Laptop screen randomly freezing

[Valennia]

Lately my laptop has been randomly freezing. The monitor is still running but the cursor won't move. The touchpad and mouse don't work even though mouse lights are still turned on. Also my keyboard lights are still on but ctrl alt del or any other keys won't work. The fans are still working and the harddisk lights are still on. Just the screen frozen and unresponsive. I wait a few minutes but it won't resolve on its own (also the system time won't change) and I have to hold down the power button to do a hard reset and its back to normal. It does this randomly, sometimes when I close a program, or sometimes when I alt tab between programs or sometimes just when I'm browsing the web. It will happen at least 2-3 times a day. I formatted it about a month ago. I use Kaspersky so I doubt its a virus. Also I clean regularly with Ccleaner. Fan temperatures show about 50 degrees, and about 70 degrees when I'm gaming, but I don't think its overheating. I ran Memtest64 and Orthos, and I had no problems with my RAM. My drivers are all up to date. Here are my specs:

Asus N56VJ Laptop
Windows 8.1
64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz, 2401 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
RAM: 6 GB (5.89 usable)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M


Anyone have any ideas?

 

[darkbreeze]

Did you have the problem before the new install?

 

[Valennia]

No I didn't

 

[darkbreeze]

I'd reinstall. Save any important documents, music, videos, etc., and do a clean install. If the problem wasn't present before the install, and is now, is likely to be related. It could be that the MBR or GPT, whichever style boot record partition you are using, didn't get deleted when you did the install, and now the system is getting confused between the old boot partition and the new boot partition, OR, a new partition did not get created and the old one is being used.

Did you upgrade the OS from an older version when you installed? I'd do a clean install using the custom option and make sure to delete all existing partitions on the drive and then create a new partition using all the unallocated space, then install to that partition. (Unless you have other partitions on the drive you need to keep)


Windows 8.1 clean install:

http/www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2299-clean-install-windows-8-a.html

 

[Valennia]

I reinstall. Save any important documents, music, videos, etc., and do a clean install. If the problem wasn't present before the install, and is now, is likely to be related. It could be that the MBR or GPT, whichever style boot record partition you are using, didn't get deleted when you did the install, and now the system is getting confused between the old boot partition and the new boot partition, OR, a new partition did not get created and the old one is being used.

Did you upgrade the OS from an older version when you installed? I'd do a clean install using the custom option and make sure to delete all existing partitions on the drive and then create a new partition using all the unallocated space, then install to that partition. (Unless you have other partitions on the drive you need to keep)


Windows 8.1 clean install:

http/www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2299-clean-install-windows-8-a.html

I did a clean format this time. Turns out I had several partitions that I'm supposing Windows created for each time I did a refresh/reset. So I deleted all of the partitions and just made a C and D drive. Also, my old Windows was a pre-installed Windows 8 that I had to upgrade to 8.1 each time I reset, but this time I installed a fresh Windows 8.1 OS.
It was fine ever since my clean format but it froze again yesterday and today...So I'm guessing it's not my OS.

 

[darkbreeze]

Run Seatools for windows on the hard drive. Run the Short DST and the Long Generic tests. This should indicate if there are any issues with the drive that are apparent.

http/www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/

 

[Valennia]

Run Seatools for windows on the hard drive. Run the Short DST and the Long Generic tests. This should indicate if there are any issues with the drive that are apparent.

http/www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/

Passed both tests.
Here's another strange detail. Yesterday I was playing League of Legends and after the victory/defeat screen I press continue and it froze. I had to restart each time and it did this after all 4 games. (It happens randomly at other times too but I found this kind of strange.)

 

[darkbreeze]

Run both SFC/Scannow and Memtest86.

SFC/Scannow: http/www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3047-sfc-scannow-command-run-windows-8-a.html

Memtest86: http/www.memtest86.com/download.htm

Run Memtest for 7 passes. This will take considerable time so you might want to do it overnight. If you have multiple memory modules, test them individually or else you'll have no idea WHICH module is faulty, if any. Alternatively, if you DO have two memory modules installed, you might want to just remove one of them and run the laptop to see if the problems resolve themselves. If so, you pretty much know it's a bad memory module.

It could even be a compatibility problem between memory modules if they are different speeds, timings or voltages. Run CPU-Z and take screenshots of the memory and SPD tabs. You'll need to select each module in the little drop down box menu to show the information for each one. You can post the screenshots here using tinypic or a similar image hosting site.

http/www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2173703/post-images-tomshardware-guide.html

 

[Valennia]

Run both SFC/Scannow and Memtest86.

SFC/Scannow: http/www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3047-sfc-scannow-command-run-windows-8-a.html

Memtest86: http/www.memtest86.com/download.htm

Run Memtest for 7 passes. This will take considerable time so you might want to do it overnight. If you have multiple memory modules, test them individually or else you'll have no idea WHICH module is faulty, if any. Alternatively, if you DO have two memory modules installed, you might want to just remove one of them and run the laptop to see if the problems resolve themselves. If so, you pretty much know it's a bad memory module.

