G73SW Freezes/Hangs Issues (With some observations)

[HavokD]

Hi all

I acquired this beautiful laptop some weeks ago, and since day one I got some problems. THe laptop would randomly start working, flash the screen, show some errors with Nvidia Driver, etc etc.

Sometimes the mouse stopped moving and that was it, sound was coming from speakers, I could use the keyboard, but 5 secs later everything freezed and I had to hard restart.

Other problems I had was that the last miliseconds of the sound I was hearing was being looped and sounded horrible.

Now the good thing is: I KNOW HOW TO PREVENT THIS!!!

Whenever I boot, my Windows Loading screen flashes to black, then back to normal a few times. Now, when it flashes only ONE TIME and it then takes me to my desktop with no issues, then I do the following things always: Change powersettings to High Performance, Close AsusLiveUpdate, then open THrottleStop and leave it running in monitor mode. Then I can use my laptop extremely HARDCORE with NO ISSUES!!! This is awesome, I can play Skyrim on Very High, run CAD software in the background, leave a FULL HD youtube vid in the background running with NO issues!!!

But when I boot, and my screen flashes two times or more, or it flashes just once but when taking me to desktop it freezes for a second, then I know that I will get a full system freeze maybe after 5 min, maybe after 20 min, maybe just 10 seconds later. But with this type of boot, a restart will be inevitable.

When I get a good boot, and then put my laptop to sleep, when I wake it up then sometimes it freezes immediately, and I have to restart, but if within the next 5 or so minutes I dont get a hang, then I can use my laptop in a hardcore fashion again. I simply LOVE watching my lap being a free beast.

Sadly, I get about 1/5 good boots everytime I boot. So my question is, WHAT COULD BE WRONG?

I checked all hardware already, no issues. I have NOT yet tried running 1 RAM stick at a time in MemTEst cos I'm afraid of opening my beast. But I have tried running it with 2 sticks, 3 and 4 and changing places with the 2 that I can swap easily. No issues there.

I also tried disabling things in the startup at msconfig, and this gave me more problems, because now It didnt matter that my boot just flashed once, I would get a freeze no matter what.

Sorry for the wall of text, I just want to pinpoint my findings and I want my beast to be 100% reliable, and not 1/5 times I get a good boot.

Thanks!

[dstrakele]

1) What applications have you installed to your laptop (particularly Antivirus, AntiMalware, Firewall, or Remote Desktop)?

2) What drivers have you updated from the stock versions?

3) Do the Errors and Warnings in the Windows System and Application Event Logs point to any troubleshooting direction?

4) Lockups on resuming from sleep/hibernation can be caused by applications or drivers (http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...ll=1#post78274) that don't place nice with this technology. Also by sleeping/hibernating a laptop, you never recover memory leaked by various drivers and applications. Memory also gets more and more fragmented by not regularly performing a reboot.

IMO, any successful resume from sleep/hibernation is a GIFT and should be treated as such.

[HavokD]

1) What applications have you installed to your laptop (particularly Antivirus, AntiMalware, Firewall, or Remote Desktop)?

2) What drivers have you updated from the stock versions?

3) Do the Errors and Warnings in the Windows System and Application Event Logs point to any troubleshooting direction?

4) Lockups on resuming from sleep/hibernation can be caused by applications or drivers (http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...ll=1#post78274) that don't place nice with this technology. Also by sleeping/hibernating a laptop, you never recover memory leaked by various drivers and applications. Memory also gets more and more fragmented by not regularly performing a reboot.

IMO, any successful resume from sleep/hibernation is a GIFT and should be treated as such.

1. AV: Nod32, fully updated, I used it on my old G50VX for 2 years with no issues, and as far as I know it is not a source of issues on this laptop. Also I havent changed any settings on my Firewall, Im not running Remote Desktop as Im aware of. Ive installed several engineering software such as SolidWorks, Cadence (Spice, OrCAD, etc), Java VM.

As far as games I have Crysis 2, COD MW, MW2, Skyrim, League of Legends.

2. Ive already updated my Atheros card drivers with 9.2.1.432 version. Im running nvidia drivers 267.54. Ive disabled the nVIdia HD Audio drivers. And nothing else I can remember over the top of my head.

3. I regularly check the events and the Errors just show a brief description and that's it.

4. As I stated my old G50vx was extremely reliable, letting me sleep it everyday a lot of times, without needing to shut down for several weeks at a time. I changed the CPU on that lap for a X9000 C2Extreme and it was pretty nice aswell.

