Resolved Windows 7 crashing

I have a 2 year old Asus K72J laptop running Windows 7. It's been a great machine, but for the past few months, about 4 I would say, I am haivng problems with the system freezing up and then shutting itself down. I was running Zone Alarm Extreme Security and I began to suspect it as a culprit so I uninstalled it and the machine ran great for about 4 weeks or so. Now, I am starting to experience crahses again at the rate of about 2 or 3 a week. Of course they always occur at the worde possible time. I am clyueless where to turn o figure out what is causing this problem. I have run diagnostics on my hard drive to ensure that it is not a problem and it turns up clean.

Can anyone offer me any tips as to where to start? I would be quite grateful!

 

I am in the same position as yourself, except that it freezes with no automatic close down and has to be "forced closed ", not recommended by Microsoft.

 

I configured according to the instructions you sent, but no dump file is being produced with the crash. On the last crash I had I went into the Windows Event Log and discovered an error that I am hoping will shed some light on it. Following is what I saw:

Log Name: Application
Source: Windows Error Reporting
Date: 7/26/2012 11:51:04 AM
Event ID: 1001
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Jim-PC
Description:
Fault bucket X64_0x117_Tdr:3_TdrVTR:1_IMAGE_atikmpag.sys, type 0
Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Response: http://wer.microsoft.com/responses/...g.sys&ID=9981d4a7-ab84-49ba-9ff8-ae124da45513
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1:
P2:
P3:
P4:
P5:
P6:
P7:
P8:
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WD-20120725-1508.dmp
C:\Windows\Temp\WER-62940943-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Windows\Temp\WER9179.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\Kernel_0_0_cab_0450ad7d

Analysis symbol: X64_0x117_Tdr:3_TdrVTR:1_IMAGE_atikmpag.sys
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 83591842-d694-11e1-8c3f-485b395a0d10
Report Status: 0
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns= "http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event ">
<System>
<Provider Name= "Windows Error Reporting" />
<EventID Qualifiers= "0 ">1001</EventID>
<Level>4</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime= "2012-07-26T16:51:04.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>29153</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Jim-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>X64_0x117_Tdr:3_TdrVTR:1_IMAGE_atikmpag.sys</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>LiveKernelEvent</Data>
<Data>http://wer.microsoft.com/responses/resredir.aspx?sid=1&amp;Bucket=X64_0x117_Tdr:3_TdrVTR:1_IMAGE_atikmpag.sys&amp;ID=9981d4a7-ab84-49ba-9ff8-ae124da45513</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WD-20120725-1508.dmp
C:\Windows\Temp\WER-62940943-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Windows\Temp\WER9179.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml</Data>
<Data>C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\Kernel_0_0_cab_0450ad7d</Data>
<Data>X64_0x117_Tdr:3_TdrVTR:1_IMAGE_atikmpag.sys</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>83591842-d694-11e1-8c3f-485b395a0d10</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

Thanks Pete. I will give that a try and then report back. That could be a day or so as sometimes this machine stays running fine for a couple of days, and then there are days like today where it has crashed 3 times already.

 

Windows 7 Crashing Resolved

Sorry for the delay in reporting back. My laptop was rendered useless for a week. Very long story short, I had to bite the bullet and reinstall the O/S.

There were no viruses found and I used Malware and Kaspersky to check. I ran diagnostics on the hard drive and memory to verify that they were fine. I did a restore from the recovery partition and after a few hours my symptoms returned with frequent crashes.

I took the system in to a shop to have them run full blown diagnostics to ensure there could be no hardware issues at all such as the motherboard, and they confirmed all was fine. What they did talk me into however was to wipe the drive completely including the recovery partition in order to guarantee a sold starting point. I then reloaded Windows 7 from the CD. I wnt out to the manufacturer's website and got the drivers I needed. At this point it has been about 10 hours and no crashes. As such, I am reinstalling all my software which is the painfully slow process as you know.

This is not the resolution I wanted but I could hold off no longer looking for a solution. Something, either a virus or perhaps Windows Update itself, corrupted a portion of the O/S somewhere along the way. At least that is the final conclusion I have come to.