Computer Freezing

I've had this problem for a while now. My laptop would randomly freeze for no reason, sometimes multiple times a day while other times it doesn't freeze for a week or so. I've scanned my computer with anti-virus software, malwarebytes' anti-malware, spybot, etc. and didn't find any specific virus that has infected my computer causing this. I don't feel comfortable examining HiJackThis logs and running specialized programs yet, so I'm posting here. The only things I can think of is driver issues, services conflicting with others, or some unknown internal issue. I'm not sure where to start diagnosing this problem if it is a driver issue or anything of that sort I don't get a blue screen or an error message, the computer simply stops: can't move the mouse, nothing is responsive, and I can hear the hard drive click once (sometimes) as if the hard drive is disconnecting (like when you safely remove a USB hard drive and you hear that click). I constantly have to force turn off my laptop and restart it. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks! Let me know if there are any log files I need to post please I'm running: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Intel Core2Duo P8700 2.53GHz ATI Radeon 4650

OK. So you think maybe its a driver issue.

Have you had a look in Device Manager for any alerts?
How about Event Viewer? Anything remarkable there?
Have you attempted diagnosis via CleanBoot?
Have you run any third-party diagnostics such as WhoCrashedMe
Have you run Windows Memory Diagnostic?
Have you run CHECKDISK or any third-party HD diagnostic?


Did your laptop come pre-installed with Windows 7 Ultimate?

If not, then you or someone either upgraded, or freshly installed the operating system. (please let us know which - upgrade or fresh install)
If this is the case, then your OS is retail. Correct?
Is Windows 7 Ultimate fully updated?
How about some of the frequent culprit third-party applications and processes?
— JAVA, Adobe Flash, other application software <– updates
What did you do to insure that you installed all the necessary drivers for your machine.
For instance, have you downloaded Win 7 drivers for your machine, from the machine's manufacturer website?

With laptops there are fewer options, but have you added any hardware? New HD? added new RAM? All new RAM or still some of the original plus new?

Though you indicate the freeze is "random", have you installed any application software just prior to the problem beginning?

How about HEAT?
Have your checked temperatures for CPU and GPU and Mobo?
Do you need to blow out the dust bunnies?

Above are several courses of action, any one or some of which could help reveal what is contributing to the problem.

Best Regards

Thanks for the detailed response! The post below is rather long though

Have you had a look in Device Manager for any alerts?
I checked the device manager and didn't find any device that had any alerts (including hidden devices)

How about Event Viewer? Anything remarkable there?
I'm not sure exactly what I should look for in the Event viewer, but I did find some errors or messages. The times I got these error messages match with the times (approximately) when my laptop froze yesterday:
Under the Security tab

Keyword "Audit Failure"
Category "System Integrity"

Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error.

File Name: \Device\HarddiskVolume2\Windows\SysWOW64\drivers\WMDrive.sys

Under the System tab

Source "Service Control Manager"
The WMDrive service failed to start due to the following error:
Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source.

And under administrative tab

Source "WMI"
Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

Source "atikmdag"
CPLIB :: General - Invalid Parameter

Source "Application popup"
\SystemRoot\SysWow64\Drivers\GEARAspiWDM.sys has been blocked from loading due to incompatibility with this system. Please contact your software vendor for a compatible version of the driver.

These errors above seem to be recurring with each system freezing

Have you attempted diagnosis via CleanBoot?
Have you run any third-party diagnostics such as WhoCrashedMe
I have not, but I will try them

Have you run Windows Memory Diagnostic?
Have you run CHECKDISK or any third-party HD diagnostic?
Yes I have, everything seems to be fine running CHKDSK and the windows memory diagnostic

Did your laptop come pre-installed with Windows 7 Ultimate?
If not, then you or someone either upgraded, or freshly installed the operating system. (please let us know which - upgrade or fresh install)
If this is the case, then your OS is retail. Correct?
It came installed with Windows Vista, but a free Windows 7 upgrade CD was given by the laptop manufacturer (Sony). I believe it is the retail version

Is Windows 7 Ultimate fully updated?
Yes

How about some of the frequent culprit third-party applications and processes?
— JAVA, Adobe Flash, other application software <– updates
I'm sure all the applications I use frequently are updated, but I will double check!

