Vista Crashing every 4 hours.

BusinessKid · Jul 27, 2010

I'm hoping someone can guide me a little here.

I've a HP6715S laptop, all amd/ati chips, 4 gigs of ram that came installed with vista64 business. I didn't delete vista, because I thought it might come in useful some day. It did, when silly things need windows (e.g. Garmin) and when my son fell ill recently. Mostly I use linux. Linux is fine, but windows crashes every 4 hours approx. It attempts a reboot, fails, gets stuck, and needs power off - power on. Then it's fine for another 4 hours :-/. I have stuff in windows\minidump, but I don't think it's relevant, going by the dates. We can't link this to anything. He ran on psu most of the time, but had a battery installed. No Service packs are installed afaik, no virus kit, no nothing, unless my son set something up. We use firefox in windows, but haven't attempted removal of IE. Let sleeping dogs lie.

BusinessKid · Jul 29, 2010

Just for the record, I read somewhere on the site about original ATI drivers causing random crashes. Now I don't know what card he had, but it seemed as good a thing to do as not to try that out, so I updated them. We will see what happens.

ilikefree · Jul 29, 2010

You also need to get the service packs and some anti-virus software installed as soon as you can.
You could do a system file check and a malware scan with something like MalwareBytes (free version)
Malwarebytes
File check. press windows key and R,type cmd, Right click and run as administrator, Type sfc /scannow

BusinessKid · Jul 29, 2010

Do I really need the Service Packs? I'd probably let Symantec install just to get it out of my face, but hard disk space is at a premium, and wga.exe I do not want. It hurts a linux head to log on to microsoft.com at all :-). I take the point about the virus thing, though. It's just used so rarely I haven't ever set it up half right. I'd like to lose about 10 gigs and then I'd feel free to start installing stuff. I left it 35 gigs and we're up over 30 with basically just a few utilities there. I'll have to try that malware thing though, and thanks for the link.

ilp1966 · Aug 4, 2010

This may not be relevant to your problem, but I fixed a client's 'Vista' computer which kept locking up....and the cause was that it had 'Allow hybrid sleep' turned on. Setting them to 'Off' cured it.

Within Power Options
Change advanced power settings
Sleep
Allow hybrid sleep
On battery: Set to off
Plugged in: Set to off

Shadowjk · Aug 4, 2010

BusinessKid said:
I'm hoping someone can guide me a little here.

I've a HP6715S laptop, all amd/ati chips, 4 gigs of ram that came installed with vista64 business. I didn't delete vista, because I thought it might come in useful some day. It did, when silly things need windows (e.g. Garmin) and when my son fell ill recently. Mostly I use linux. Linux is fine, but windows crashes every 4 hours approx. It attempts a reboot, fails, gets stuck, and needs power off - power on. Then it's fine for another 4 hours :-/. I have stuff in windows\minidump, but I don't think it's relevant, going by the dates. We can't link this to anything. He ran on psu most of the time, but had a battery installed. No Service packs are installed afaik, no virus kit, no nothing, unless my son set something up. We use firefox in windows, but haven't attempted removal of IE. Let sleeping dogs lie.

If your Computer can last 4 Hours without crashing then it might be an Over heating Problem have you checked your Cooling system for any problems? Also is there any dust inside the Computer this could be a cause for Overheating

Hope This Helps,
Josh

BusinessKid · Aug 5, 2010

[SOLVED]Re: Vista Crashing every 4 hours.

Thanks, ShadowJK, but I don't think it was heat. It wouldn't last _another_ 4 hours if it was a heat thing. And a heat problem (e.g. blocked airways) should show in other operating systems also. Touch wood, I have it sorted with the video drivers but thanks for the suggestions.

jcgriff2 · Aug 6, 2010

Re: [SOLVED]Re: Vista Crashing every 4 hours.

BusinessKid said:
Do I really need the Service Packs? I'd probably let Symantec install just to get it out of my face, but hard disk space is at a premium, and wga.exe I do not want. It hurts a linux head to log on to microsoft.com at all :-). I take the point about the virus thing, though. It's just used so rarely I haven't ever set it up half right. I'd like to lose about 10 gigs and then I'd feel free to start installing stuff. I left it 35 gigs and we're up over 30 with basically just a few utilities there. I'll have to try that malware thing though, and thanks for the link.

Hi -

Absolutely yes - Vista Service Packs must be installed.

You are now running Vista SP0, which has mostly November 2006 Vista OS drivers. Meanwhile, you have 2010 updated device drivers written with Vista SP2 in mind. Drivers 4 years apart do not necessarily play nicely together.

First, remove NIS/ N360 --> NIS/ N360 Removal -- jcgriff2.com

Prep work for Vista Service Pack installation --> Vista SP1/ SP2 Prepwork - jcgriff2.com MVP

If HDD space is a concern, after successful installation of Vista SP2 and system stability ensured, use Vista SP1 file removal tool -

Windows Vista SP1 File Removal Tool (Vsp1cln.exe) Reclaims Disk Space

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

.

BusinessKid · Aug 6, 2010

OK, you've convinced me and thanks for the many links.I will find that laptop, boot vista and follow your instructions.

Now I know m$ were dragged through courts about this, and I'm in Europe, where they got a leaner time of it. Can I ask one final newbie question: Is it possible to remove IE without the sky falling in?

Shadowjk · Aug 6, 2010

You can but it is very Hard and may cause crashes it is Best to leave it alone, you can't uninstall it because it is part of Vista itself.

Hope This Helps,
Josh

BusinessKid · Aug 6, 2010

AAARGH! Giving up after wasting an hour.
Thank you for the well meant instructions. I got the Norton crap remover, and it did things. I got no Norton crap in my face when I rebooted, but I did notice that it used m$IE to go online - something I am generally not in favour of.

The prep work for SPs was a failure, because go.microsoft.com was offline, and couldn't be pinged. I carried on regardless. I feel sure it's gremlins. When the Internet catches _me_ logging onto microsoft.com, it knows something is seriously wrong.

The SP Update link you gave me was good, but told me to get stuffed if I wasn't updating a network full of PCs and told me to use start/windows update I somewhat gingerly switched updates on, only to find that m$IE couldn't go online, and that windows update wouldn't use firefox unless I renamed it. And, as we all know, m$IE is a large security hole with a small browser attached.

So I thought - what's the worst thing that can go wrong? Something can overwrite the C: disk - who cares? Not me. Windows can't get at the disks I have data on anyhow because it can't read ext3. CIH Virus can even overwrite the bios, but that was on windows 95. It could email a virus to everyone, except there's no email set up at all on vista. So all I have to lose is my vista install, which I have backed up. About the worst thing it can do (and periodically does) is to do a 'format /mbr' on the C drive, neutralising the bootloader. But I can get around that quickly.

My point is that I am wasting more time trying to prevent trouble than the worst disaster would cost me. Thank you for your kind and helpful advice. I am going back to do my computing where none of this matters. I hope to be able to return the favour if you ever take up linux (May I say that here?

jcgriff2 · Aug 6, 2010

Since you are running Vista SP0 already - I would reinstall Vista using Vista DVD or the recovery partition. When you reach Desktop, allow all Windows Updates in.

www.update.microsoft.com

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

.

BusinessKid · Aug 7, 2010

Thanks. Will do whenever I have to get at vista next.

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