Windows7 Freezing, Now Bricked

Hey guys

Hopefully somebody can shed some light on this! System specs are all in my profile.

Here's what happened:

1) Windows7 started freezing about 2 - 5 minutes after starting up. Would freeze if left at login screen, would freeze if I started using it. In other words the activity made no difference, the computer wasn't under high load.

2) The freeze would play out like this: first I'd notice the OS becoming unresponsive (mouse rollover effects not working, windows not coming to the front, hourglass icon on mouse) ... then about 4 seconds later it would totally freeze. Mouse cursor still working, everything else frozen, Ctrl-Alt-Delete not working, hard reset required.

3) Went into safe mode (which didn't freeze), checked Event Viewer. Couldn't find *any* relevant errors leading up to the crash.

4) Windows Memory Diagnostic reported that the RAM was all fine.

5) Installed latest video drivers, uninstalled anti-virus program, didn't help.

6) Started normally and it froze with a blank screen just after the Windows logo, unable to login.

7) Started again, and Windows Startup Recovery began, and just sat there in an infinite loop not doing anything.

8) Impasse.



So ... I'm resigned to re-installing Windows 7. But what kind of problem does this point to? Does it sounds like a hardware fault or a software fault, is the same problem going to crop up again after I reinstall?

Do you have your RAM properly configured in the BIOS? That may be your problem here.

Did you install all the correct Intel Chipset driver including the RST driver?

Is your hard drive configured to AHCI in the BIOS?

Check those settings and get back to us.

BTW, welcome to the Windows 7 Forums website!

Hey

Thanks for the reply

The system had been running very smoothly since I built it about 5 months ago. I'm not sure what changed (if anything) to cause this. Perhaps some Windows Update? I didn't notice anything new coming down ... which makes me think hardware fault?

The RAM is being auto-configured in the BIOS via its XMP settings.

ACHI was turned on (I think .. I'll check).

I'm pretty sure I had the correct drivers for the motherboard chipset too.

One thing that happened while I was originally building was that the Marvell drivers for my motherboard's two SATA3 (6 GB/s) ports were incredibly unstable, and causing random BSODs and freezes on the SSD OS drive. I plugged the SSD into a SATA2 port and it was fine after that ...

Oh, an extra bit of information:

In safe mode, using msconfig.exe, I did a totally clean boot (i.e. boot normally into Windows but with *only* Windows services being loaded, no 3rd party crap) ... computer still freezing.

Tried reinstalling. While attempting to format the SSD (in the Win7 installer booted from DVD) prior to reinstalling it froze again. What do you reckon? Sounds like a broken SSD?

No expert on SSD's (leave that to Mr. Nibs!) but if you have issues booting into a clean Safe Mode (or even just Safe Mode), it's a good indicator of hardware problems.

Nibs is in the US (An obscure region of Planet X!) so may need to wait for the satellites to be positioned ................ just so!

In your Bios do you have settings for safe/normal or something like that in your ram settings.
I had Ram issues giving me boot problems with no pattern to it.
Went back to most basic stable ram settings and problem got better.

Cheers guys.

I've just spent the day installing Windows7 onto a brand new 500GB HD, and so far so good. Just getting to point where I've installed up-to-date drivers for the motherboard, graphics card and whatnot, and no freezing.

For future reference I guess people can take the above symptoms as those of a imminently failing SSD.

Sorry for being late (again) on my original response to you post.

Did you run any SSD software tools such as HD Tune Pro or ATTO Benchmark or SSD Life Free? (http://ssd-life.com/)

It could be a defective SSD, I am sure it's still under warranty for you though.

Do you have the latest BIOS firmware update, which is dated 7-1-2011 Intel
BIOS Update [SOX5820J.86A] You can get it here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20205&ProdId=3262⟨=eng&OSVersion=%0A&DownloadType=BIOS

Is your SSD updated with the latest firmware for it from Corsair?

I am sorry your SSD is giving you issues... they can be buggers sometimes (as Elmer would say).

Run those SSD tests with your drive connected NOT as the main drive and see what results you get back.

I have never been a big fan of marvell controllers, either internal SSD or SATA motherboard controllers. That's just my humble personal opinion.

If you are able to get your money back, I would highly recommend the OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS SSD. Better performance and SandForce controllers are rock-solid and steady.

For Elmer - yeah it took awhile to get the dish realigned, some woman who looks like Jody Foster kept stating the VLA in New Mexico wanted to use mine to pick up signals with... go figure!

Hmm, no. Strangely it didn't cross my mind to run any diagnostics on the SSD, or update its firmware, I was just totally distracted by getting my system up and running again. Thanks for the info ... I'll definitely do that and report back.

And yeah, I feel the same way about Marvell controllers. The Intel DX58SO2 motherboard has two exciting looking bright blue internal SATA3 connections that are currently rendered effectively useless (at least for me) by the Marvell controller and driver combo. Might try them again now I've cleaned out the system and got the version latest motherboard drivers ...