Windows vista freezes randomly

Oh well, I have the same problem. New computer with Windows 8. After a week pulling my hair out, I looked at the Task Manager, Startup programs. There was 10 programs starting up when I turn the pc on.

There was only 2 that I thought I needed, the others I disabled. Guess what Hi: I just upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 8. Since then, my PC was been randomly freezing. If I leave it alone, it may come back after a few minutes. Sometimes it freezes constantly and sometimes it doesn't happen for an hour. This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread.

I have the same question Report abuse. Details required :. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Answered by:. Archived Forums. Windows Vista Desktop UI. Such issues include folders, AERO, toolbars, etc. Sign in to vote. I recently purchased a new Dell PC.

It came with a Vista upgrade offer. The PC worked fine under XP. When they sent the Vista disc I preceeded through the upgrade and everything went fine. However, now at random intervals, the PC will freeze for up to 30 seconds with nothing happening, no cursor movement or anything and then just as suddenly free up and work fine again.

This seems to happen at random intervals. Anyone else having a similar problem? Thursday, March 15, PM. Thursday, March 22, PM. Did you find some solution for this problem? I'm very disapointed. Saturday, March 17, AM. I have exactly the same problem. Vista seems to work fine, but locks up every few minutes, just as you describe. The freeze is always for about 30 seconds. I haven't seen any patterns yet as to what initiates the freeze. Saturday, March 17, PM. System works perfectly execpt for hanging up for 20 seconds at random times.

After that the system works again. OS is Vista Ultimate. Monday, March 19, AM. Mine too. Dell Dim Solid as a rock running XP, installed Vista when the disc finally came in place upgrade, not clean install. Install went very smooth and I get a random freeze-up for about 30 seconds. Tried reinstall - same thing. OS is Vista Business Core 2 Duo 2. This is really annoying! Any thoughts that a clean install will make difference?

Tuesday, March 20, PM. The computer came pre-installed with a French version of Windows Vista Ultimate and I experienced the problem as soon as I started it, before installing any other software. I updated the graphic drivers, replacing version 7. The interval between freezes can vary from one minute to more than an hour, with no apparent pattern, except that it looks like it occurs more often early in the sessions but maybe it's just by chance.

The only consistent thing is that the duration of the freezes is always 30 seconds. I really hope Dell will do something about this, because it is quite unbearable. Wednesday, March 21, AM. Same problem here. Yesterday I got the upgrade disks from Dell and ran the utility. No reported software conflicts, just a couple of apps that would be temporarily uninstalled.

Vista Home Premium went on fine. Can't reproduce a freeze, it seems random. If a video is playing, after the freeze its zooms. Performance is fine otherwise, but this is a serious problem.

The machine worked perfectly with XP Media Center edition. Wednesday, March 21, PM. Ive been on Dell support chat on and off for about 8 hours now. When the thing freezes, it kills the chat session and I have to start over with a new rep. Happened 7 times. Finally I borrowed a laptop and have been waaiting 9 min 52 seconds for almost an hour to get back in to report on the HDD diagnostic they asked me to run.

Sometimes my HDD light is on during the freeze, other times not. If I press NumLock, the light goes out but pressing again it wont come back on. I've spent about 12 hours total on this problem - who do I send the bill to 8.

This machine had passed the entire battery of diagnostics on the utility partition. Ok, they told me to do a clean install. That is wipe the drive and install from scratch. Did anyone have the freeze that installed from clean?

What a huge waste of time. That sounds like a typical cop-out from Dell. But, let me know if it helps and I'll do the same! I have the same problem.. Thursday, March 22, AM. I moved 4 to 5 and 1 to 4 to keep the drives in order.

Went into setup and reset the switches. This sure beats Dell's suggestion to reinstall Vista. Friday, March 23, PM. Saturday, March 24, PM. I checked, and i have errors with IAstorv, event 9, but it doesn't say what action to take, or if it is relevent. I just bought an XPS with the same issue. If you have this popup when you boot up your system then the following might fix your system. It fixed mines So far Here's the popup message at boot.

I contacted Dell and they gave me a fix. Click the Start Pearl. On the Startup tab, click Disable All. Click Apply. Click the Services tab. Put the check in Hide all Microsoft services.

