Windows hangs and freezes completely, even after formatting

LuckyHRE · 02-29-2012, 10:38 AM

Hi, I had a Windows XP installation where sometimes, out of nowhere, the system would hang. The current aplication would stop responding, then the taskbar stopped, and then even the cursor froze. I couldn't do anything but to hard reset. Sometimes if I waited for a while, a BSOD would pop up. I downloaded WhoCrashed to analyze the memory dump and it told me that it had to do with the GeForce drivers.
I downgraded them and it worked for quite a time until last week. No matter what I do, after 2 hours of less of work (most of the time while playing a game) the PC again froze. Really disgusted I managed to do a Backup of my data, formatted the drive, and installed Windows 7. But again, while using Chrome, it hangs again!
I don't know what can it be, neither what to do. My PC is a AMD Athlon X2 64 on a ASUS M2N-MX SE PLUS with a GeForce GT240 and 2gb of RAM. Does anybody know what should I do? =/

EDIT: Forgot to mention that while using Safe Mode it worked absolutely fine. Also while using a Ubuntu Live CD.

**VirGnarus** · 02-29-2012, 11:07 AM

This sounds very much like a drive problem. You'll notice that your system should have an LED indicator for disk activity. Does this thing light up solid during freeze?

LuckyHRE · 02-29-2012, 12:33 PM

Yes, it does!
I have two drives: A relatively new 500gb WD one, and an 4 years old 160gb Maxtor. Windows is installed in the 500gb one, while I put randon stuff and backups in the other one.
Now that I remember, yesterday I went to My PC and when I clicked in the backup drive, the system froze. So I disconnected from the motherboard to see what would happen and no luck; while in Chrome it froze again =/

**VirGnarus** · 02-29-2012, 12:49 PM

I wouldn't really expect it to be the backup drive. This appears similar to what's called an "interrupt storm", in which I/O interrupts to try to read/write to the drive (most likely Windows drive) keep piling up due to lack of response from the device until the system becomes unresponsive.

I recommend you burn a copy of UBCD and use it to go into Hard Drive Diagnostics and run latest version of Seatools. Have it run all the basic tests on both your drives. If you see that Seatools has frozen on a drive or reported errors, consider it a goner. Though just in case, continue testing the other drive too. If both show up faulty, then you can suspect your drive controller of foul play and it means the motherboard needs replacing.

LuckyHRE · 02-29-2012, 01:07 PM

Downloading it now, thanks a lot. I'll give it a shot and tell you what happens!
Just for the record, I'm using a Ubuntu Live! CD right now. When I shut down the computer while on Ubuntu and while having both drives connected, it takes some time to shut down, it prints errors about "I/O timed out", or something like that. You want me to take a picture of those errors to see if it helps?

LuckyHRE · 02-29-2012, 05:04 PM

Sorry for the double post, but I went to Windows to format a pendrive to put UBCD in there, and while formatting I went playing a little with an old game. And in the middle of nowhere while playing (the game wasn't loading or anything) it froze. Music still played, but then it froze too. The led indicator for disk activity wasn't on. I didn't restarted, I waited for a while and then it went to the desktop, fully working again.
I tried to go to the game to exit it, and it didn't respond, had to restart. I'm gonna run the HD diag anyway...

**VirGnarus** · 03-01-2012, 07:11 AM

Nah, you don't have to take any pictures. Just perform the Seatools tests on your drives.

LuckyHRE · 03-01-2012, 11:43 AM

Right, I ran up the tests on both drives, and both passed without problems...

**VirGnarus** · 03-01-2012, 11:52 AM

Hmm, that's curious. Well in that case, since it doesn't seem like anything critical, you can breathe a sigh of relief there.

Anyways, now you may wanna turn on Driver Verifier. If it's not the drives, then it appears a driver is being ugly. Remember, if DV starts crashing your system at startup, you can always go into Safe Mode and disable it from there. Make sure to send us crashdumps and stuff using a JCGriff Report.

LuckyHRE · 03-01-2012, 12:14 PM

How long do I have to keep it running? I have already rebooted, and no BSoD yet. Selecting the last option shows me that all drivers all loaded but two: dump_diskdump.sys and nvbridge.kmd

**VirGnarus** · 03-01-2012, 12:21 PM

What does "Display existing settings" show? Does it show that all the settings are currently on?

