go (digital edition) linked to three monitors. Also using Direct X 10 as it support Microsoft Flight Simulator X.
System specs:
MSI X58 Eclipse SLi
i7 940
6gb RAM Corsair 1600mhz
1TB Seagate
Nvidia GTX285
+
Matrox Triple Head to Go (digital edition)
System specs:
MSI X58 Eclipse SLi
i7 940
6gb RAM Corsair 1600mhz
1TB Seagate
Nvidia GTX285
+
Matrox Triple Head to Go (digital edition)
My $0.02. Obvious it isn't hardware, and NVIDIA driver update on GTX260 didn't help.
My rig:
Intel i7 920
ASUS Rampage II AOG m-ATX
9GB DDR3 RAM
1TB HDD
896MB GTX 260
Up-to-date Vista 64 bit
Running windowed so far allows it to run more consistently. Am not re-intalling Windows or hardware to just run this game, so hoping for a patch. CPU/Vid resources not the problem.
My rig:
Intel i7 920
ASUS Rampage II AOG m-ATX
9GB DDR3 RAM
1TB HDD
896MB GTX 260
Up-to-date Vista 64 bit
Running windowed so far allows it to run more consistently. Am not re-intalling Windows or hardware to just run this game, so hoping for a patch. CPU/Vid resources not the problem.
seems to me ur memory in it could be full or else u downloaded softwear that slowing down ur computer my advice is go into de add and remove and delete software that ya dont need
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Just an FYI, I figured out my "freezing" problem. It was a compatibility issue between my Asus MB and the OCZ Ram they installed. I called Asus myself to confirm this and they said they had in-fact had a lot of problems with OCZ ram and their boards. So they installed some Mushkin ram and not a single freeze since.
I have problems with vista freezing up at start up, I have checked what programs are running at the start up moment but I dont see anything weird. Vista has been freezing up on me for a long time now but after waitting like 10 minutes it works fine. its really weird, i'm thinking of switching back to XP.
Plus my Battlefield 2 wont let me connect to servers like xp used to do, so there that's enough reason to switch back.
Microsoft stop making shitty OS's and try to imitate a mac. Windows 7 is not promising at all either.
Transitrat
Plus my Battlefield 2 wont let me connect to servers like xp used to do, so there that's enough reason to switch back.
Microsoft stop making shitty OS's and try to imitate a mac. Windows 7 is not promising at all either.
Transitrat
The same problem.
First I installed Vista Ultimate with no problems. But soon I discovered that my PATA hard drive had some bad sectors so I was forced to use SATA hdd which I had used for the backup. After installation the problems with freeezing showed. So in my opinion my problem is connected with the SATA hdd. Now I am trying to figure out, what is wrong. Maybe it is a defective Vista driver (I ran update as soos as I installed Vista) or I should connect a different SATA cabel or connect it to a different SATA socket on the motherboard.
First I installed Vista Ultimate with no problems. But soon I discovered that my PATA hard drive had some bad sectors so I was forced to use SATA hdd which I had used for the backup. After installation the problems with freeezing showed. So in my opinion my problem is connected with the SATA hdd. Now I am trying to figure out, what is wrong. Maybe it is a defective Vista driver (I ran update as soos as I installed Vista) or I should connect a different SATA cabel or connect it to a different SATA socket on the motherboard.
i think its the ocz ram ..i too have a brand new hp desktop dual core that came with 3 gig of ram ..i took out one stick to add another gig to make it a 4 gig of memory and that ram was ocz ram .and I have been having the same freeze ups .i leave my pc on and I can come back to it a few hours later and it has frozen on me .. no mouse keyboard control I have to use the power button to reboot ..so after reading about the ocz memory I am betting its that ,,i am going to remove it today and ill come back in a couple of days and let it be known if it was that or not .
Ok.... I do not think it is just a Vista problem. I have dual partition: WinXP Pro 32-bit & WinXP Pro 64-bit. Intel DP965LT Mobo, Intel Dual Core 6700 Processor, 4Gb (2x2GB) Kingston Hyper DDR2 800Mhz, GeForce 6600 256Mb 128-bit DDR graphics card, Antec 750w Green P.S., and 4 Sata HDD ( currently using 2, one for 32-bit, and one for 64-bit and storage).
About 2 months ago, I was buying more memory, and 2 new hard drives, and I noticed that the fan on my 550w P.S. was not running. So I added the Antec 750w supply to the order. Luckily, I have my system with many extra internal fans which kept the processor and motherboard cool enough to not suffer any damage. As a tech, I know a rule is that when you make any hardware or software change on any computer system, you should only make one change at a time, and test the system before making another change. I broke this rule and now my system freezes up totally.
I go have to go into the bios on each restart, and I also have to use F8 to get the system to not lock up long enough to use it. I think it is Nvidia causing the problem because even the clock freezes on the monitor. I have since gone back to my original Nvidia driver, but it still freezes. I'm thinking of replacing the card with a better one anyway.
I replaced the P.S., and added the new memory, updated bios on motherboard from Intel website, and updated the Nvidia driver. That is when it started locking up. I thought maybe the P.S. may have sent incorrect voltages or current, or maybe the memory had issues with file paging size. I have tested all these and the system still locks up no matter which partition I use.
