Lots of Windows 7 issues

[pro2a]

So I installed a copy of Windows 7 64 bit...

In addition to a few blue screens of death (which I believe I resolved), I've had multiple freezes, random program shut downs, driver problems, programs hanging when I open them, boot up issues (mostly hanging) and most of these occur after I wake the PC up from going to sleep.

For example after I woke the system up this afternoon, Modern Warfare 2 would not start. It would hang up in the black screen then freeze. It did this multiple times, even in safe mode. I restarted the system and it was fine. Starcraft 2 did the same thing. I opened it up and there was no sound... I tinkered with the sound settings and got nothing. Once I got it working the program froze and shut down. It only worked after a restart.

Usually a restart will fix the issues...

I'm beginning to wonder if Windows 7 is unstable Has anyone else had these same issues?

 

[Jayce]

Windows 7 isn't "unstable." I mean, any operating system out there could always be "better", but I would hardly say Windows 7 is unstable. Have you checked to make sure you have the latest and greatest drivers? The fact that you're having graphical issues with MW2 suggest that you may have a video driver issue. I had similar issues with Bad Company 2 on Vista. While a new graphics card driver helped those issues, I still have *some* weirdness that I contribute to being a Nvidia driver issue, however with each driver release things *do* improve.

Have you tried to avoid putting the computer to sleep? Are you using suspend or hibernate? I for one hate hibernation and avoid it on any OS platform. I have yet to see hibernation work without issue flawlessly day after day. If I use any sort of sleep setting, I use suspend. I forget what it's called on Windows, but "suspend" is what it's referred to on Linux. Where it suspends everything to RAM and uses a bit of battery to keep things flowing, etc. Anyway try using without that. If your issues are cleared up, perhaps that's the culprit.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Recently you had issues with your RAM not reading properly, curious, can you try to replicate the bluescreens that you had, as they seem to be related to this issue, also, have you downloaded all the latest drivers for your motherboard/gpu and any other extra hardware?

I almost want to bet your RAM is faulty, or your motherboard is iffy.

 

[Jayce]

Recently you had issues with your RAM not reading properly, curious, can you try to replicate the bluescreens that you had, as they seem to be related to this issue, also, have you downloaded all the latest drivers for your motherboard/gpu and any other extra hardware?

I almost want to bet your RAM is faulty, or your motherboard is iffy.

Oooo that's a good thought. I'm sure an overnight run of Memtes86 would be smart to run as well. Pro2a - why don't you see about getting Memtest86 on a LiveCD and boot to it and let your system run overnight and see what the results are in the morning?

 

[KSoD]

Yeah i have to agree with the above. Win7 is not at all unstable. Your overclock could very well be as well as your RAM timings. Your RAM could flat out be faulty. Have you done any tests? From looking at other threads you have this is not Windows related at all.

http://www.techist.com/forums/f10/b...e-already-after-os-install-236125/?highlight=
http://www.techist.com/forums/f64/iphone-issues-win-7-a-236112/?highlight=

This one could very well be due to the same problems being caused by your hardware.

Reset your settings back to factory then install Win7. I have been using the same install of Win7 for almost a year now. It is by far the most stable version of Windows out there including XP. Yeah i said it.

 

[pro2a]

I just updated all my drivers (namely my GPU, with Win 7 drivers), including the motherboard, and flashed BIOS to the most recent version. At this point I guess we will wait and see. After I did all that it booted up much quicker then before... maybe there is hope after all.

Let me tinker around a bit here and see what else is up. Here are a few shots from CPU-Z with my current memory setup.

(All 4 slots are the same)

I just realized I never adjusted the voltage for my memory from 1.8V to 2.1V in BIOS... I wonder if that could cause problems since I have the frequency set to 1066MHz...

My board can support more then that...

Edit: I'm also burning Memtest86 to a CD... I'll run that tonight as well.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Yea, if your RAM doesn't have the proper voltage to run at the timings and speed it is set for, then it wont be able to properly store data.

 

[pro2a]

So far so good. I've been running my PC all evening with no issues... maybe it was the voltage thing...

 

[Trotter]

I never hibernate my machine. I leave it running normally and just turn off my monitors.

 

[pro2a]

Blah... I spoke too soon. I got two more blue screens of death last night. All was well from about 4:30 to 8pm. The one crash was in the middle of an AIM conversation with my friend and the other was when I exited Modern Warfare 2. Both were “kernel inpage stack errors” with a physical memory dumps.

At this point I just filed an RMA with Newegg… I figured that would be the simplest solution. Since I had no issues with my first two sticks that I bought… I figured the issue must be the second two sticks.