My brand new G74sx is freezing during simple tasks like opening tabs on Firefox.

This is the laptop:
Asus - Laptop / Intel® Core™ i7 Processor / 17.3" Display / 8GB Memory / 1TB Hard Drive - Black - G74SX-BBK7

So you can see its pretty damn good quality. Before this laptop, I had a G51VX, same thing but older model. And from 2-3 years it never froze on me. Since I bought this laptop 3 weeks ago, it has frozen on me a handful of times, and even gave me a BSOD once.

Here is something that happened literally 5 minutes ago: I was looking at my email on Firefox (Yahoo.com), and I opened another site in another tab, then Firefox froze, but I could still use the mouse (it hard that little spinning thing, the hourglass image for Windows 7). I waited and counted 45 seconds and nothing happened, so I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL, then the computer locked up so the mouse would not even move. I waited a few more seconds and tried CTRL+ALT+DEL again, and it brought the blue screen, and I picked task manager. The task manage never came up, but Firefox unfroze for about 15 seconds. Then it started to do the same thing, I tried to wait it out and then I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL, and it froze so I could not use the mouse. I waited and tried again, then I just got sick of waiting and held down the power button the shut it off and restart, and here I am now.

That exact thing happens once every 2-3 days. So I am under the impression something is wrong, because my old laptop NEVER did this. I ran a BSOD checking program and I found that the one BSOD was caused by ntoskrl.exe by Microsoft Windows Operating System, file description: "NT Kernal & System", located in "C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe". What do you think the problem is? Please help guys!

 

You might want to have a read through this forum post. It would appear this is caused by display drivers. If this does not work post back.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...74sx-reformating-what-drivers-what-order.html

 

Where exactly is the list of drivers, and how do I go about getting them all. I know its a stupid, somewhat newbie-ish question. I see a lot of information, but I want to make sure I get the right part so I don't mess it up further.

But I did not receive a driver disc with my G74sx, it was purchased from Best Buy and came with no discs at all.

 

Ignore the post itself sorry I posted the quote underneith the link that relates to your problem or at least what another faced. Do you know what Display drivers you have installed? It would appear that poster had issues with the most recent Beta drivers. Also do you have the latest Firefox installed?

Try installing the latest drivers if you dont already have them here is a link from Chastity's Driver Reference:

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windo...ok-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql.exe

Post back if the problem persists.

 

Gotcha, I just installed it. I will post back if something comes up again.

Thanks for your help!

 

EDIT: I recently posted that it helped, which it seems to have reduced the problem, but it crashed again today. Basically I opened up Firefox, and nothing came up, and shortly after it loaded Firefox but would not go to my homepage. I tried to do CTRL+ALT+DEL, but it would not open that either. I waited 30 seconds or so, and it never came back up.

I force restarted my computer, and then I opened Firefox when it loaded again, and it was a little strange. Somewhat slow, but eventually it came on after waiting for 20 seconds

 

Bump, its happening again! Put details in above post.

 

I would have exchanged it for a new one, but now your outisde the exchange window.

Is these some kind of HDD impact sensor? That could be freezing your laptop if you move it.

 

FYI: I'm using Firefox 7.0b1 atm, and it's a lot better than 6.0. Fixed a bunch of issues for me.

 

Same kind of issues as me? I think tomorrow or sometime soon I will reinstall Firefox and try to get a better version.

 

I've never seen any issues with Firefox, I mean this sounds like a driver or possibly hardware issue. If you're running the newest drivers, have the newest BIOS, newest official Nvidia drivers and stuff it should just work.

(Regarding Optimus, I hate it and don't want it, and love that the G74 doesn't use it, but shouldn't Nvidia's drivers at least install, even on systems that use Optimus?)

 

Why the heck do you use this Firefox crap, please tell me, what´s so special about it?

Oh, you probably believe the hype about the Fox being sort of special and hip? No it´s not, it´s shiite, it´s a hog on your system!

Try IE or Chrome, and the problems will disappear..

BTW how can people stand looking at that ugly FF interface and the fonts, yuk!

 

I actually had another BSOD today, and I am starting to think it has something to do with my DVD-RW drive. Last time I got a BSOD (my only other one), I was burning a CD. This time, I was burning a DVD and again it crashed.

Any thoughts?

And exactly where can I find the most up to date drivers and BIOS files? I am not sure how to update those.

 

"Crap"? I use it because for one thing, it and Safari are the only browsers that can correctly scale text without scaling everything else. For another, it's fast, has great features, and has always worked well. For another, it's open source, and if given the option I'd prefer to use open source stuff...and this is the rare thing where I actually vastly prefer the open source option.

How is it a "hog on your system"? The very newest version runs well even on an ancient single core < 2GHz notebook I had to use briefly this weekend.

Ridiculous. This problem has nothing to do with Firefox, and if anything you're going to be better off using it than those two commercial programs.

 

Have you run Memtest on this system overnight? Or heck, the Windows 7 memory test? (I don't know if it's as good as memtest though).

I'd try running memtest overnight:
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Which should turn up zero errors (of course you could also have a problem with video RAM, which that doesn't test.)

You can drill through Asus' support site for updates and things, but it looks like there aren't any BIOS updates for the G74 yet.

Welcome to NVIDIA - World Leader in Visual Computing Technologies for video drivers. Personally I'd run memtest on it overnight, and make sure I'd cleanly removed the existing video drivers and put on Nvidia's newest, see if that helps. Could RAM or some other hardware issue (or just using buggy early drivers for the GPU).

