M50VM-X1 randomly freezing

I purchased my M50VM-X1 last October, and it has been running great for the most part, but over the last few months I've been getting very random freezes. By freeze, I mean the entire laptop locks up, doesn't even crash to a blue screen or reboot. The screen that is currently displayed stays on the screen and the laptop does nothing. It doesn't do it frequently, maybe once every few weeks, but definately enough to warrant concern.

This happens on Vista 32-bit, and also on Windows 7 64-bit (release candidate). I've updated the drivers including the Intel SATA/RAID drivers to the most recent ones, updated the BIOS to 209 (the newest one) and even reinstalled both operating systems, but to no avail. The freezes are entirely at random, and I can't seem to pinpoint what would cause it.

Anybody else having an issue similiar to this, or have an idea what would be causing this? Thanks.

 

Random freezes of this type usually indicate hardware problems. I can't be more precise than that

You could try changing whatever removable hardware you have access to: for instance, the HDD, one of the RAM chips, the WiFi module -- and running without it for a while, see if you stop getting the freezes. That doesn't have a great chance of success as the majority of the components are not removable or not expendable (i.e. the computer will not run without them).

You could also try to run stress tests for the CPU and GPU, if these cause freezes they increase the probability of the stress-tested component to be at fault.

See my Tips and Tricks for some testing programs that you could use for RAM and HDD.

Faulty RAM usually causes BlueScreens by the way.

One option is to send it to ASUS and let them worry about it -- although since the freezes are so rare they may never observe one, and they may simply return the computer. Or they may change some piece of hardware that is not actually the cause of the problems.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I ran a CPU stress tester (IntelBurnTest) and it passed 100%. I ran both Seagate and Western Digital diagnostic tests and both worked great.

I'm running out of options, so I may end up sending it to Asus, although I rather not. It's just so frustrating that I can't seem to recreate the problem no matter what I try. It'd be nice knowing whether it was a software or a hardware issue, but the freezes happen randomly so I can't pinpoint it to anything.

Actually, as I'm typing this, I wonder if it could be hard drive activity... the last time it froze (last week) was when I was running updates in a VM which stressed the hard drive.

I guess I do indeed have something else I can try. Worth a shot I guess.

 

hello Actiss,

I share your frustration my M50VN has been randomly freezing for about 3 months now. I replaced both the RAM, HD wifi card and tried different OSs and still getting random freezes.

Interestingly enough the computer only starts freezing after 3-4 days after reinstalling the OS. I believe in either a motherboard hardware fault or bios issue. Too bad Asus hasn't updated the drivers for this line of notebooks in a while. Regarding the freezing issue I think I'll send it back for repair and specifically mention it's not a RAM HD or wifi issue as it was tested with other components.

Good luck and pls let me know of your findings
Luca

 

I'm not sure if this will help, but there's a tweak you can make to the Intel Matrix Storage Manager if you have it installed. The problem it fixes isn't a total system lockup, but a lockup that lasts multiple seconds. It might be worth trying anyway if you have Intel Matrix Storage Manager installed.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4495873#post4495873

 

Thanks I'm going to give it a go!

BTW I noticed two entries in the registry, iaStor and iaStorV and I'm now a bit confused from which entry I should delete the parameters folder from.

Thanks
Luca

 

I think you want the regular iaStor. If you want you can export the registry settings as mentioned, and import them back if it doesn't fix anything.

 

Well, I gave that registry trick a shot, and we'll see how it goes. Difficult to test it when I don't even know what's causing the freezing in the first place.

 

still freezing
actiss what videocard and drivers are u running?
I've got a geforce 9650m gt running with 185.70

 

Do you have any info in the Event Log? It's unlikely with hard freezes like this one, but it's worth a shot.

Is the freeze maybe correlated with HDD/CPU/GPU temperatures? (use a temperature monitor such as Everest to get those temperatures)

You can also try to disable nonessential hardware in the Device Manager. But at this point I'm already in the 'longshot' area.

 

Luckyluca, how often does your laptop freeze? Are you doing anything to cause it? Mine hasn't in about two weeks, even though it is active all day but I shut it down every night.

BTW I'm running a GeForce 9600M with 186.03 drivers.

 

Hi is there a solution to this issue yet? I have a M50Vm-X2 and I have the exact same problem. Although the freezes are very random, I find that they occur more frequently when I am trying to download a large file at high speeds. Eg. Downloading a 20 Gb file via home network. I've already tried sending it in and Asus has tried replacing the ram, hard drive, mobo, and cpu.

 

Hello,

there were two unrelated reasons for the random freezes on my system (asus m50vn):
-motherboard
-nvidia drivers

As far as I know all nvidia drivers newer than 185.70 cause the system to crash and error so stick to 185.70 if you have a Nvidia geforce 9650m GT.

Regarding the random system freezes they disappeared completely since my laptop has returned from the repair centre and they replaced the motherboard. Even the sound seem to perform better with less crackles.

Also make sure the mobo they replaced come with bios 210 (this isn's available online and it seems to be preinstalled with all mobos).

Good luck

Luca

 

Hi, I just wanted to let everyone know that I manage to fix the freezing. I followed the advice of someone on another thread and changed the power4gear setting to high performance and the laptop hasn't frozen yet. I hope this fixes the issue for everyone else as well.

 

I had also similar issue some months ago with M50VM where it used to free randomly.
The solution for me was also to update the Power4Gear Hybrid to the latest version.

The stuff on the M50Vm download page are quite old.
To download the latest drivers go to:
http://support.asus.com/download

You will be offered three selection fields.
1- In the "Select Product" field select "Notebook".
2- In the "Select Series" field select:
2a- "Apps" if you are looking for latest applications for notebooks
2b- "Drivers" if you are looking for the latest notebook drivers
3- Leave the "Select Models" at defualt value.
4- Hit the search button
5- You will get a list of all the asus applications if you select "Apps" and a list of drivers if you choose "Drivers".

Once you are there you can select which ever driver you want for example "ATKDrv" and than you will be asked to give the windows version and than it will display to you a list of all the drivers starting from news to oldest version.

The other way to get latest drivers is to go to:
ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub