Intermittent Freezing Problem With Qosmio X550-Q893

Hey folks!

Okay, I have the feeling I have a hardware issue of some sort. Around Christmas time, I was getting intermittent freezing of programs, particularly any Internet browsers and some games. MSWord, Sony Vegas Movie Maker 10.0 Platinum also freezes. Now what was happening was that at random points, the screen would freeze and of course turn whiteish as you would expect for whatever program was opened and hanging.

It was happening quite frequently, particularly with Sony Vegas, which takes up HUGE chunks of memory and resources.

Anyway, after much fuss, I decided that it was probably a good time for a system restore, so I basically restored the system to its original "out of the box" state, not even bothering with a restore-point. I just wiped everything and started over. Then I installed all my games on the lappy and other programs I needed. I deleted a load of bloatware, and blah, blah, blah.

Now, I will say that the problem is MUCH better. Now instead of happening all the time, it happens sometimes and not anywhere near as often.

Now the "fix" for this problem is the same as it was before I reformatted. Basically all I do is hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the Security Options screen to come up and either just "Esc" out of it or start the Task Manager. This usually gets me back into everything not hanging within a few seconds. Occasionally, I have to hold Ctrl-Alt-Del for a while as the entire system will hang and take a minute or two to sort of come back to me. This is rare, certainly a lot more rare than before I reformatted. More often than not, I get the freeze and can get out of it very quickly.

Now I am under a bit of a time crunch here because my warranty EXPIRES on the 28th of this month. So this has to be either resolved, or at least a ticket for it created before then. Anyone ever hear of problem with my line of Qosmios?

Thanks!

 

I'm not too familiar with Windows 7 freezing issues, but maybe the problem could be related to RAM problems? I don't know how to check other than to remove and replace with different RAM. [unless you have 2 sticks installed, remove 1 and test].

 

If you've reformatted and don't have any shoddy programs or services running, then I'd agree with alexUW, check the RAM and HDD (scan for bad sectors). The worst case scenario would be something shorting out on the motherboard (very rare, but it did happen to my 9yr old Satellite), in which case that'd would definitely fall under warranty.

Also, I'm kinda surprised you're still with the Q893, I thought you were going to upgrade after ~1 year? Mine has really spoiled me, when I upgrade I'm probably going to go desktop, cause no laptop impresses me anymore...

 

Dude, a4500435, how the hell are you, man?!!

Okay, I will run a HD scan for bad sectors tonight. How do I check the RAM? Is it a matter of yanking it out and like blowing on it lol to make sure it doesn't have dust on it?

Oh and I had no intention of staying this long with the Q893, but to be honest, I really see no reason to upgrade just yet. Why? Well, I honestly thought that after 18 months of buying my Q893 (pretty much a week or two after it launched, by the way) that the tech would have increased a lot faster in the low to medium end machines.

Meaning that my machine has an i5 more importantly the 460m GPU, right? The new ones have a 560m and granted the i5 based machines are Sandy Bridges. The problem is that while the new i7 and even the new i5 are better than my CPU and the 560m is better than the 460m, it really isn't this huge, cataclysmic jump in gaming performance to go from the Q893 even to the 3D version of the Q775. Yes, it is a nice increase, but not enough to justify investing in a brand new machine and selling mine off for pennies on the dollar. Yes, USB 3.0 is nice, but not that important to me.

My machine can still play any game out there and I can still max out most of the settings. Not only that, but I REALLY don't want to do an upgrade to a smaller screen. Yes, I have grown quite fond of my 18.4 inch display! So while 1.1 inches is certainly not a deal-breaker, I am still quite happy with mine. Oh, not that this is a priority either, but I think that the X550 series laptops are, quite simply, much nicer machines aesthetically. I still maintain that my Qosmio is the prettiest freaking laptop I HAVE EVER SEEN! Again, none of this is vital, but I just feel no desire to upgrade yet. Let's see what Toshiba unveils for their next gen of lappies!

 

For the RAM, if your Qosmio only has 1 stick of RAM, then you'll have to borrow a stick from another machine [if possible]. Test the Qosmio with the different RAM stick and see if it still freezes. If you have 2 stick, then take one out and test. Then switch the sticks and test the other.