Windows 7 randomly locked up on me, what gives?

[Red Squirrel]

Brand new machine, Core i7, 16GB of ram, SSD, whole 9 yards. I was working on a word document when suddenly I went to save and the whole PC locked up. Anything I would try to do would just hang and that wheel thing just kept turning. It seemed it had lost contact with the network or something, but instead of just saying so, any attempt to access anything on the network just caused it to lock up. Not a single event log. I had to reboot twice. What gives? One thing I noticed with win7 is there is barely any troubleshooting that can be done. Nothing ever gets logged. Another issue I have is the Welcome screen takes like 2 minutes. Again, no logs or ways to know what's going on. Why am I having so much issues with Windows 7 on such a high end machine?

Is there not some kind of log somewhere I can look at?

 

[Hugh Jass]

Click the Start button. In the Search box type Event Viewer and then in the list of results, click Event Viewer.

App and System logs are on the left under Windows Logs.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Anything I do such as try to open event viewer just sends it off spinning it's wheel doing nothing. Eventually the whole screen just goes gray. When I did boot back up everything was fine for about 5 minutes, the event viewer had nothing in it other than TONS of this error, but this has been going on since day 1, I never really looked into it:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-CAPI2
Date:          6/29/2012 3:20:02 AM
Event ID:      4107
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      FALCON.GALAXY
Description:
Failed extract of third-party root list from auto update cab at: <http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/authrootstl.cab> with error: A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file.
.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-CAPI2" Guid="{5bbca4a8-b209-48dc-a8c7-b23d3e5216fb}" EventSourceName="Microsoft-Windows-CAPI2" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">4107</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-06-29T07:20:02.243377800Z" />
    <EventRecordID>3209</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="1324" ThreadID="1364" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>FALCON.GALAXY</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/authrootstl.cab</Data>
    <Data>A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file.
</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Not sure what's up with that.

Oddly from the same machine I'm VNCed into my server and I'm typing this post, while the rest of the system is completely frozen. I'm starting to wonder if it's the SSD that'd dying. Though that would not explain why word crapped out when saving a document on the server. It can't be the network card or anything with the network, or I'd have lost my VNC session. This is really messed.


HA! this is hilarious, I have a message that just popped up saying that the application "microsoft windows" has stopped responding. Wow is this PC every messed LOL. Ok time to reinstall I guess. In that process I'll see if it's the SSD.

Ok, now suddenly everything is responding again. This is really screwed up. It's getting late, the sun is going to start coming up soon, think I'll have to sleep on this one. I've been wanting to switch to Linux, maybe I should try installing it to see what happens, to rule out the SSD. Also it only occurred to me till today that I did not have an antivirus program installed, so I installed Avast. I'm wondering if maybe I got a virus, though I doubt it, I'm fairly cautious, I only really install an AV to be on the safe side, I rarely ever get something that triggers it. But I suppose I can't rule it out.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Another thing, it seems to be triggered by Word. It just did it again, but this time not for as long.

 

[ViRGE]

I'm starting to wonder if it's the SSD that'd dying. Though that would not explain why word crapped out when saving a document on the server.

You're definitely looking at a hardware failure. There's no reason to believe Windows is doing this on its own on a fresh install. And note that when Word saves it first needs to save an auto-recovery copy, so you are writing to your SSD first before it actually goes out to the network.

 

[JackMDS]

Maybe this can Help.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/my_event_viewer.html

 

[WilliamM2]

Probably not the cause of your lockups, but here are instructions to get rid of that error.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2328240

 

[Red Squirrel]

It has not done it yet again, but definitely skeptical of the SSD. It's an OCZ and apparently those fail a lot. Wish I would have known that before I bought it. That deal seamed too attractive so I went for it... it was on sale for a reason I guess.

Only other thing I can think of is, could Avast be doing this somehow? I installed it yesterday. I know some Antiviruses have been known to cause issues, but from what I read that one is good.

 

[Zaap]

Definitely sounds like the SSD is a good suspect, especially now that you say OCZ.

I have an Agility 3 (120GB) that's a real POS. It works most of the time, and everything is as I would expect, but then sometimes, very randomly, it will just quit working and cause the machine to reboot. (Luckily, has only happened twice in two months, but still...)

After this has happened, on power up it will not be present in the BIOS- just gone from the system. Of course the first time it happened, I thought it had died. But if I remove the power cable and let it sit for about 10 minutes or so, then put it back on power, it will come back as if nothing happened. I got it super cheap so I'm just putting up with it for now, not saving any crucial data to it for the day it eventually goes tits-up and doesn't come back, but still, kind of burned on OCZ.

I'd check your exact model out and see if others are having similar problems as you're experiencing.

 

[PowerYoga]

OCZ SSD is probably the culprit. Install OS on a normal drive and RMA that piece of crap, and get a real brand like crucial or samsung.

 

[power_hour]

Run a chkdsk. and/or Test with another disk. Make sure your not OC.

Blue screen or a memory dump would be helpful too. Those codes can help pinpoint.

 

[SimMike2]

Don't rule out the RAM or power supply.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ram is good, PSU is a high enough end 1kw but suppose I can't rule it out.

So far it has not done it today, but still an unsolved mystery. I also ran windows updates just for kicks, but I really can't see how this is a software thing unless it was Avast, since that was something I installed yesterday.

Also never got any BSOD, it just would freeze until I hit reset. If I waited long enough (like half an hour) everything would come up.

 

[Blintok]

It has not done it yet again, but definitely skeptical of the SSD. It's an OCZ and apparently those fail a lot. Wish I would have known that before I bought it. That deal seamed too attractive so I went for it... it was on sale for a reason I guess.

Only other thing I can think of is, could Avast be doing this somehow? I installed it yesterday. I know some Antiviruses have been known to cause issues, but from what I read that one is good.

well ... just today i worked on the boss's computer. was hanging. almost like it happening to you. it was running really slow to the point it looked like it locked up.

this on a win 7 pro. had avast and adaware installed. we managed to boot to safe mode and removed those two apps. after a reboot the computer now works fine. no more issues.

i have always used microsoft security essentials with good results.