Also, Im having other problem, when I go to System (right Clic Computer ,then Properties) , Processor and Installed Memory (RAM) show "Not Available" instead of showing my 2630qm and 8GB of RAM.

Im willing to cooperate to find the root of all this evil. Thanks for the help!

[dstrakele]

1. AV: Nod32, fully updated, I used it on my old G50VX for 2 years with no issues, and as far as I know it is not a source of issues on this laptop. It's not uncommon for updates to these programs to cause issues. "Fully updated" does not necessarily translate to "stable".

Also, Im having other problem, when I go to System (right Clic Computer ,then Properties) , Processor and Installed Memory (RAM) show "Not Available" instead of showing my 2630qm and 8GB of RAM.

That's interesting... the last 4 or 5 folks reporting lockups that I asked what Antivirus they were running said "Nod32" .... Conflicts with kernel mode drivers installed by Antivirus, AntiMalware, and Remote Desktop software with other drivers are a common cause of system lockups.

What OS and applications did you run on your old G50vx?


The missing processor and memory information in the System dialog doesn't sound good.

1) Have you run a CHKDSK C: /F /R to check if your File system is sound?

2) Have you tested your RAM with memtest86+ running pairs of memory sticks with 3 passes each?

[HavokD]

That's interesting... the last 4 or 5 folks reporting lockups that I asked what Antivirus they were running said "Nod32" .... Conflicts with kernel mode drivers installed by Antivirus, AntiMalware, and Remote Desktop software with other drivers are a common cause of system lockups.

What OS and applications did you run on your old G50vx?


The missing processor and memory information in the System dialog doesn't sound good.

1) Have you run a CHKDSK C: /F /R to check if your File system is sound?

2) Have you tested your RAM with memtest86+ running pairs of memory sticks with 3 passes each?

I will uninstall NOD32 then reboot a few times, but since Im at work atm I wont be able to do so until around 7 PM (it's 04:15 PM here). Will post as soon as I get it done. Thanks for the advice!

I ran Windows 7 Professional 64bit. Same apps I had in here. I literally took a SS of my old desktop and reinstalled the same stuff and even organized the icons in the same way (yes I have some weird OCD issues).

1. I did last weekend and it showed some errors, and also added that it could take care of most of them but not all.

3. I have ran MemTest86+ with 4 sticks at the same time two times, both all night (so it finishes the test both times). I will take out the 2 sticks I have access to without taking the laptop apart and will start doing tests with different combinations.

Thanks!

[Devilonearth666]

Hi all

Now the good thing is: I KNOW HOW TO PREVENT THIS!!!

Whenever I boot, my Windows Loading screen flashes to black, then back to normal a few times. Now, when it flashes only ONE TIME and it then takes me to my desktop with no issues, then I do the following things always: Change powersettings to High Performance, Close AsusLiveUpdate, then open THrottleStop and leave it running in monitor mode. Then I can use my laptop extremely HARDCORE with NO ISSUES!!! This is awesome, I can play Skyrim on Very High, run CAD software in the background, leave a FULL HD youtube vid in the background running with NO issues!!!

Thanks!

You sure that is a good idea? too much heat and power consumption may result from this, leading to hardware failure. Try not to do this, maybe? I'm just saying cause I have the same lappy!

[HavokD]

You sure that is a good idea? too much heat and power consumption may result from this, leading to hardware failure. Try not to do this, maybe? I'm just saying cause I have the same lappy!

It is ok since the laptop is not getting hot at all, at most it gets to 80C after 30 min of action.

Btw, I got 2 extra sticks of ram and i will swap the ram in the lap to test for a few hours. Any extra advice I could get?

[HavokD]

Well I changed the 2 RAM sticks that can be found when taking off the bottom pannel, and put 2x2GB at the same speed (which oddly clocks at ~600 Mhz) from the same brand (Samsung).

Now, while my problems have not yet stopped, the laptop seems to be more reliable. Dunno if it may be a placebo effect, so I will have to monitor this for a few more days.

Also, I uninstalled NVIDIA 3D vision Drivers, Im not using any external monitor, so I don't think I will ever use them, so I uninstalled as a precaution.

On another note I want to update (or check) my Intel Chipset drivers, but have absolutely no idea on how to proceed, so could someone please help me a bit on that? I've read about an "-overall" switch, but that's just it, I dunno what to do and what to download, etc etc

Thanks in advance for your interest guys!

[HavokD]

bump ~

Ive been looking around but Ive found nothing helpful =/