Weird problems with Asus G73JW-A1

Back on Dec 26th, I removed the Power4Gear exe and changed my power settings so that the laptop did not put anything to sleep while on AC.

So far, freezing has stopped completely. I don't use any video games on the machine, but I do a lot of development on it. I still think the initial idea of P4G being the culprit was good, since removing it has stopped the problem from occurring on my G73JW-XA1 now for seven days.

Good luck to you all!

 

I am thankful I found this forum. I have had this issue for awhile and thought it was resolved when I restored my G73JW-A1 to a date before an update it made, a month ago, but today almost a month later it happened again. I took the other posters advice and uninstalled power4hybrid so hopefully it hasnt frozen again when I get home. So why would Asus not address this and get it fixed if so many of us are showing and telling them of a problem with this laptop?

 

G73JW uses the same CPU and same Chipset as mine and there are zero issues with P4G. P4G is not faulty. All it is an easy to use, friendly GUI for Windows power management. It's not a separate power management, it's just an interface. There is nothing wrong with it. It's always easier to just get angry, and blame the company rather than figuring out how to fix it.

 

The BIOS on the JW is largely different from the JH, comparing the chipset is irrelevant.

I think there is some sort of problem with power management and hybrid drives, although I could be wrong. There are known issues with the USB3 ports too. P4G probably is in this mix and is not just a front-end. There is updated firmware for the hybrid drives in the 3DE thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/529912-new-g73jw-3de-info-specs-pre-ordering-available-41.html#post7015102

 

Not to be rude but I i've contacted Asus and they seem to think I am the only person with this issue and it is my own doing when I haven't downloaded anything other then WOW and Air Video Server. I'm not a laptop guru and i do not pretend to be so this happening throws me through a loop because I have no idea what to do. What I do know is five days ago I made a restore point (had 6 at that time going back to Dec 13) and after it froze yesterday I went into the restore folder and i no longer had any even from five days prior. Now maybe after the new year theygot wiped or maybe they got deleted from the freeze and hard shut down i do not know but it disabled my option to do that. Other people have said to use the windows disc and do a reinstall with no prevail since it freezes still after but I never got a disc with my laptop just turned it on and it installed windows as if it were loaded i forget. So what are my options? I am over on deployment in Japan so it limits me and the thing freezing ever few minutes is irritating and i'm sure it is not good for the laptop either. Just want to get past the other forums that say their is no freezing problem and are unhelpful and get straight to the theories and what worked areas. Apologize for this being so long...

 

You are not the problem and yes there are quite a few people having issues with the G73's, we are on our third Beta Bios on the JH model and are still having problems .
If you do a search on Google you will see how many are having the same issue you are .

As it is now there seems to be a hardware issue in both systems , ASUS has managed to fix the Video GPU problems but there are the TouchPad and Keyboard that are still giving us fits. Some are helped by the new Bios and some are not. Some like me thought it was working and then after a few hours of use the problems started again.
And when one item is fixed then we find that something else has been added to the fray!
I have to say that they are working on the problem and making progress at getting the computers fixed.

It seems that when and a few times someone makes a valid complaint you get a post by another telling you that you are the problem or you are not telling the whole story. This just amazes me that this is done.

Just keep posting as their are a lot of very good people here that do know what they are talking about and can help with the problems that you are seeing. Over all this site is one of the best I have seen in years , and they keep it where one can speak with out having to constantly defend there post to people who add nothing to the issues at hand.

 

Blacknight - I have not had many freezes, but when I do have one I found that it would keep on freezing unless I could manage a proper shut down and restart prior to another freeze. As soon as you have a successful boot shut it down in the normal way.

 

Hello All,

Has been a while since I've posted and about a week since a post has been made... Just for the record... today has been a bad day... At least 4 freezes / reboots, where I leave my computer (G73JW Series) for a while, only to come back and find my screensaver locked, to the point where it has to be physically powered down and restarted. One a couple of occassions, I was in the middle of a Skype call (with a bunch of my software open) and it froze. "My software" consists of the likes of Photoshop, multiple browser instances, Publisher, etc. I am a web developer so typically have a LOT of apps open simultaneously.

Again, while I do not own this laptop primarily for it's gaming prowess, I need a system with a LOT of horsepower and RAM due to the magnitude and multitude of apps I have open simultaneously.