 

I actually ran MemTest before I posted this, it came up with zero errors on the first drive, however I did not have enough time to do it on the second drive. I will set it to run in full tonight though.

 

Disclaimer: Sarcasm if you can't figure it out.


Ignorant fool. FireFox uses less resources than Chrome does here. But glad to know someone who is so up to date in the know giving out advice and insulting people for people for using something that uses less resource than Chrome or IE.



Cleared cache and just loaded the same pages from FF to Chrome so Chrome is fresh. And it's using twice the resources right from the get go.
- Chrome 313, opened just now, new.
- FireFox, 193, opened for a bit.


- Also I guess you are too computer illiterate and incompetent to make FireFox appear as exactly as you want it. But being a Chrome user, you wouldn't care about that since you can't change it in Chrome, you get what you get with Chrome. Oh how nice. Can't even customize the toolbar layout. And you don't know how to change the font in FireFox? Pathetic.

How can you be so blissfully ignorant and prejudice? Yuck!

 

well base in my experience, no offence to all users of firefox, firefox is very slow (as in literally slow in downloading) that's why I never use them except watching some movies that required the firefox

 

Prove it. I want to see a video or screenshot showing FireFox with consistently slower download speeds...

Not picking on your, but this thread is just full of unconfirmed claims.

 

I only spent 2-5 minutes setting this up, barely anything customized. And yet this is considered ugly? Where is the ugly font and ugly layout? Moved that FireFox button to the left. Got rid of the search bar, address bar is search bar now. Moved the status bar so it appears in the huge address bar. Adblocker and Download manager tweaker installed. Using small buttons.

 

Have you tried to do clean install? Download OEM Windows 7 and use that key from your sticker. All drivers can be found in there too.

G73/74/53 Series Driver and Application Reference

 

Oh, Memtest is for RAM, not hard drives. Are you sure you're running the program I'm talking about? Windows 7's test might be perfectly fine too, I don't really know anything about it and am just used to Memtest since it predates 7 by decades.

What movie would require you to run Firefox? I mean...I don't get that at all.

And I've certainly never seen one browser have slower downloads than another. Something is very, very, very wrong if you're really seeing any of the behavior you've described it doing.

 

I haven't considered a clean install, it would be too much work with how busy I am for school right now.

And I might do Windows 7 test, is it preinstalled on computers or is there a file I need to download? But yeah I for sure ran a test for RAM, not hard drives.

 

for example anime movies that not running if I'm using chrome or IE so I don't have any choice but to watch it in firefox..

 

You can launch it to reboot from within Windows, I think, or else from a repair disc too.

It doesn't sound like you've run Memtest though as you woudln't be running that on drives, and it tests all the RAM, it doesn't give you a choice to just test some.

At any rate, I just got my G74 set up, and zero issues, though I did a clean install. It seemed to work just fine prior to installing though too, so...I mean there could be a hardware issue.

This is something that runs through Flash, I'd assume? There shouldn't be any meaningful difference between browsers there so long as everything's up to date.

 

I am actually having the same problem.

I read some BestBuy.com reviews and I heard people have this as well, I guess the turbo booster technology fails and it freezes.

Also, whenever I burn a DVD, when it is in its finalizing stages, my computer crashes and I get a BSOD. The DVD does burn successfully, its I guess around the time when it is supposed to eject the disc, however it does crash.

 

Same thing happens to me! I cant take it. It is a more frustrating experience than any computer I ever had. I was looking for a recall and found this link on asus forum when I googled asus g74 recall

Post your experiences there and build some momentum. There are a ton of separate links of complaints... we need a single clear reference to point asus to.

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- g74sx need a recall ? Freezing? Having problems?

 

Still zero issues for me, though I did a clean install quickly after buying it. Seemed okay the few hours I used it before installing though.

 

I believe it has something to do with the turbo booster technology failing, I read that somewhere. Still happening to me though :[

I actually have two other minor problems:
1) Upon starting up the computer from hibernate, the computer goes straight to the login screen where I have to enter my password. Before it even loads the login screen, it displays a solid colored screen, usually yellow or red. This is a little concerning to me, it doesn't start slow or cause me any inconvenience, I've just never seen this.
2) When I burn a DVD, my computer gives me a BSOD when it is finalizing the disc. ONLY when it is finalizing, everything else burns perfectly fine. In fact, the disc comes out perfect and playable, its just that I get a BSOD. Does anyone know about this?

 

Mine doesn't do either of those. I think mine's just a black screen as it boots (from hibernate), though the speakers pop sometimes.

 

Hmm, does anyone know what I'm talking about? On any 3 of these issues?

 

1) Turn off hw acceleration in Firefox, or any browser for that matter. It's mostly a gimmick and can cause a lot of issues.

2) See this post about setting up and using Throttlestop. You can be having some C-State issues.

Sandybridge Throttle Issue and Workaround

 

Could you just elaborate on "C-state issues"? I am not familiar with that. I also did some searching for turning of hardware acceleration and could not find a user friendly enough version, all the terms lose me.

 

Turn off here (see pic)

As for C-States, the BIOS is aggressively throttling your CPU performance. The app referred to turns this off so you can get full performance out of your CPU.

 

Well I got the hardware acceleration done, hopefully this will do it. If not, I'll try the C-State thing!