Windows Vista Vista random lockups

I bought a new laptop four days ago, and it worked fine for the first two days. But now I keep getting random lockups. If I play some game, the computer might just freeze and im forced to reboot. If I try to write e-mail or left/right click some desktop icon or do just something basic stuff, computer might just freeze(I can still move the cursor, but I can't do anything with it)and I'll get a black screen after few minutes and im forced to reboot again.

It all started 2 nights ago after windows installed some updates and it told me to reboot. I did and after that it took my computer 5-10mins to startup or shutdown. I tried several times rebooting and I figured that the cause for slow speed were the updates, so I used the windows system restore. It worked and took away the slow speed problem, but gave me this random crashing problem.

For example it took me 2 reboots to even get here and write this message(it crashed once when clicking internet explorer icon, once while writing this message).

My computer is Asus A7S, you can see the specs here http://www.kannettavatietokone.fi/tuotteet/A7S-7S025C.html

I have only installed 4 programs(Battlefield 2,UO,Heroes5 and Norton 2007)and removed some trial programs that came with the buy after getting this computer(did it all on the first day and it worked fine after that, so I didn't delete anything important) so I guess the problem is in Vista or hardware.

 

Hello carjacker and welcome to the Board,

This is the 2nd time I've seen this problem seemingly caused by the latest Vista updates:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=66000

What I would recommend is to undo those updates, get back to just before "2 nights ago" - either with Add/Remove or System Restore - see if the problem stops, and then apply them one at a time spaced out over days to pinpoint which one might be causing this behavior.

 

I restored the system earlier today, but it didn't work(for the crashing problem). But I'll try to remove all updates I have installed so far and see if that works. If it doesen't work, I will use Recovery DVD which came with the computer to restore system the way it was when I bought it. If it doesen't work, I guess it's a hardware problem..

 

Yes, maybe consider that things were not working correctly before the update was installed (that means drivers as well as hardware, because hardware will not work correctly without the proper drivers installed).

Are you using any hardware that did not come with the computer? You mention "simple ", could drivers for something like the mouse be installed that are not "Vista" (at least updated) drivers?

If you might suspect hardware. Look at exactly when the lockups occur. What hardware would it be accessing?

Look at Event Viewer. Any major events listed? Since it is "freezing" and not "blue screening ", Event Viewer may not list the actual cause, although it may have other non destructive (?) events.

Just some places I would check.

Matt

 

Well I did it the easiest and fastest way and inserted the Recovery DVD. It has been working fine for the last couple of hours, though I haven't tried playing any games yet(I haven't yet installed/updated or changed anything after using recovery). I'll try to do the same stuff that earlier caused computer to freeze. If I don't get any freezes during the weekend, I'll start doing what you suggested and install 1 windows update at a time and see what happens.

I also noticed that earlier when I was getting the freezes and lockups, I never got any error messages. I mean the message that always pops up in XP and Vista and asks "do you wish to report microsoft or search internet for answers or something like that ".

 

Hi carjacker,

Curious as to whether the problem came back.

Did you reload the MS updates?

 

Well I've been installing only 1 or 2 updates daily and so far everything has been running as it should be. But I still have 21 updates to download so anything could happen.