I have not ordered my new video card yet for I can't decide on which would be the best to get, or if I should just get a TV tuner video card.
Any ideas or suggestions?
About 2 months ago, I was buying more memory, and 2 new hard drives, and I noticed that the fan on my 550w P.S. was not running. So I added the Antec 750w supply to the order. Luckily, I have my system with many extra internal fans which kept the processor and motherboard cool enough to not suffer any damage. As a tech, I know a rule is that when you make any hardware or software change on any computer system, you should only make one change at a time, and test the system before making another change. I broke this rule and now my system freezes up totally.
I go have to go into the bios on each restart, and I also have to use F8 to get the system to not lock up long enough to use it. I think it is Nvidia causing the problem because even the clock freezes on the monitor. I have since gone back to my original Nvidia driver, but it still freezes. I'm thinking of replacing the card with a better one anyway.
I replaced the P.S., and added the new memory, updated bios on motherboard from Intel website, and updated the Nvidia driver. That is when it started locking up. I thought maybe the P.S. may have sent incorrect voltages or current, or maybe the memory had issues with file paging size. I have tested all these and the system still locks up no matter which partition I use.
I have not ordered my new video card yet for I can't decide on which would be the best to get, or if I should just get a TV tuner video card.
Any ideas or suggestions?
u must have a shit pc then if it freezes or downloaded things that your pc cant run properly anyways reboot your pc get a new and ram ( 2.4 ghz processor 2gb ram) atleast to run properly or get xp
No, vista is the worst thing since dried milk, change to X/p or 7. Vista is BAD BAD BAD BAd, is Freezes no matter what, even on a fresh install.
The answer to the majority of questions regarding Vista freezing on shutdown lies within the fact that the user must turn off all network trafficing via WLAN switch. There seems to be a bug within the OS that Microsoft has not addressed as of yet. After countless trials and errors, turning off the the WLAN switch before restarting, shutdown, etc. seems to be the fix.
Recently I ran into this problem on boot up, basically the machine boots up, then freezes and become useless. The problem turned out to be Microsoft's live one care. Removed it and the machine now operates flawlessly. The problem might be that this is now a discountinued product so the support or whatever is not there anymore. The replacement product is now Microsoft Security Essentials which is a free downloaded service and works great. Pass it on.
Windows Vista is shit if I could get rid of it and install Windows XP pro in it's place I would, Windows Vista is for computer iliterate grandmothers. They said it was the biz when they launched it but it is so full of bugs it's worse than Windows 2000. Oldham. Lancs. UK.
I had a similar problem- freezing when connected to internet using USB dongle, after trying everything I removed AVG 9.5 and the problem went away......
HEY GUYS.. I FEEL I'VE FIGURED OUT A SOLUTION TO SAME FREEZING PROBLEM I HAD WITH MY VISTA32 WINDOWS EXPLORER...
WHEN EVER I USED TO OPEN MY C DRIVE (WHERE MY WINDOOWS IS INSTALLED) IT USED TO FREEZE...
I NOTICED THAT DIRECTORIES ON C DRIVE ARE LOADED WITH THOUSANDS OF FIILES..
I HAD SELECTED THUMBNAIL VIEW AND APPLIED IT TO ALL FOLDERS LIKE I USED TO DO IN PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF WINDOWS..
NOW WHENEVER I OPENED C DRIVE IT STUCK LOADING ALL THE THUMBNAILS OF THESE OVER 1000'S OF FILES
SOLUTION.. I CHANGED THE VIEW TO LIST.. AND APPLIED TO ALL FOLDERS.. N THE DAMN THING WORKING FINE SINCE..
DO LET ME KNOW IF THIS SOLVED UR PROBLEM..
WHEN EVER I USED TO OPEN MY C DRIVE (WHERE MY WINDOOWS IS INSTALLED) IT USED TO FREEZE...
I NOTICED THAT DIRECTORIES ON C DRIVE ARE LOADED WITH THOUSANDS OF FIILES..
I HAD SELECTED THUMBNAIL VIEW AND APPLIED IT TO ALL FOLDERS LIKE I USED TO DO IN PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF WINDOWS..
NOW WHENEVER I OPENED C DRIVE IT STUCK LOADING ALL THE THUMBNAILS OF THESE OVER 1000'S OF FILES
SOLUTION.. I CHANGED THE VIEW TO LIST.. AND APPLIED TO ALL FOLDERS.. N THE DAMN THING WORKING FINE SINCE..
