ASUS G73JH freeze problem HELP!

Hey guys,

I own an ASUS G73JH, and have had it for about a year and a half. I've had the normal problems, white noise audio, not shutting down, etc. until now. Now, whenever I startup the laptop, it lets me log in, but ALWAYS freezes within 2 minutes of getting to the desktop. The screen shows whatever as on it in that frame, audio freezes, mouse freezes, and keyboard also freezes. The only thing that still responds is the power button. However, I can run in safe mode, which is where I'm writing this post from. I've tried removing all but 1 stick of RAM, and rotated them, I've removed the battery, let the laptop run down its battery all the way, and have even done several system restores, nothing works
Please any help is welcome guys! Thanks in advance.

 

ShaneKH102, You have done a great job troubleshooting.I would also run tests on the hard drive, since you probably have the same Seagate that came with mine - Seagate ST9500420AS
| Seagate
If it checks out OK, then it sounds like a win 7 issue...
Try creating a new user account and login with it for testing purposes..
IF it still freezes I would suggest a clean install of windows 7 or if you have made the restore DVD's use them after backing up any data you need on you system.

 

the only way my laptop was freezing when i was using old realtek driver and creative sound blaster software long time ago ... so if you have them installed i would start with them first
there was a debbug thread
with the newest realtek i don't have that problem
although my laptop freezes some times but very very rarelly and that is when i don't turn it off properly so the next time it will freeze just like you mentioned right after logon but when i shut it down properly i don't have that problem

 

Since you run in safe mode, I'd suspect a driver conflict. What was the last app you installed or driver you updated?

Have you tried a restore to an earlier time when you did not experience the lockup?

 

Are you still running original drivers? If you have the original Creative software and the original Realtech 2.38 or whatever the sound drivers were and you enable Bass Boost in Creative, it will hang within ten or twenty seconds of logging in. It will do that every time you boot. The solution is to upgrade Realtech to 2.51 or higher. I reinstalled the OS on my laptop two weeks ago. After going to the latest Realtech driver, it broke the Creative software. I had to insert the Asus driver disk and reinstall the Creative over the top of itself and everything was fine.

If you have upgraded your Realtech sound driver in the past then just ignore me.

 

Another possibility for locking up is running Seagate Momentus XT drives at less than SD26 firmware. SD25 (and lower I believe) had issues with data corruption that would occur infrequently, but caused me grief with locking up.

I have since gotten a replacement drive (due to really poor disk read performance) and am running the latest SD28 firmware and my system has been completely stable since. If your drive is fine (and you have a Momentus XT drive), you might want to update the firmware to the latest SD28 firmware and see if your locking up issue is resolved.

You also might want to run a memtest to make sure that your memory modules are good. You'll want to run one that takes a few hours to make sure that there's no intermittent problem there.

The only other possible lockup cause I can think of would be overheating related, but unless you have temperature issues at idle, I'd doubt that's the case.

 

That screams bad sector(s) on your hard drive to me. If its a seagate like mine, run seatools. I've had 2 bad seagates in as many years so doesn't surprise me. Go for Western Digital if you want a more reliable brand (note I didn't say most reliable).

 

I have the same machine and am getting the same problems. I've been having the same problems on and off for the past year...tried lots of different sound drivers and other drivers...

Currently, sound wise, I have in Device Manager:
"ATI High Definition Audio Device", 11/13/2009, 7.11.0.7700
"Realtek High Definition Audio", 12/13/2011, 6.0.1.6526

I also have one ST9320423AS in the first bay and an ST9500420AS in the second...the second HD seems to give me problems, sometime, but both are running the latest firmware according to SeaTools. The second HD will sometimes make some brief hiccup noises and my machine will semi-freeze (can move the mouse, type, etc., but nothing I/O wise will go for a minute or so).

Running latest graphics drivers...latest BIOS, I believe... But I'm still getting exactly what the original-poster had happen. It happens in fits though...like it will happen 10x in a row, then stop. Happens in Safe Mode too, but not as frequently.

ANY help would be most appreciated....