G73JH-A1 Freezing when running Windows 10. On Windows 7 it's fine.....

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hello everyone.

I'm having some frustrating issues with my G73JH-A1 freezing when running Windows 10. I was 18 days into my initial test with Windows 10 on my G73JH-A1 and then out of the blue, it started freezing...... Bad.... I could get to the desktop or the lock screen and then it would freeze without me doing anything. When I say it would freeze, it is a hard freeze, can't move the mouse pointer, or anything. Only powering off and on again gets it going again. There is nothing in the event log as to what happened either. This happened to me on Windows 8.1 as well. The only solution I had at the time was to reinstall Windows. I thought perhaps my laptop was dying so I went back to Windows 7 to test and found that it never froze once but I don't really want to run Windows 7 anymore. So then I started thinking it was a Windows 8.1 issue and that Windows 10 would resolve the freezing so I waited for Windows 10 to be released to take advantage of the free upgrade. I was wrong..... because Windows 10 freezes too.

I even did a clean install of Windows 10. Same problem with freezing...

I discovered a solution that worked for a short time on Windows 10 by uninstalling the ATI Catalyst Control Center only. Leaving the ATI display drivers alone as you need them. Only uninstall the ATI Catalyst Control Center. It's nice to have but not 100% necessary. I got this tip from a friend who had some issues with HP computers running ATI graphics cards and freezing.

Anyway, I tried it (uninstalling the ATI Catalyst Control Center) and I was lucky enough to be able to uninstall this without the machine freezing and then I rebooted. Everything was running fine again for about a month or so and then it started freezing again. I discovered that Windows 10 updated the graphics card driver for the ATI 5870m and reinstalled the Catalyst Control Center. So once again I uninstalled it and then it seemed OK again for a few days and now it's freezing again and the Catalyst Control Center is not installed! I'm not sure what is causing this and I don't want to reinstall Windows 10 again as it's getting tiresome.

Anyone else having problems with their G73JH Freezing with Windows 10 or 8.1 and what was your solution? Any other tips for this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hmmm. No responses. How about some other questions.....

Anyone with a G73JH running Windows 10 and it's running perfectly?

How long have you been running Windows 10 on your G73JH?

What video card driver are you using and where did you get it from?

Is the Catalyst Control Center installed?

Any hardware upgrades to your G73JH?

Are there any hardware diagnostic tools that specifically test the MOBO and Video Card that I could try? Tools to test RAM and HDDs are easy to come by, but how about the MOBO and Video Card?

Thanks!

[HallisterM3]

I was told by my local shop NOT to run Windows 10, too many problems currently that still need to be fixed and patched. Windows 7 is just the universal OS that's 100% stable, I've never had a problem with it ever.

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hi HallisterM3.

Not quite the reply I was hoping for but thanks anyway.

Anyone else?

[TheTechGuru]

Make sure you have the latest Radeon Drivers. You can download it HERE


Note: Crimson is now the latest version of AMD Radeon Drivers. Catalyst is already obsolete.

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hi there.

Thanks for that tip. I was already using the latest Radeon drivers however this Crimson stuff is new! The HD5870 in my G73JH is now considered a legacy device but fortunately AMD has a beta Crimson driver for us to use.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=legacy3&os=Windows%2010%20-%2064

Using Windows 10 safe mode (the only way I could run the G73JH without it freezing) I uninstalled the old AMD drivers, rebooted, then installed the new Crimson 16.1 Beta driver. So nice to see that the Catalyst Control Center is gone. I'm fairly certain that was the culprit but who knows.....

So far so good. I was usually getting about a month or so after I changed the video card driver without it freezing, so we'll see how this goes. I'll try and report back here in a month or so and let you all know how things have been going. If it starts freezing again, before then, I'll be back! Just sooner...

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hello again.

Sadly my G73JH has started freezing again in Windows 10.

Is there anyone out there running a G73JH with Windows 10 without it freezing?

Any other ideas on what I could try?

Thanks.

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hmmm. No responses. How about some other questions.....

Anyone with a G73JH running Windows 10 and it's running perfectly?

How long have you been running Windows 10 on your G73JH?

What video card driver are you using and where did you get it from?

Any hardware upgrades to your G73JH?

Are there any hardware diagnostic tools that specifically test the MOBO and Video Card that I could try? Tools to test RAM and HDDs are easy to come by, but how about the MOBO and Video Card?

Thanks!

[Labontesbuc]

I am having the same problem. It seems to be the graphics card drivers? I update them appropriately but then Windows overwrites the driver with automatic updates and the only way I can get the laptop to stop freezing is to uninstall the graphics drivers and reinstall my own. I went back to Windows 7 though. It is frustrating stupid.

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hi there.

I'm fairly certain it's video drivers and I agree it's very frustrating. Any other G73JH users out there try their luck with Windows 8.1 or 10? How did you make out?