Vaio randomly freezes

Hi there,

THE PROBLEM: My laptop randomly freezes for about 5 minutes (screen stays on) and then it returns to normal. Its worth mentioning that my fan kicks into full speed and my sound (if playing music for example) stutters while frozen.

It seems to freeze more frequently when watching videos. But strangely, it doesn't freeze when I play Skyrim.

I've installed the latest flash plugins from Adobe and the latest display driver from Nvidia.

The computer freezes regardless of which browswer I use.

I'm not really computer literate, but should I do a full system recovery via Vaio Care or perhaps even perform a clean Windows 7 install?

Any help is appreciated.

 

Doing a clean windows 7 install should fix the problem, if it doesn't then it might be a hardware issue. The are several reason why your computer freezes, it could have a virus, or you could have a lot of things on your hard drive, which makes applications a little longer to open and sometimes make the program become unresponsive.

 

I'd say before formatting i'd do the following:

1) MSE virus scan
2) CCleaner
3) If SSD: check TRIM
4) Try to reproduce the problem

If you can reproduce the problem, reproduce it while running diagnostic software. This can tell you what files are being accesssed by tthe system, and what processes are using up the CPU. This should point you in the right direction.

As bensmith said though, the noob-friendly version is the following:
1)Backup Data
2)Boot from recovery partition
3) Format & Reinstall windows.

Hope I helped.

 

1st question: What model is the laptop? That's the most important question because it lets us know what hardware we're dealing with and whether or not it's a hardware or software problem.

 

Vaio VPCCW26FX. i5-520m / 4gb ram / 500 gb HDD / nvidia geforce GT330m

 

I have done a full system recovery via Vaio Care and yet this problem still persists. I have all the updated flash player and the latest nvidia driver from Sony's support website.

After the full system recovery, watching multiple youtube videos would cause "windows kernel mode driver has crashed".

Please take a look at these videos. This gentleman is experiencing the same problems as me. We would greatly appreciate any help.

 

Yes, I too am having the same (or very similar) problem. I am pretty technically savvy, so I would say I've gone above and beyond what most normal users would try themselves.

My laptop is a Sony Vaio CW 29FX with the Intel Core i5 520m CPU, nVidia GeForce 330M GPU, 4GB RAM and a 500GB HDD.

Laptop was previously brought back to Sony under warranty (Last August) for random BSOD's that involved a couple of different files. I would also occasionally get a message stating, "nvidia display drivers have failed but has successfully recovered." that would follow after the display would go black and come back on. They cleaned the cooling system (I suspect this is more of a standard procedure then a problem with the laptop) and replaced the hard drive. This seemed to take care of the problem.

When I got the laptop back, it was flashed with Sony's software and I eventually planned to do a clean install as I wanted to put the laptop back into the condition I had it before I had brought it in.

This past December, after a clean install if Windows 7 Home Premium, and installing the applicable drivers on Sony's website, I first downloaded Battlefield 2 on Steam. I noticed shortly into the download, the laptop became unresponsive (no hard drive activity and the display froze with no response to input). Thinking it was a fluke, I did a force shut down (held down the power button). After the restart, the download restarted and again it froze shortly after. This time, rather then force restarting it, I wanted to see what it would do. After about a minute, the laptop begain running normally again without any error message or anything.

About a month later, we started using the laptop like we usually did before I brought it in for warranty service. This includes watching movies on NetFlix, watching YouTube videos, etc. This is when I noticed the same freezing issue as described in the last paragraph (and shown in the video links posted above).

As for troubleshooting, first thing I did was a clean install with the Sony drivers. It still froze so I did a second clean install with Sony drivers. The issue remained, so I used a new spare harddrive that I have and did a clean install on that. It still froze.

Secondly, I went back to the original harddrive and stress tested the CPU, GPU and memory (both seperately and together). No freezing occurred.

Thirdly, I used a different router incase it was an issue with signal or range. Still froze. I did try tethering my phone and used the wireless network and it didn't freeze. However, I didn't try for long enough to say definatively that it doesn't freeze.

So now the laptop is at the Sony service center and they basically did all the troubleshooting steps I have done, which of course passed. I have been advised that if they find an issue, it will be $175 (parts and labor). Otherwise, it will be $75 for diagnostics, which I think is kind of BS since there is an issue. I also supplied the Sony techs the same videos that are on YouTube as well as a few more.

Should I try and contest the $75 charge if they can't find whats wrong with it. I would be pretty choked if, after paying $75 I bring it home and it freezes on me.

 

Which version Nvidia driver are you running at? I've always suspected it because of the error balloons.

 

So just to give an update, after Sony had my laptop for over two weeks, I got a call saying its fixed and that the motherboard was replaced. So if you have an issue very similar to what has been described in this thread, it may be the motherboard.

 

Thanks.

I assume Sony was able to reproduce the problem. Did they say what exactly was wrong with the motherboard?

 

Hey,

Yeah they were able to replicate the problem. I am out right now, but I will type up the work order and post it on here so that you can see the comments and parts replaced.

 

Well, my laptop finally showed me the BSOD after freezing...

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: d1
BCP1: 0000000000000538
BCP2: 0000000000000002
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: FFFFF88007467836
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\032412-17908-01.dmp
C:\Users\dennis\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-50294-0.sysdata.xml

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did you tried full recovery?

 

Yes. I fear this may be a hardware issue.

 

My laptop has the same problem too. It freeze approximately 2-5 seconds every time I watch movie, type in Microsoft Word etc. Please help me to fix that since I already did almost everything (clean Windows install, restore to factory settings, check hardware etc.) but the issue is still there. I don't know if that could be a hard drive issue or not.