It could even be a compatibility problem between memory modules if they are different speeds, timings or voltages. Run CPU-Z and take screenshots of the memory and SPD tabs. You'll need to select each module in the little drop down box menu to show the information for each one. You can post the screenshots here using tinypic or a similar image hosting site.

http/www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2173703/post-images-tomshardware-guide.html

Ok I know it's been a while....and I finally found out my problem. It's not hardware related because my hardware passed every test...(no RAM issue, no overheating, etc.) Reformatted like 5 times...still freezing.
Turns out that ever since I upgraded to Windows 8.1 I've been getting %100 disk usage and it's because of Windows Defender...I disabled that and no freezes so far. I'm going to format to Windows 7 now...Windows 8 is just a complete failure in my book.

 

[stanley0426]

I reinstall. Save any important documents, music, videos, etc., and do a clean install. If the problem wasn't present before the install, and is now, is likely to be related. It could be that the MBR or GPT, whichever style boot record partition you are using, didn't get deleted when you did the install, and now the system is getting confused between the old boot partition and the new boot partition, OR, a new partition did not get created and the old one is being used.

Did you upgrade the OS from an older version when you installed? I'd do a clean install using the custom option and make sure to delete all existing partitions on the drive and then create a new partition using all the unallocated space, then install to that partition. (Unless you have other partitions on the drive you need to keep)


Windows 8.1 clean install:

http/www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2299-clean-install-windows-8-a.html

I did a clean format this time. Turns out I had several partitions that I'm supposing Windows created for each time I did a refresh/reset. So I deleted all of the partitions and just made a C and D drive. Also, my old Windows was a pre-installed Windows 8 that I had to upgrade to 8.1 each time I reset, but this time I installed a fresh Windows 8.1 OS.
It was fine ever since my clean format but it froze again yesterday and today...So I'm guessing it's not my OS.

Run both SFC/Scannow and Memtest86.

SFC/Scannow: http/www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3047-sfc-scannow-command-run-windows-8-a.html

Memtest86: http/www.memtest86.com/download.htm

Run Memtest for 7 passes. This will take considerable time so you might want to do it overnight. If you have multiple memory modules, test them individually or else you'll have no idea WHICH module is faulty, if any. Alternatively, if you DO have two memory modules installed, you might want to just remove one of them and run the laptop to see if the problems resolve themselves. If so, you pretty much know it's a bad memory module.

It could even be a compatibility problem between memory modules if they are different speeds, timings or voltages. Run CPU-Z and take screenshots of the memory and SPD tabs. You'll need to select each module in the little drop down box menu to show the information for each one. You can post the screenshots here using tinypic or a similar image hosting site.

http/www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2173703/post-images-tomshardware-guide.html

Ok I know it's been a while....and I finally found out my problem. It's not hardware related because my hardware passed every test...(no RAM issue, no overheating, etc.) Reformatted like 5 times...still freezing.
Turns out that ever since I upgraded to Windows 8.1 I've been getting %100 disk usage and it's because of Windows Defender...I disabled that and no freezes so far. I'm going to format to Windows 7 now...Windows 8 is just a complete failure in my book.

turns out it's dead meat defender, so sad I can't find my root cause yet.

 

[darkbreeze]

Ok, so now that it's three years later, are you saying you did, or did not solve the issue? First you say it was Windows defender, but now you say it's not the problem.

Did you ever even run the diagnostic procedures I had outlined? At this point the whole system probably ought to just be wiped and have Windows 10 installed. I can tell you that on hundreds and hundreds of systems I've helped solve issues on, not to mention maybe 60 or so systems I've worked on personally since you first posted this thread, I've never once seen any system with any of the symptoms you're describing due to Windows defender.

I can see there being SOME minor amount of slowdown at times if WD is performing a scan, but you'd have to have seriously old hardware or a hardware issue for it to cause the system to freeze unless something else was wrong.

 

[stanley0426]

Ok, so now that it's three years later, are you saying you did, or did not solve the issue? First you say it was Windows defender, but now you say it's not the problem.

Did you ever even run the diagnostic procedures I had outlined? At this point the whole system probably ought to just be wiped and have Windows 10 installed. I can tell you that on hundreds and hundreds of systems I've helped solve issues on, not to mention maybe 60 or so systems I've worked on personally since you first posted this thread, I've never once seen any system with any of the symptoms you're describing due to Windows defender.

I can see there being SOME minor amount of slowdown at times if WD is performing a scan, but you'd have to have seriously old hardware or a hardware issue for it to cause the system to freeze unless something else was wrong.

sorry for the defender, I just making a conclusion of Valennia.
I found my root case that my SSD had failed again.
Before it comes to fail, it will make your OS freezing.
My OS is win 7 pro.
After all, I just search for this article and think it could be worth for referring.
So, not every similar symptom has the same root case.
When you using SSD and your OS begin to freeze. You have better to backup your data!

 

[darkbreeze]

True. Well, glad you figured it out, finally. Thanks for sharing. Good luck.