Basically you wanna keep it running until you come across freeze or whatever. Hopefully it'll end up BSODing if you wait a bit. If it does, go ahead and send us the crashdumps with the JCGriff Report. Actually, why don't you go ahead and do that now so I can look at the syslog and applog to see if anything shows up there. Any new crashes occur go ahead and send em our way.

LuckyHRE · 03-01-2012, 12:30 PM

Wait, no, I only turned on the settings this post says. I'll do it again with all settings on, and wait for a freeze then. As soon as I get it I'll post it here.

LuckyHRE · 03-01-2012, 01:11 PM

Here it is, I turned all settings on in Verifier and when the system booted, it crashed.
Two things to note, though, the perfmon report was generated in spanish (as my OS is in that language), I hope you don't have a problem with that. And also, the jcgriff got stuck saying "Waiting for SystemInfo". It generated an output though, so, if something's missing there, tell me how to fix that and I'll kindly do it again.
Thanks for the assistance, by the way...

**VirGnarus** · 03-02-2012, 06:11 AM

Nonononono, don't turn on all the settings. I meant all the settings instructed by the article. There are certain settings that are definite no-no, and will cause false positives. I think the crashing you're getting now that all the settings are on is doing just that.

LuckyHRE · 03-02-2012, 12:59 PM

Oops, sorry, hehe. I did it again, but I'm using the computer since 12pm and no crash yet. Which is unsual because the past 5 days it wouldn't last two hours straight. Strange thing is, I didn't change ANYTHING neither, I just uninstalled the NOD32 antivirus (I had it in XP too), but I don't think it's the cause, because the next reboot after the uninstall, the PC froze. But then nothing.
Should I continue waiting? I know the problem appears to be gone, but I wanna know what's causing it, cause it drives me nuts when it happens.

LuckyHRE · 03-02-2012, 08:01 PM

Ok, nevermind. I had to shut down and move my PC to another place, then I turned it on, work for a while, and then the music I was playing started lagging, and well, freeze. But now I can't even boot up. A black screen stays for 5 minutes, then the Windows boot menu shows, I select startup repair (I think it's called that way in english), it loads something and then says it couldn't even start that because of a I/O error.
I remembered what you said and ran SeaTools again, and my main drive was reported faulty. The backup one wasn't, though.
I don't understand. Why it wasn't faulty two days ago if it was the cause of the problem? Also, before I bought that drive, I used that backup drive as my main one, and I had experienced VERY sporadic hangs, but at that time I attributed them to the Nvdia drivers, that I found on the web they tend to be glitchy (I haven't told you this because these days I tried running Windows without any drivers at all, and it hung too).
Well, I sincerely don't know what to do now, I'm not worried about the contents of that drive, as I already have it backup'ed, but... it's the drive, or it's the motherboard? :/

EDIT: I was thinking of installing Windows in the backup drive just for testing, but I'll wait for your advice before doing anything.

**VirGnarus** · 03-05-2012, 06:34 AM

You may install an extra copy of Windows on the backup drive if you wish. Personally, from what you've told me, I would say it has everything to do with the drive controller on the motherboard puttering out. Unless both of your drives are duds, it'd have to be the controller.

Just remember, with testing, make sure to isolate your drives (as in only leave the one you're testing in the PC). Even though the one you're not testing may not be the system drive, it still can cause issues if it is going bad.

LuckyHRE · 03-05-2012, 02:24 PM

Okay, thanks a lot for your help, at least I know now. I'll to save money to buy a new PC.
A last question, though: In post #15 here I told you that all of a sudden it started working fine, even after resetting a couple of times. But then I had to move the computer to another place, and it started again with the hangs. Could it have something to do with the fact that I moved it? You know, something loose, or anything. I double checked the SATA cables, everything's fine, but that left me wondering, because why sometimes it works perfectly, and sometimes I can't even use it?
(For the record, I had thermal issues with it, lots of shutdowns because of high temperatures, until I could afford a new and bigger CPU cooler...)

**VirGnarus** · 03-06-2012, 05:59 AM

I believe it's just mere coincidence, especially if you went ahead afterwards and confirmed everything was fine internally. Have you also went ahead and checked to confirm everything seated in slots (memory, cards, etc) were done so properly and have not gone ajar?

LuckyHRE · 03-06-2012, 01:19 PM

No, everything is firmly connected. I even managed to get some SATA cables with a metal lock just to test, as the ones that came in with my motherboard lacks those locks and seem a bit loose, but no luck.
Well, I'm looking forward to buy and assemble a new computer anyway, but thanks a lot for all your support!