The laptop has been a great addition to my aresenal, but the freezes and ensuing reboots are very annoying to deal with.

 

I would look into disabling some sleep settings, like turning off HDDs.

 

Alright so...being sick of all the crashes and other problems I was experiencing, I RMA'ed my G73JW back in December to get it checked out. It is now on it's way back to me and should arrive next week.

I'm really interested in what they did to fix this. My reseller, XoticPC, helped me set up the RMA and I included a detailed note about the freezing and USB port failures I was experiencing.

I hope they replaced the mobo and didn't just flash it to the newest bios and sent it back (I already tried that and still had problems).

Will report back on the conditions of my laptop and if the problem is fixed or not. I sent mine out to the Indiana facility btw.

 

I'm new here and well, I've been following this forum for sometime now. I have the same issues, but mine poses a seemingly very unique problem which no one in any other forums I've researched have addressed which I hope you all can shed some light on. I have experienced BSODs on my system as well, but not because of the problems explained here (sleep settings, hibernation etc.) My system is other wise a super-solid, super-fast system (like everyone else's system here), and I do photo and film editing on it with amazing results.

Get this though.... the only time that my system gets a BSOD is when I am connected to a network and a freakin MAC logs on to it. My girlfriends MacBook Pro apparently is an 'G73 killer' . Anyways, it happens with all Macs so far. The only place I can safely connect without crashing is of course a place with no MACs (obviuously), and a place like Starbucks where there is an additional log on procedure req'd to get their wifi. What's in place there that prevents Macs from crashing my system? In any other unsecured cafe, it's embarrassing have my stealth fighter laptop BSOD in a room full of Macs, believe me.

I've tried many proposed fixes with no positive results. I just sent a tech request to XoticPC PC about and waiting for their response. I've lived with it since October but really, I would simply like to just surf in peace you know what I mean? But aside from squeaky left Ctrl and Shift keys, it's been a pleasure using this computer.

Do any of you have any suggestions or similar issues? Thank you in advance.

 

Do you have Itunes loaded? Also I would go in and unload any Apple software that the Mac's might be polling for. I can see where that would cause a issue. Check this and see what you have loaded and give this a try first. Let us know the outcome if you would.

 

Hi everybody,

I have the same problems described here, freezes and occasional USB failures. No surprise, the ASUS support partner here in Germany said they hadn't heard about such issues with the G73JW series and it must be a solitary case. Yeah right!

However, today I've found out that when such a freeze occurs and you then disconnect the power supply, the laptop shuts itself down immediateley, even if the battery is still on 100%. Anyone else observed this? Could it be that the problem has something to do with the battery? It sure does look like a hardware problem, doesn't it?

Ace-S

from www.lieferheld.de in Berlin

 

How many of you all use the gaming mouse that came with the G73JW?

 

Today is a bad day... a VERY bad day...

So far (about a quarter of the way through my work day), was in Photoshop editing a piece and wham! Computer locks hard. Screen freezes... nothing can be accessed except the good 'ol power off button to reboot.

Not one hour later, surfing the web to find a Blu-ray Disc authoring app, was on the Sony website, clicked a link and BAM! Screen goes BLACK and the computer is now rebooting! What's up with that?

Hmmmmm.... Now getting more frustrated by the day... Such sporadic behavior. I bought mine from Circuit City online in December because they had a $100 rebate and I only ended up paying $1299 for this unit, which was a smokin' good deal... but... now I'm not really sure... thing may be going back or RMA'd soon. I cannot deal with such instability. My Hackintosh is more solid than this thing!!!

 

veriatech,

Did you have a browser open at the time? I feel like Flash has been causing these lockups (possibly along with the ASUS programs). I installed an addon for Firefox called Flashblock, so that Flash elements don't run until I click on them, and that has helped.

 

greenprell,

Yes, I did have a browser open, as I usually always have at least 2 or 3 browser sessions in IE, Firefox, Chrome running at all times. I am a designer / developer so in addition to browser apps, Adobe apps are usually always open as well. I will give the Flashblock a try... willing to try just about anything at this point! Thanks!

 

Same problem here, I tried all the steps described in the topic and still freezin and getting the usb error...

 

..