What did you do to insure that you installed all the necessary drivers for your machine.
For instance, have you downloaded Win 7 drivers for your machine, from the machine's manufacturer website?
I have updated all the drivers from the manufacturer's website and made sure that the drivers I have installed are the latest ones released from the manufacturer

With laptops there are fewer options, but have you added any hardware? New HD? added new RAM? All new RAM or still some of the original plus new?
I haven't installed any new hardware since I bought the laptop

Though you indicate the freeze is "random", have you installed any application software just prior to the problem beginning?
I don't recall having any application installed that started causing this problem. It started happening almost a year ago, and I stated "random" because there is no specific pattern or application I found to be causing the freeze. Sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes not for a while

How about HEAT?
Have your checked temperatures for CPU and GPU and Mobo?
I checked the temperature via Speccy and CoreTemp and I have these read:
CPU Avg: 39 degrees Celsius
MOBO Avg: 45 degrees Celsius
HD Avg: 31 degrees Celsius
(no GPU reading)

Do you need to blow out the dust bunnies?
I have opened my laptop a few times and dusted it out so I don't think dust is the problem

It came installed with Windows Vista, but a free Windows 7 upgrade CD was given by the laptop manufacturer (Sony).

This problem could be software or hardware related. Start with the easy option, Software.

1) Check too see if there are any programs you don't use or need and uninstall them.

2) Windows freezes can often be caused due to Junkware installed on per-installed OEM Vista machines. Download and run PC Decrapifier v2.2.8 to help you identify and remove Junkware.

3) Remove from Start-ups non-Microsoft items which don't need to be there, every time you boot.
Download StartupLite. by Malwarebytes to your Desktop. This program will only disable unnecessary programs from your startup list. They are easily enabled again.
Ensure the Disable box is checked.
Click Continue.
A pop up message will tell you the unnecessary startup items in your list have been disabled and ask you to restart your computer.
Re-start your computer.

See how you go with that little lot to start with.

Cheers,
Lee

I manually uninstalled all softwares that I don't use, using Decrapifier as well StartupLite didn't detect any unnecessary programs in the startup list After doing so, my computer still froze once today

Run WhoCrashedMe <– link in post above Please report the results.

WhoCrashedMe report (time stamp is +0GMT I assume? since it's not even sunday right now for me)

On Sun 12/25/2011 4:52:01 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: stream.sys (STREAM!StreamClassDeviceNotification+0x2A)
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFE60, 0x0, 0xFFFFF8800272C77A, 0x0)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\stream.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: WDM CODEC Class Device Driver 2.0
Bug check description: This indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.
Google query: stream.sys Microsoft Corporation PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA


On Tue 12/13/2011 12:35:00 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\121311-53430-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x7CC40)
Bugcheck code: 0xC5 (0x8, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF80003A0A617)
Error: DRIVER_CORRUPTED_EXPOOL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that the system attempted to access invalid memory at a process IRQL that was too high.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This might be a case of memory corruption. More often memory corruption happens because of software errors in buggy drivers, not because of faulty RAM modules.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.

These do show the crashes/errors that occurred resulting in a BSOD.
Although my computer froze a lot more times than the two documented above in the past couple weeks, will my computer still freeze as a result of the two errors above without getting a BSOD?

Hi, until Doug or Lee gets back to you here's a method you can use to try and identify if its a software or hardware error….( its likely software/operating system but its wise for us to check so that we can focus our attentions on the correct area. 1 Boot your computer from a Linux live CD|DVD….. for a predominently Windows user Linux Puppy or UBuntu are both good….follow the onscreen directions to run it in memory (without affecting your hard drive) 2 If either of them run consistently well for an extended test with no problems then its likely that your Windows set up/configuration has errors in it…..and that you hardware is OK 3 As you have been experiencing these errors for around a year its not certain that you will be able to use the Windows System Restore facility satisfactorily to restore your computer to a time before the problem started …however its always worth trying this and also trying different restore points, as this could solve the problem for you. 4 If you backed up your Registry when the computer was newly updated with Win 7 (using something like Erunt for example) then consider using the Erunt back up, to put your Registry back to a time before the problem started. 5 If you didn't back up your Registry after your Win 7 install……then maybe you made a disc image using either the native Windows tools? or an independent commercial program like Acronis, Symantec, Paragon, or one of the free disc imaging applications freely available…… if so then perhaps its time to consider reimaging back to a fast smooth running state..? Good luck with this and do post back with how yuour machine reacts to running an extended test with a Live linux disc and if this has "solved" the Blue screen issues. Happy Christmas Regards paws

Thanks for the suggestion! I am downloading and will test Ubuntu to see if it solves the freezing issue while I wait for a reply from either Doug or Lee. I will post the results after testing my laptop on ubuntu for a few days or a week And the issue I was having isn't exactly BSOD which happens very rarely and is most likely caused by my audio recording device when it does. It's more of a complete freeze, where no error message comes up but rather I am unable to do anything besides force a power shutoff holding the power button.