Random freezing (m11x r3)

Help!

Picked up a refurb m11x r3 before christmas but I've been having relatively regular (usually once a day if I'm using it a lot) freezes of the system. These are all hard locks, screen is still on (with whatever I was doing last) but completely unresponsive and requires me to restart it by holding down the power button.

It's always happened when I've just been browsing the net, or left it downloading stuff overnight, no real rhyme nor reason to it.

Full specs are:

Alienware M11x R3
Wireless: Dell 375 Bluetooth Card
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
250 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
11.6in Widescreen High Definition (1366X768) Truelife WLED
LCD Back Cover : Stealth Black (WLAN)
MOD,INFO,SW,ANW
Back Up Media Not Included
Processor: Intel Core i5-2537M 1.4GHz (2.3GHz w/Turbo Boost, 3MB Cache)
4 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
Wireless: Intel Wireless-N 1000 Card
Certified Refurbished

I've updated all the drivers (as much as I can), there is nothing showing in the windows event logs when I restart, and I've run a little bit (maybe 1/2 hour each) of prime95, occt to have a quick check.

I've not run memtest, from looking I'm guessing I'm going to have to get an external drive to run it? Otherwise that's pretty much the last thing I can think of doing bar a full system restore, I don't suppose anyone else has any ideas?

Any suggestions gratefully recieved!

 

I too would like an answer to this. I have an r2, and I've been experiencing this for the 14+ months I've owned it. It's not very often, probably only once or twice a month, but it can be frustrating. If there is any sound at all when the freeze occurs, the computer will make a very loud buzzing noise too (not the hardware buzzing, just the speakers emitting it).

 

In a case like this I suspect either video or NIC given the M11xRx history.

 

I've updated both the nvidia and intel video drivers, foolishly I didn't create a restore point when I first recieved it (d'oh) so I can't roll it back to see if I've created the problem myself.

I will confess I'd considered picking up a bigfoot wireless card to see if that would help, any easy way to see if it might be the nic? Would you recommend disabling the intel wireless adapter and seeing if I can replicate the issue?

 

Its a crap shoot so "yes" any diag you can do yourself can be helpful but likely only helpful for you. In other words what works for me may not work for you. In my case the intel 6200 card I purchased locked my system up way to often to ignore.

So far I have a few hours of use and no freeze or lockup. The R3 might be a whole new beast but it does have nvidia in common. I like the cards but sometimes they are just crap. lol.

If you have a LAN to use or a USB device for wireless then you can test if your wireless nic is causing the problem. GPU is harder to track down or blame as there are lots of variables.