Hey Battlenut, that is a good point. Unfortunately I do not have Itunes installed, since I dislike Itunes. But I do have Sharepod installed. Do you think there's any connection there? There is also Quicktime Alternative.... I'll uninstall those and get back to you.

Sorry to hear about these lockups people. I don't seem to have any of these problems yet and wish I was more computer savvy to help. Though there is this:

When I first received my computer, I loaded up CS4 so that I can get to work. I noticed compared to my old Sager (that tanked), it wasn't performing that much better. I went to 64bit CS4 and it was much better, but it locked up on one of my editing sessions. This was in October. After it happened again, I looked online and all I found was cases on how crappy Asus bundled software was so I went ahead and used the enclosed recover disk and went through a clean install. After which I pretty much uninstalled everything especially Splendid. I left only Power4GearHybrid, the latest version, Nvidia 260.99, and Wireless Console. Asus Data Security Manager and SmartLogon is still there too but I've never used them.

I have had any trouble with lockups since except the aforementioned issue with Macs crashing my system. Hope this helps and thanks Battlenut for the suggestion.

 

Update: I took out the battery and the freezes and USB failures have completely stopped!

 

Im testing it too, so far so good, lets wait a little more time to see if the problem is really gone.

 

Since my last post, on the day that I was having an enormous amount of freezes / lockups (all told over 9 reboots that day), I uninstalled Power4Gear Hybrid. Things have stabilized but just woke up to another frozen computer.

I am so frustrated. This has to be the worse computer I have ever owned, bar none. The instability is just killing me. I want out of this thing and soon.

Time to start barking up the ASUS tree to see what my options are now...

 

And you are assuming the lockups are due to the hardware? There have been people getting this issue after a WU update, or after a driver update, or whatever. Have you checked your System logs to see what is causing it?

 

I've had my G73JW back from RMA for about a week now. I've left the laptop on overnight for several nights and have not experienced anymore lock-ups or USB failures (knock on wood!).

They replaced the motherboard and that seems to have fixed my issues. I finally get to enjoy this laptop . The RMA process was almost a month so this is something to consider.

 

I am starting to believe that stinicel who posted on page 12 of this thread is onto something with the Mac existence in the same network being a problem. For those of us with the problem, who all is running a Mac on the same network you are logged on to? I have two Macs on my network. One is a Mac Mini and the other is a Hackintosh I built about a year ago (which is rock solid btw - used as a video editing system).

When I take the laptop out and connect to any of my client's networks, who do not have any Macs, I have no problems and surprisingly enough, the laptop seems to be quite a bit faster (that might just be me imagining), but at least it doesn't crash.

What possibly could a Mac connected to the same network have anything to do with a G73W crash? The rest of my PCs are no problem. Hmmm...

I am going to disconnect my Macs from my network for a while and see if I can sustain some stability!

 

@veriatech Try disabling bonjour/avahi on your router to see if it makes a difference.

Bonjour (software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also we don't allow discussion of hackintosh here due to the forum rules.

 

There are a couple of ways to reinstall windows. First there is a recovery partition on your hard drive that you can use to reset your computer back to factory defaults. You can also create a set of recovery disks for your computer using the included utility (Look under Asus Utilities). I highly recommend creating a set of recovery disks. If your hard drive fails you will be stuck without a copy of windows.

I think the manual that Asus provided (its on your hard disk as a pdf) explains all this.

 

So I have had my Mac Mini turned off for the last 2 days and my ASUS is running like a charm! No freezes, Power4Gear is behaving like it should, sleep mode, the whole bit!

The only Apple product I ever insalled on my ASUS is Quicktime Player. Bonjour is not installed. I do access the internet wireless from my ASUS in my home as I do my Mac Mini. So, this problem seems to be some sort of a collision in my wireless environment between my Mac Mini and my ASUS G73JW. Strange. I do have two other PCs in my home in the same wireless network running wireless, and they have had no problems throughout all this.

At this point, I think my solution is to turn off Airport on my Mac Mini and hardwire the mini to the network.

Unbelievable how this unfolded! How is this possible that a Mac on the same wireless network could cause the ASUS to lock up?!

