crash test dummy

i keep reading that w7 is uncrashable; that ppl run their PCs for a week or more w/o a reboot. well, never one to fail a challenge, i managed to crash mine 2 hrs out of the box!

funny thing, i wasn't even doing anything special. but suddenly the cursor froze up on me. ok, technically it wasn't a "crash", i guess (DLs and other things kept going fine), but no matter what i tried, that dang cursor would NOT come back to life. i finally had to reboot.

worse part of it, the TASK MANAGER barely responded! ugh. this was my PRIMARY complaint with XP -- when everything else hung, so did the task manager. w/e happened to the all-powerful task manager that 98 had? my PCs back then froze up just as often, but it was a piece of cake killing off the offending apps. nowadays it's 50/50 at best, and only after waiting 10 mins for the ^-alt-del to "react".

give me the bad news now, folks -- does w7 SUCK as bad as XP?!?!?!

:cry

 

Hmm, reads like the beginning of a potential TDR crash. You probably need to update to the latest graphics driver - from the chip maker - NOT from Windows Update. I'd also install DirectX 9.0C to fill in any compatibility gaps that might occur.

Once setup correctly, W7, in my experience, is close to unbreakable. Don't take that to mean that I can't force it to crash at will or that I haven't had BSOD's or needed to repair it so it'll actually start. It's made by Man, it can be broken by Man. XP 32-bit was good for 2-4 days uptime on average, 3-4 weeks is common before I need to reboot W7 - only to finish an install, usually.

Out of habit and the overwhelming desire to be in control of the beast that is W7, I always run TaskMan immediately after boot and allow it to run in the background, cycling Alt+Tab brings it to the foreground fast.

 

thanks, that's encouraging!

i'll wait till i know my way around better before trying to tweak anything. got my hands full just trying to FIND stuff atm.

in any case, hasn't crashed again since last night, so i'm cautiously optimistic.

 

Trust me Windows 7 will crash and frequenty too. We started deploying it at work and there is a NIC driver that will BSOD during 'heavy' browsing. My bosses laptop was BS'ing all the time, Dell eventually took it back - it would lock up hard - time freeze - everything.
There is a command verify that will crash the system as it tests drivers.

 

So, far we haven't had issues at work with are slow deployment of windows 7.

My personal computer only reboots on patch Tuesdays or any other update that requires a reboot.

 

I think I rebooted XP last month. Should I reboot it every few days?

 

fred: are you rubbing it in how STABLE your XP is????

for the record, I often went a month without a reboot as well.

(think about it!)

 

I used to hammer mine until it screamed , frequently doing things others claimed was impossible or needed better, faster hardware. Doing 'normal' tasks, XP's fine on suitable hardware. I've heard that the 64-bit version was even faster and more solid, as it was based mostly around the 2003 Server core, I'm not surprised.

 

LOL, yeps, I am rubbing it in. What are these 'patches' and 'updates' some of you speak of?

 

My two machines are up for a solid month and like theefool for patching day only if I feel like it. They just purr all month. My longest has gone 3 months.:major

 

fred: when ur pc CRASHES every 45 mins, there's no need to ever "re"-boot!!

even on patch tuesday, i'd just let 'em pile up -- i knew that soon enuf my PC wud be "down" again aniwes....

-----
back to w7...i am sorry to report that i think that inital "cursor freeze" i reported was actly my touchpad TURNING itself OFF! it has this unique "feature" -- i kno not why -- so i suspect that that is actly what i experienced in the OP. sorry for the false alarm.

that said, i have had to reboot CONSTANTLY since then in order to get netzero installed (see "modem" thread). no "crashes" per se (all by my own hand), but quite a lot nonetheless.

i will say that i am not having many problems besides netzero and juno. during my time on wifi yesterday, everything went swimmingly.