Click Disable all. OK, reboot. Apply the patch. Sunday, March 25, AM. Sorry guys. But this did not fix the freezing issue. My computer randomly froze up today. Going to contact Dell again. Sunday, March 25, PM. Good luck. Monday, March 26, AM. But I am having a similar problem. It freezes a couple of times a day for maybe a minute. Not sure what to do. Monday, March 26, PM. You will find some of this in the later posts as well. Restart and see if this fixes the problem.

Hope this helps. Tuesday, March 27, AM. It still does it. So its not the RAM. Tuesday, March 27, PM. OK, I found that reference in my sys log and made the cable swap.

Have you checked the posts by Brakham in this forum? He solved his on a Nice job guys, thanks! If you haven't found a solution, check some of the posts on page 2 in this forum.

Here is a quick link. I think you find the answer you have been searching for. Check some of the later posts in the forum. Brakham wrote: When I received my brand new PC on March 9th, I started it and experienced the freeze after just a few minutes, before I installed anything and even before I connected the computer to the local network and Internet. Great news. Thanks guys. Wednesday, March 28, AM. I did the same thing to my E yesterday afternoon.

Ever since upgrading to Vista I have experienced the same 20 second freezes as described in all these posts. I waited for a few days until trying the cable switch and bios settings. Summary: no more freezes at all. If I had called Dell and tried uninstalling and re-installing to no avail I might have lost my mind.

Wednesday, March 28, PM. If you haven't checked the forum lately, please do. I think you may find your solution. Thursday, March 29, PM. That is a great question and might help me understand why my computer is having the problem even though it is not a Dell and does not have SATA DVD drives. What does this means for using the other ports? I am actually having trouble using those ports. I am trying to add some data hard drives and in come cases the drive will just disappear until I reboot.

There is something wrong with this bridge. Friday, March 30, AM. Greetings, Rasmus. Friday, March 30, PM. This is the identical problem that I am experiencing, to the T. I am going batty trying to get help.

I want to thank you for your help I followed your suggestion and I have not experienced a freeze up for 2 hrs. Awesome you save me from many more hours of frustration. Saturday, March 31, AM. Perfect, that worked. Thanks indeed. Saturday, March 31, PM. What type of system do you have? Sunday, April 1, AM. Thanks so much for all the help! It works great now! Brakham wrote: Good news, it looks like the problem is solved!!!

Sunday, April 1, PM. Monday, April 2, PM. I have reinstalled 3 times now. And still have the same problem. After reading this forum I tried moving the disk drives around. Helped for one hour. Reinstalled vista 1st time helped for 2 hrs. I am very upset and dell is no help at all.

Hope this works for ya'll. Greetings from Switzerland. Tuesday, April 3, AM. How about using the JMicron controller for the OS? Tuesday, April 3, PM. Brian, This has been a very interesting forum for me. Wednesday, April 4, AM. I hope the rest of you get your software patch for this issue soon!

Thursday, April 5, PM. Thank you very much for this. I was already blaming the McAfee installation or the nVidia drivers but nothing helped.

I was getting very desparate and it was really starting to spoil the "fun" of having a new pc until I found this thread. Found the entries in the log and tried Intel's suggestion of removing some entries from the registry, which didn't help. So I swapped the cables this morning. No freezes until now! Thanks a lot! Friday, April 6, AM. Has anyone else with a Dell E downloaded the bios without switching the SATA cables and stopped the freezing problem.

I switched the cables and the freezing stopped. I'm not sure what will happen if I download and flash the bios now. Sunday, April 8, PM. Thanks for the info Whiporwill. I also contacted Dell and they were not helpful. I'm just wondering about performance. Monday, April 9, AM. Gerbyee, it seems like the machine wakes up from sleep better, but otherwise I could see no difference in performance.

Monday, April 9, PM. Boycot QVC!! Mark F. Sunday, April 15, PM. Monday, April 16, PM. This solved my problem! Thursday, April 26, PM. The solution for my pc was the sata switching. It came with Windows XP including an upgrade to Vista.

It took a while for Vista to arrive after ordering it and it was installed. Immediately the freezing began, every day, 30 seconds to minutes. Upon notifying QVC they basically ignored me and directed me to Dell support. I emailed QVC again, again they ignored me. Researching I discovered this forum and what appeared to be a solution! But it involved opening the unit, rewiring, bios change. So I again contacted QVC and once again they ignored me.