 

Hey All,

So my G73JW just "messed up" 3 times in about 20min. All three times i was playing Dead Space 2. The first was were it just powered off, as if I had just held down the power button. The next was a hard lock during the game. The third was a power off again. Both of these issues have happened to me while paying Neverwinter Nights 2 as well. I do not have P4G installed. I have my power settings set so that if the laptop is plugged in, it does not sleep or do anything unless i tell it to. It stays on and active while th lid is closed. It is not uncommon for me to leave the laptop closed, and then come back to it being on but the screen does not turn back on and the only thing i can do is hard shut down.

I have had my FSB OCed to 152 and my GPU OCed to 800/1500, and neither gets to high temps during extended gaming. I have also tried with no OC of CPU and GPU, and problems persist.

Sometimes when I start my computer I get a "win boot manager failed to start" error message and the system wont boot. If i just restart a few times, it boots right up. This is off an SSD that I installed into the 2nd SATA slot.

There is a macbook sharing the wireless at my house, so I tried turning off my WLAN device, and it still shut down.

Anyone else having the win boot error, and/or have an SSD in the 2nd slot? Obv. people are having the power off issue I'm having. Ugh

 

Hi all, I have been having many frequent lock up and freeze up which resulting me into holding the power button. I am very desperate and frustrated to what ever is causing this problem. I have no mac on my network since I use a wireless usb modem as my source of internet connection. I dont have any usb failure like most of you, although I have a lot of problem with Blue-tooth disconnecting itself VERY VERY frequently. anyone of you have similar problems like me?

Also, I cant do a backup disc on my asus utility since I think i accidentally deleted that "recovery" partition off of the hard-drive when I first received my laptop. What should I do now?

SO PLEASE HELP! I can't send mine to RMA either since I am studying in the Philippines.

PS:after reading this entire thread I have made a conclusion and it is as follows:

My main problem is almost exactly identical to that of Veriatech's problem. The laptop would lock up after it is idle for a few minuets. I suspect it to be due to being on balanced power option, which is when the lock up occurs. When I switched to High Performance for the past 2 days, no lock ups until I changed it back to Balance yesterday. The lock up occured twiced today within 5 hours interval. Now I have disabled my laptop from going to sleep, shutting off harddrive, uninstall the power4geargybrid crap, DL the hotfix suggested on page 3. Now it is just wait and see. I will report back if any more lock up occurs. "finger crossed"

For those who has usb problem, I am suspecting there is a defect on your motherboard unfortunately, though I am not 100% sure since I do not have those problems (thank god). Anyways, these problems should be addressed to Asus if it has not already since MANY customers are experiencing it. Such an unfortunate experience for such a high end system.

 

Actually, I suspect some bad Windows Update from the past. I've seen a great many machine exhibit the same issue, and all being different hardware, both laptop and desktop. Now, take the same machine, reinstall the OS, and don't update over WU, but instead install SP1, and viola! everything works!

@TheOAKMan: you can still download a Win 7 Home Premium image and do a fresh install, and use the Driver and App CD + my reference to get most of your apps back.

 

Sigh, I just got 2 more freeze ups today, and I thought I had the problem figured out. I am hopeless now, what is wrong with my laptop. When i first got it for the first month, there were no freeze ups. So maybe chastity is right about the fail windows update.

What could you guys suggest I do to solve these freeze up without reinstalling a new windows, even if that will solve it.

 

Have you already tried what I've suggested?

==>Take the battery out?

 

I agree. I'm not sure if the windows fix for example had any effect at all or if they applied it to windows updates, but after a while, I have 0 windows issues compared to when I first bought (ignoring issues with the laptop).

 

Just an update: I redid my JH install, and my desktop install, and on both I did the OS install then straight to SP1 RTM (no Windows Update), and neither machine has had any lockup issues, or weird Sleep issues.

 

I installed the w7 sp1, but i cant install the usb 3.0 fresco driver, when i do that the freezes and usb shutdowns come back.

 

Believe me. I don't get it either. When there's no Mac around, my puter runs like a hotrod. This same issue happened with my Sager system. Again, the only place where I can get online in effin peace is at Starbucks and Peet's. Peet's runs something called SonicWall. Anyone know what that is?

I was a friends place who has a MacBook of whatever, the newest one running win 7 and osx. His computer, of course crashes mine as well. Interestingly enough, his PC laptops there are running Windows 7 Enterprise edition, and the Macs do not crash those operating systems. I may try that out.

 

The Macs use 3 antennae system and just aren't friendly.

 

Macs cause my crappy router to crap out on us all the time.

