ASUS G73Jw freezing issue

Hello everybody, I want to start off by acknowledging that the problem I'm experiencing has been discussed extensively around the forum; however, despite having read several threads pertaining to the matter, I was unable to find any conclusive solutions (most results were temporary workarounds at best) and there appeared to be a lot of variation between symptoms in the majority of cases.

That being said, I'm having trouble with a persistent freezing issue on my ASUS G73Jw-A1 which I've owned for a few years now (everything is still stock). The lock-ups are generally random but I've noticed that they occur more frequently when performing resource-intensive tasks such as gaming and high-definition video streaming (though they can still happen during simple activities, for instance word processing and even while idle on occasion). The freezing is usually accompanied by subsequent gradual revving of the fans and a perpetual rapid looping of the audio if anything is playing at the time (it's so fast that it's more of an indistinguishable buzzing noise but it's definitely coming from the speakers). I'm almost always forced to do a hard reboot, however every so often it will occur for a few seconds and then return to normal.

I can't quite remember when this first started but it's been at least a year and a half (I was too lazy to make a serious attempt at solving it until now). I don't recall anything in particular triggering it either. I've been planning on doing a clean install of Windows 7 soon but I'd rather determine whether this is a software or hardware issue before going any further.

The only measures I've taken so far have been eight hour stability tests on both the CPU and GPU. Neither produced a lock-up. Temperatures on the GPU are fine but the CPU is probably due for a repaste (I'm not convinced that this is the issue though since freezing still occurs when the CPU is relatively cool). Surprisingly enough the lock-ups have been rather infrequent lately but they've never completely disappeared and as a result there's always the worry of the laptop freezing at the most inconvenient times.

Any help is immensely appreciated. It pains me to see so many people sharing a similar problem yet never achieving definitive results (aside from acquiring an RMA, which unfortunately is longer an option for many including myself).

 

You can try the following freeware to run through more troubleshooting.
1. Use memtest to check system integrity ( Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool).
2. Prime95 and run blend tests.

Please kindly post your results once you have any updates.