So I tried Dell support. After 4 hours of telephone tech help from a man in south India, the machine was still freezing. And yet another email to QVC resulted in another ".. So I opened the machine and took a chance. It worked and this was the fix: Unplugged everything from the PC. Opened it. Grounded my hand to the machine. Closed the machine. Plugged everything back in. Turned on the unit and depressed the "F2" key repeatedly to enter bios.

Selected SATA 5 and turned it to "on". Clicked "save and exit". The machine booted and the freezing problem was gone. Unless you enjoy being treated poorly. They were NO help, none. And they lied to me in an email, never responding or even attempting to resolve this situation. I saved the emails so if anyone would like to see what to expect if there is a problem with a Dell PC bought from QVC, I'll be happy to forward them. If it prevents even one person from having to go through the frustration, anger, and resentment I have toward QVC, it will be a success in my mind.

My wife is a "member" and watches it but I'm working on her, and her family, and my mother, and friends, asking all of them to consider buying from local merchants or at least a company that is trustworthy.

It's starting to work too! My wife has purchased a number of things locally recently instead of QVC! I hope you will too. Anyone who reads these emails will easily see how QVC simply turned their back on me. They took my money very quickly and when a problem surfaced they walked away. Please don't let it happen to you. Buy from other merchants. Right, so this is all fine and dandy for Dell systems, but unfortunately all the above issues are useless to me. It seems like we are in the same boat.

You described exactly what is happening with my PC. Have you gotten any fix yet? Friday, April 27, PM. I have a Dell XPS , and experienced this same issue. Saturday, April 28, PM. Asus does not give any clear instruction on installing Vista? I spent last 8 hours first trying to load Vista and then getting it to run properly. Three seagate I was unable to Load Vista so I had to do these first. During Vista Installation you have to put in the Floppy Image, when it gives you drive selection option you need to load Driver from this floppy before doing a format or anything.

Secondly onces installed you will experience momentary freezes very annoying. Friday, May 4, PM. I haa similar problem with my internet connection working one minute and not working the next. I also could not connect to other PCs on the Network. Im still freezing in Vista but not as much. A co worker of mine just got a brand new Dell and he has the exact same connection issue.

I suggested he take the same steps before pulling his hair out talking to Dell. Thursday, May 10, PM. I have had the same problem with a recently purchased Dell Dimension Saturday, May 12, AM. I spent several hours with support today and it seems to be a service causing this. I booted in safe mode with some services disabled and no lock up. We start again tomorrow trying to isolate which service. Monday, May 14, PM.

Wednesday, May 16, AM. I have exactly the same system - also running Vista Ultimate and exactly the same thing happens. It is completely random and seems to happen whatever application I use - Did you find a solution?? Tuesday, May 22, PM. I am still working with microsoft on the issue. We have tried all the test they have. I can tell you many things it is not. My issue is a hard freeze, the only way out is to reboot.

I just checked back and found this response. Great info and extremely helpful. I wish I had known that all along. But I decided on a different route. The steps below will help you to have more space for the memory dump. A new window will open. Click the Advanced tab, and under Performance, click Settings; 4. In the new window click on the Advanced tab. In the Virtual Memory area, click Change; 5.

Now, uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size of all units box; 6. Check the unit that contains the so-called paging file, click the Custom size button. That done, you are able to point out the initial size and the maximum size of the virtual memory usage. It is recommended that you check, as a minimum, a space equal to the size of your RAM memory installed on your computer.

Method 5 1. In Run, type "regedit" and click OK; 3. Restart the system Method 6 1. Type in the blank field services. Locate the "SysMain" service and start it. To do this, double-click on it; 4. In this new window, check the items below. Startup Type: must be set to "Automatic". If not, change it to "Disabled". Service Status: must be "Running".

If not, click "Start". Click OK; 6. Method 7 Create a new user account and check the behavior. Copy and paste the command control userpasswords2 and press ok; 3. Click on the "Add" option; 4. Select the option "Do not connect to a Microsoft account"; 5. Choose a name and password for this profile and then proceed; 6.

After the new profile is created, go back to the "User Accounts" screen, click on your user and then on "Properties". Select the "Group Membership" tab; 7. Mark the profile as Administrator and click on Ok; 8. Log in with the new account; Once the problem is resolved, copy and paste the files from the old account to the new account: 9. In File Explorer, select "This Computer" in the left column; Among the folders presented, select the "Users" folder; Accessing the "Users" folder, select and access the folder with the name of your old account;