 

I'm having these exact problems, but I'm at even more of a disadvantage due to my current situation.

I just recently purchased a G73JW, and had it shipped to me out in sunny Afghanistan for my deployment. It got here safely without taking any physical shipping damage around early January. Since the first say, however, it has been experiencing these random freezes! I have tried almost every possible suggestion on every single forum thread I can find on the issue, but the issue persists, if not slightly less prevalent!

The freezes only seem to occur when typing or idling, it never seems to occur during periods of extensive GPU usage, and it's NEVER due to heating issues or memory consumption. I keep constant monitor over all temperatures, speeds, and memory use, and I cannot find any reason for the computer to be hard-freezing like this, but it's driving me absolutely INSANE!

I often lose long emails, conversation history, and some times extensive amounts of typed work though I do have a good habit of saving often! This happens often between 1-5 times PER DAY! This is absolutely ridiculous and I've even called ASUS tech support already, just get the typical bull Indian tech support response I expected involving "send it in so we can reset it to factory defaults" even though I specifically mentioned having reset and freshly installed the system TWICE already, and I've tried uninstalling all Creative software, that didn't work, I tried the windows hotfix, that didn't work, I've tried keeping the battery out, that didn't work, I tried not using steam anymore, that didn't work, and it doesn't seem to have any pattern in time or application usage! I've tried leaving all music and sound off, that didn't work either! I can't figure it out, but for a 2000 dollar laptop that I cannot send off to RMA right now due to my situation is absolutely maddening!

Please if anyone has ANY information on updates to this situation I would be extremely indebted to you for helping me solve this problem. I already feel foolish for thinking it would be a good investment to spend the money on a decently powerful laptop since it's the only thing I could use out here in on my deployments, but now my expensive laptop is failing to perform even the simplest web browsing tasks reliably!

It also appears to have some of the mentioned touchpad issues, although I typically use a mouse anyway so that's not a huge concern, and the bluetooth device/drivers always seem to be complaining about drivers no installing properly, or installing new devices, when I'm not even using bluetooth!

Please some one help me with the lockups at the very least, I've exhausted almost every single suggestion and the freezes persist even as I type this response, I only prey I can hit the "Reply" button before another freeze strikes and I lose this entire post.

Sincerely,

Daniel Bentz
1 Combat Comm, USAF

!!!UDPATE!!!

Through my desperation I've been hounding through the EventViewer on Win7, and I did find a very very very consistent pattern with the freezing time-frame:

Every single time I had to cycle power, the events leading up to the freeze are reported as such:

Code:

Date		Time			Event		Desc


02/08/11	04:46:06		7036		The Windows Installer service entered the stopped state.

02/08/11	04:00:15		7036		The Application Experience service entered the stopped state.

02/08/11	02:47:37		7036		The WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service service entered the stopped state.

02/08/11	00:38:51		7036		The Windows Error Reporting Service service entered the running state.

02/07/11	15:18:57		7036		The WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service service entered the running state.

02/07/11	07:36:52		7036		The Application Experience service entered the stopped state.

02/06/11	23:15:34		7036		The WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service service entered the stopped state.

These were all the last events recorded in the log before the OS had to be restarted...

I'm further investigating this, however, as I have no idea it's a cause or a result of the issue, but hopefully the time frame for the error is going to help narrow it down some....

!UPDATE_2!

So it doesn't seem to be caused by any particular web browser, it has done it with firefox, IE, and chrome open respectively, but I'm wondering if it has something to do with them, since that seems to be the most common denominator in this problem.

I even disabled AVG to make sure it didn't have anything to do with it, and unfortunately it did not...

I have noticed that although it does it randomly while idle or when I'm not at the computer, the times it does it while I AM at the computer seems to be triggered at the moment I switch the focus of the OS from a text file (programming) or a web browser... I can't say for certain that is part of the problem, but I have noticed that most often it happens when changing tabs in a browser or alt-tabbing or clicking on a text file to continue working on it. Of course I don't think it has anything to do with the text files themselves, if is application related AT ALL it would have to be related to the internet browser, which does not appear to be application specific!

The last freeze occured just a few minute ago with this being the last logged event in EventViewer:

Event 7036 The Windows Error Reporting Service service entered the running state.