DO LET ME KNOW IF THIS SOLVED UR PROBLEM..
use da repair disk and start up ur pc in safe mode and go 2 control panel and click on restore 2 piont and click on a piont of time before the screen started flickering that should do it
Ok, Vista 64 premium also started to freeze on me in particular programs about 1 month ago. Before that everything was fine. In particular, programs that accessed the internet were the biggest offenders and they would freeze in a very particular fashion. It would open fine, but then freeze on the same button click or movement every single time and then of course on exiting - would always freeze. Then today, after my laptop froze in Firefox and then the whole computer froze, I had to remove the battery to reboot. After the reboot (normal mode, not safe) I entered Firefox again and it asked to reopen the previous tabs or a new session...i chose new session. Since then, I have had no freezing whatsoever. Strange, can't explain it, but looking back my computer may have started to freeze after a similar episode requiring pulling the plug. I wonder if this has something to do with a corruption in vista upon an improperly shut down machine. then when improperly shut down again it may either clear the error. I have no idea, but just throwing this out there to get people's thoughts and what the hell, try pulling the plug and see what happens...
Strange freezes started for me only 2 weeks ago. I have used this Vista 64bit Home Premium for about 1.5 years. I noticed a number of things regarding the freezes:
- Never occurred in safe mode.
- Would occur less frequently if I scheduled a HDD check on boot.
- Windows core would freeze first and then other applications would run for a while before also freezing.
- During freezes I could still see my mouse move and see the alt-tab popup.
- HDD light would not light up during the freeze.
In my case, I strongly believe it is an issue of the HDD shutting down and not turning back on when requested.
Not sure if it is an HDD hardware issue, or Vista OS issue.
Regardless, turning off the power-management settings that would shut down the HDD when not in use seems to have fixed my problem!
Side Note: Despite what many people have claimed over the years, Vista did add some significant stability and productivity features underneath all the bloat.
- Never occurred in safe mode.
- Would occur less frequently if I scheduled a HDD check on boot.
- Windows core would freeze first and then other applications would run for a while before also freezing.
- During freezes I could still see my mouse move and see the alt-tab popup.
- HDD light would not light up during the freeze.
In my case, I strongly believe it is an issue of the HDD shutting down and not turning back on when requested.
Not sure if it is an HDD hardware issue, or Vista OS issue.
Regardless, turning off the power-management settings that would shut down the HDD when not in use seems to have fixed my problem!
Side Note: Despite what many people have claimed over the years, Vista did add some significant stability and productivity features underneath all the bloat.
I was having horrible freezing with Win 7 x64 ( Nvidia GTS250)(OCZ1699 DDR3)(P6X58D)(i7 920 @2.67)
that I first attributed to my recently installed SSD ( intel 80G G2)
I dual boot Win 7 x64 either from the SSD or from a 1TB Seagate Sata .
At frist freezing only happened with the SSD so naturally I thought it was the SSD ... RMS'd the G2 and while waiting I used the Seagate. After one windoze update it too started freezing.
I should note that the freezing only really happened when I had an external drive hooked ... be it esata or USB.
It wasn't until my music kept playing in the back ground that I realized it wasn't a lockup , but rather a "freeze" where the mouse keyboard and video didn't work but the PC was still running in the back ground.
I also had a strange problem ( both boot drives) .. right clicking on the drives in explorer would crash explorer.
I traced the fault to the Nvidia.cpl which I disabled. Now explorer would not crash anymore.
As the Freezing seemed related to video sub system I uninstalled the Nvidia driver (WDDM) ( not XDDM in case anyone is wondering)( (lastest as of Feb 01 2010) and let Windoze install the Microsoft driver. ( WDDM)
Problem solved on both boot drives. Rock solid PC even overclocked to 4.0GHz. I've tried to crash it and I can't.
Previously it wouldn't last more than 10 to 20min in a default setup.
Right now I don't know if it's Nvidia's control's or the driver it's self, but I'll experimenting further to isolate the problem.
I did try contacting Nvidia but of course they weren't interested.. I mean I only design PC type hardware /software for a living, so what would I know. ( rolls eyes)
Just my 2 bits. Take it FWIW
Cheers
that I first attributed to my recently installed SSD ( intel 80G G2)
I dual boot Win 7 x64 either from the SSD or from a 1TB Seagate Sata .
At frist freezing only happened with the SSD so naturally I thought it was the SSD ... RMS'd the G2 and while waiting I used the Seagate. After one windoze update it too started freezing.
I should note that the freezing only really happened when I had an external drive hooked ... be it esata or USB.
It wasn't until my music kept playing in the back ground that I realized it wasn't a lockup , but rather a "freeze" where the mouse keyboard and video didn't work but the PC was still running in the back ground.
I also had a strange problem ( both boot drives) .. right clicking on the drives in explorer would crash explorer.
I traced the fault to the Nvidia.cpl which I disabled. Now explorer would not crash anymore.
As the Freezing seemed related to video sub system I uninstalled the Nvidia driver (WDDM) ( not XDDM in case anyone is wondering)( (lastest as of Feb 01 2010) and let Windoze install the Microsoft driver. ( WDDM)
Problem solved on both boot drives. Rock solid PC even overclocked to 4.0GHz. I've tried to crash it and I can't.
Previously it wouldn't last more than 10 to 20min in a default setup.
Right now I don't know if it's Nvidia's control's or the driver it's self, but I'll experimenting further to isolate the problem.
I did try contacting Nvidia but of course they weren't interested.. I mean I only design PC type hardware /software for a living, so what would I know. ( rolls eyes)
Just my 2 bits. Take it FWIW
Cheers
