Laptop Freezing - I really need help

Hi all,

I appear to be having a serious problem with my 2 year old Sony Vaio VGN-CR31Z laptop. It is freezing up a short while after start up with no indication of the cause. I cannot move the cursor or use any of the keyboard functions, the clock also freezes. The only thing I can do is hold the power button to force a shutdown.

I thought it might be the RAM, so I changed it since I was hoping to upgrade anyway. I also gave the fans and vents a good clean. After that the laptop ran fine for many hours under taxing use - 3d modelling, rendering etc. with no problems.

However, this morning the problem has come back. I ran Notebook Hardware control so that I could monitor the cpu and HD temps, as well as running Task manger to monitor the processes, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. Here are the results:

Task Manager:

Processes: 83
CPU usage: 11%
Physical Memory: 41%

Notebook Hardware Control:

CPU Temp: 54%
HD Temp: 32%

I am running:

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Core duo T8300 2.4GHz
4GB RAM
ATI Mobility x2300
HUAWEI E169G USB broadband dongle> which flashes differently to indicate it has been disconnected when the computer freezes.

I haven’t knowingly installed or updated anything since all of this has started happening and have no idea where to go from here.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have you looked in 'Event Viewer'/Applications and Serivces Logs?? this may point you to the prob.

 

Thanks for the reply TOKE,

Ok, I have opened Events Viewer/Applications and services logs, What now?
Any information in particular that I should be looking for?
Sorry, this is all very new to me. Thanks for your time.

 

Yes.. definitely have a look at the logs files.

Check size of virtual memory.

Try booting and checking the startup files, safe mode might help if unit keeps freezing.

Tried booting without the "broadband device" attached?

Tried a last known good configuration at start up (press F8 in vista?) at startup see if the option is there.

Tried a restore point?

Try installing or updating drivers - may have a corrupt driver - back up your orignal drivers first.

Try running a diagnostic for the make of your Hard Drive it maybe failing.
Check and scan disks.

Check for any new recent automatic updates or other updates / plugins (including your web broswer) that may cause an issue. Try using search feature all files hidden etc and do it by date for the last month or so prior to the issue happening check the updates or files and see what they relate to.

Download and try CCleaner to get rid of anything neferious in your Tempoarary etc files - Dont go crazy with this try one thing at a time and use the CC backup option before running this just in case of issue.

Try the excellent guide to removing malware on this site.

One of these may fix it or narrow the search for a solution.

Good luck:wave

 

When you look at your event viewer see if there is any 'Exclamation Marks'/Crosses (X) if so it will tell you when this error occured and what prog/hardware it was, if there is error reports let us know if not then follow guidance that necro61 has given you.

 

Thanks a lot guys,

I've come across many exclamation marks in Events Viewer, I have exported them as two .txt files due to attachment size restrictions.

Would be great if one of you could have a look.

Hope to hear form you soon.

 

It appears that you have a Graphics Problem. Have you updated your Driver, if you know what series it is go here (use onscreen to choose correct one )and DL .....
http://support.amd.com/us/psearch/Pages/psearch.aspx?type=2.4.2&contentType=GPU Download Detail

if you are unsure which one you have run this link and install and you should find what series yours is...
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4387.html

Uninstall the old corrupt one then install the driver you have downloaded. Good Luck

 

.........................

 

Many thanks TOKE,

It appears as though AMD don't publish notebook drivers, you have to get them from the notebook's manufacturer website.
This is the information obtained from the system information utility:

Property Value
Display Adapter ATI Mobility Radeon X2300
Video Processor ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x718A)
Video memory size 128 MBytes
Adapter DAC Type Internal DAC(400MHz)
BIOS Date 10/03/07
Display Drivers atiumdag.dll,atiumdva.dat,atitmmxx.dll
Driver Version 7.01.01.670
Driver Date 2007-10-19 00:22:07
Inf File Name oem3.inf
Inf Section ati2mtag_M54

I tried getting Omega drivers but there aren't any for my configuration at the moment. Do you know of any equivalents?

I've found both ati and intel graphics drivers which are labelled as "orginally installed" on the sony support page:

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/downloads/preinstalled/index.aspx?l=en_GB&m=VGN-CR31Z_R

Which one do I need? Could you guide me on how to delete the current drivers?

Cheers

 

Many thanks TOKE,

It appears as though AMD don't publish notebook drivers, you have to get them from the notebook's manufacturer website.
This is the information obtained from the system information utility:

Property Value
Display Adapter ATI Mobility Radeon X2300
Video Processor ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x718A)
Video memory size 128 MBytes
Adapter DAC Type Internal DAC(400MHz)
BIOS Date 10/03/07
Display Drivers atiumdag.dll,atiumdva.dat,atitmmxx.dll
Driver Version 7.01.01.670
Driver Date 2007-10-19 00:22:07
Inf File Name oem3.inf
Inf Section ati2mtag_M54

I tried getting Omega drivers but there aren't any for my configuration at the moment. Do you know of any equivalents?

I've found both ati and intel graphics drivers which are labelled as "orginally installed" on the sony support page:

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/downloads/preinstalled/index.aspx?l=en_GB&m=VGN-CR31Z_R

Which one do I need? Could you guide me on how to delete the current drivers?

Cheers

 

Here is a link for an update now depending on its DL function you will not know wether it scans and then installs or you have to save to a folder of your choice then go to Device Manager and right click on appropriate Graphics/update driver then point it to the folder which you have just downloaded. http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/downloads/updates/index.aspx?l=en_GB

Once again you will need product code & serial number. Incidentally have you still got the driver disk that came with the vaio ???

 

Sorry for the double post,

Which download should I get from that page? The only Driver I can see is:

Optical Disc Drive - 4.4.51.500 32 bits
2.17 Mb 31/01/2008

The laptop didn't come with a disk, I remember the last time I had to format I was forced to use F10 key (I think) upon start up. That reinstalled the OS and drivers etc.

Thanks for your patience

 

The original driver for your ATI X2300 graphics chipset from Sony, scroll down the page to accept the EULA and begin the download.

There are more recent modified drivers available from the Guru of 3D site, these include Omega; if the download mentions support for laptop HD2k series, I think this includes your chipset.

 

Many thanks Gentlemen,

I deleted my current graphics driver via computer/properties/hardware etc.. and installed the "DNA ATI Vista" driver from guru of 3D. However, my laptop is still freezing.

I have attached the ACEEventlog between starting the driver replacement and now. Any idea where I should go from here?

Cheers

 

Sorry, forgot to attach.