G73jh Locking Up

[KC0GRN]

I thought I would start a new thread, since the DVD one isn't technically correct anymore.

I have an issue on my G73jh that occurs occasionally. What happens is at a random point in time after running my computer, the system freezes. The drives stop spinning, fans turn off, mouse, trackpad and keyboard are unresponsive.

One I power off and back on, sometime during the system loading, either at the windows boot screen, the login screen, or as windows is loading all of the startup programs. I'll repeat the process of rebooting, but every attempt, for around 15 minutes, results in a lockup, sometime in the bootup process.

Tonight, the original lock occurred as my battery power was almost out. This isn't always the trigger, just how it happened tonight. The weird thing was instead of suspending, the windows login screen showed up like I intentionally locked my windows session. I plugged in the adapter, and the mouse was responsive, however the keyboard wouldn't enter anything as I tried to type in my password. I rebooted and the freeze/lockup at bootup process started.

Now tonight, I decided to try pulling the battery for 30 seconds. After re-installing and rebooting, my laptop has been acting fine since.

I haven't tried updating the keyboard/trackpad drivers, is this a possibility for my issues? Or is something sticking in memory somewhere that is causing it? Or am I missing something else...

[dstrakele]

Do you see any Errors or Warnings in the System or Application Event Log? They may (but often do not) point us in a direction to troubleshoot your issue further.

Have you confirmed your system memory is sound with memtest86 or the Windows Memory Diagnostic? Memtest86 can perform a much more rigorous test of your memory.

Have you run CHKDSK to confirm there are no errors or bad blocks on your HDD?

Have you made any changes to the Pagefile configuration on your system?

Have you overclocked your system?

Have you changed your BIOS from the default values?

What Antivirus and Firewall are you using? I know my G74SX-A1 came with a Trend Micro trial that loaded on startup. If your system also has this trial and you are using a different Antivirus product, you want to make sure the Trend Micro driver is not loading. You can check this by launching Device Manager, clicking on the "View" item in the top menu, and selecting "Show hidden devices". Then expand "Non-Plug and Plaly Drivers" and search through the list. You don't want to have 2 different programs that run kernel mode drivers and do essentially the same thing running on your system at the same time. The drivers could conflict with each other and cause problems such as a system lockup or BSOD.

I do not believe the keyboard or touchpad drivers are responsible for your system lockup.

Believe it or not, Windows Updates can also cause problems. I recommend configuring Windows Update to let you choose which updates to install and research them to decide if they are needed on your system. Then when you do install and encounter problems, you know how far to go back with System Restore.

If you've had your system for some time and done a lot of tweaking, it can sometimes be faster (if the easy troubleshooting does not resolve your issue) to just do a clean install of Windows 7 and install updated versions of the drivers you need.

[pacostrano]

also make sure that you have the realtek audio drivers up to date with creative software mine was doing that too if I use the Drivers from the disk

[KC0GRN]

New update, I had the same lockup on my system tonight. I notice a pattern of if I leave the laptop on and unattended for an extended period of time, I come back and use it, and within half an hour or so, the system locks up.

Rebooting doesn't appear to cure it, however, curiously enough, if I pull the power plug from the laptop (when it sits on, it's on AC power), the next reboot appears to return the system to normal, and everything runs without a hitch (so far).

So, I'm curious if this is some sort of power issue. I do know that my SSD is not on a caddy, I don't think there should be a grounding issue, however, I can't be sure. I haven't tested fully yet, but normally the reason I leave my laptop on when away is so I can use windows media center to record a television show. When I have done this previously (and tonight), I have adjusted the power settings to ensure the laptop doesn't sleep, and miss recording the show. If there is an issue with power, I'm not sure which way to go about correcting it. Try a different A/C adapter? Check the power management drivers? Swap out the battery? Get the Cradle for the SSD?

[dstrakele]

Take a look at this thread: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?8943-G73-Freezing-Crashing-Issue-WORKAROUND-FOUND