This last even occured less than one minute before I had to reinstate the computer via power button

 

You can try updating your Wifi drivers, and if that doesn't help, throw the machine into High Performance mode and disable Sleep. See if that helps.

 

Hey thanks for the reply, I have already been running the machine in performance mode and disabled all sleep and hibernate options, and updated the Power4Gear utility.

I updated the wifi driver not long ago to the most recent one that asus has provided for this laptop, but I might try to replace that with one from the manufacturer of the card itself. I just tried rolling back by the video driver to an older version (GTX 460M 1.5gb card) hopefully that will help out some!

I will update when I have another freeze, hopefully not too soon.

 

Confirmed 4 more freezes since attempting to rollback video drivers... I'm at my wits end on this, I can't even figure out what's causing it, other than I know it likes to occur at very idle times! It never seems to occur when the hardware is being utilized fully, I'm tempted to start leaving some kind of stress test running 24/7 to just keep the damned thing from freezing on me, but wasting all those system resources is not why I spent 2000 dollars on a freaking "performance" laptop! This is utterly ridiculous and it drives me insane that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it out here in the desert. Some one please help those of us afflicted find a solution to this horrendous oversight in the production of these otherwise wonderful machines!

The only other thing it does that really bothers me is the bluetooth drivers are constantly reinstalling or removing themselves, I've even tried disabling bluetooth, but it doesn't seem to help any, every time I restart the computer it lists them as new devices and then attempts to install them and some times fails, some times succeeds. I have no idea if this is related, and I really hope it's not hardware since I still have a few more months before I can even send this thing off, and I would at least love to know what I can do to help deter the problem so it doesn't occur so many times per day! Hell I'd settle for even one freeze per day, and if I could predict when I might not lose so much work so constantly!

 

I find that every 6 mo - 1 yr I usually get fed up over some asinine thing Windows is doing, and I reinstall from scratch. Maybe you are due as well.

Install Windows 7, then install Win 7 SP1 RTM, do your system drivers, then allow Windows Update to work. I find this combo avoids a lot of silliness I had before.

 

are you referring to a format and fresh install? Or can this be done without needing to backup and reinstall all of my software and data? It probably will take a full day to do fresh backups and about equally as long to reinstall of it, not that I'm saying it isn't worth trying, but just curious.

Do you think this is completely a win7 issue?

 

Not a weird problem, but I noticed one strange thing. I own my Asus about a month and found if I shut down it with a hard reset (pressing power button 5sec) I have problems to turn it on and namely: display does not turn on, OS does not load and vents start off to maximum in several seconds. So I have to turn it on and off several times untill it loads system. Is that a problem or some protective mechanism? May be smb faced to the same issue?

 

dabentz, My freeze up has ceased or atleast has reduced to maybe one to every two or three days. Here is what I did. It may not work for you however, it seemd to help me.

I upgraded my windows 7 Home premium to ultimate. after that, Ive only had a few freeze up, and by that i mean SIGNIFICANLY fewer freeze ups.

When the freeze up do happen, make sure you shut it down after you hard-boot it. If u dont do that, the freeze up will keep occuring very frequently.

I did not buy 7 ultimate, i got it for free, and dam its well worth not having these stupid freeze ups.

The only freeze up Ive had lately was while playing a movie on VLC media player and on MSN. Just random freeze ups, but they are much less frequent.

I also have the same bluetooth problem. My blutooth mouse keeps DCing and i have no idea why. I do not have a solution to that but restarting the laptop helps connecting it back.

 

I just purchased a new G73JW. It is the most frustrating notebook I have ever purchased. Install programs and they will work until you reboot. Same with printers. Several times I signed in and it went through the "configuring settings" like I was a new user and almost nothing worked! Can even get iTunes to work. I have used computers for years and have four other machines in my office that I have installed all the same software and they all work perfectly. This is my first ASUS and I am really disappointed and frustrated.

 

All of your issues are PEBKAC errors - not specific to asus.

 

Hi, I've actually started experiencing these random lockups as well. It happens both during gaming and general use(youtube, web surfing, listening to music, etc). When the freeze happens, an audible stuttering noise emits from the speakers and only thing to do is a hard shutdown. Is this the same type of freeze everyone else is having?

I should also note that I had lockups before these freezes occurred, during the shutdown sequence where windows goes to the "shutdown screen" and stays there until you again manually shutdown via power button.