G73jh Temporary freezing/extreme lagging at random intervals.

[refire]

I have read a couple of forums from people with possibly similar problems. In the forums the problem was never really solved as far as I could find. Because of this, I am posting this here as a desperate plea for help.

The Problem: Freezing of computer for approx 2 seconds at random times. Occurs as often as every other minute or as rare as every 2 hours.

Attempted Solutions:
Clean install of Windows 7 - failed
Replaced hard drive and clean install - failed
Update all drivers - failed
Call ASUS Support - never encountered something so frustrating as trying to interpret those accents
Call Best Buy support - Wanted to charge me up to $200 just to ADDRESS the problem.
Plea to ASUS ROG for a god-send - underway

Additional Details - IMPORTANT:
Something I just recently noticed... When the "lag" spikes occur, the i7 processor's 8 "virtual" cores all spike to at least 98%. This hints at a faulty processor. Funny how it comes up around the time my warranty expires...

Laptop Details:
ASUS "Best-Buy Version" G73jh
Intel i7 mobility
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Graphics
6 GB RAM
64 GB Crucial SSD (custom addition)
500 GB original hard drive
Warranty expired 1 week ago. 😕

EDIT: With a little searching here (not sure how I didn't see it before) I found this other forum post. Looks as if still no actual solution was found.
Link to forum post: http://www.asusrog.com/forums/showthread.php?2108-Strange-lag-freeze-on-the-G53JW.

EDIT2: Chastity corrected that I actually G73jh.

[Chastity]

Well, for starters, if you have a 5870M, then you have a JH model. 🙂

The lag spikes can be from a number of things, so I'll just list them:

Can be caused by hardware acceleration in browsers during video streaming, even if the stream is idle. Solutions: make sure Flash is current. some combos of C++ and Silverlight + .Net packages also known to cause issues. Uninstall all and then update them, I prefer one at a time, and using Redist packages.

IIRC, the C300 needed a firmware update. Make sure whatever model of SSD you have has a current firmware.

If you do indeed have a JH, make sure you are updated to 213, and your video BIOS is updated to 012.020.xxx v93 version listed on my Driver and Application page.

[refire]

Well I THINK I have solved it. Like you said in the other forum, I THINK that it is my Anti-Virus protection. My "McSvHost.exe" started by McAfee was hogging the CPU. Still don't know how exactly to fix it other than to just "end process".

[xeromist]

Other than making sure that the A/V software is up to date and/or reinstalling it there isn't much you can do. I've switched to Avast and have been satisfied.

[irdmoose]

Easiest fix is to uninstall Mcafee and install the FREE (and arguably far superior) Microsoft Security Essentials. It's very light weight, and does the job nicely. If you want a paid one, I've had really good results with Eset NOD32. Both run nicely on virtual machines without noticeably slowing them down, and I use them both (not both on the same machine of course). However, remember: the best protection against viruses, spyware, malware, etc. is you; even the best antivirus can be defeated by not practicing safe browsing habits.

[Komsanpat]

I had few seconds freezing randomly on my ROG with Core i7-9700. I searched many discussions and did many things but nothing could fix it until it became worse and I noticed that the cause is my Seagate 3TB hard disk. I replaced the Hard Disk with new 4TB. It solved this randomly few seconds freezing completely.