Hey guys
I recently got myself a fancy new laptop (Medion Erazer), which came with Windows 7 (I use XP on my desktop, this is my first go at 7).
Anyway, I'm having a problem where the system will freeze up. Basically, everything will start up and boot ok, and then after a few minutes of use everything will freeze up and go into "not responding" mode. I can still use the cursor fine and minimise/click other windows, but no commands or anything will go through. This will carry on for a few minutes (5-10 maybe?) before everything will revert to normal, all programs i'd clicked on while the freeze was going on will open, etc. No error messages or anything come up, it just freezes and then goes back to working again eventually.
Things seem fine after that, but I can't say I've used it for extended periods of time yet.
I've made sure all drivers are up to date and everything.
So far I'm thinking it's some kind of compatibility error or library malfunction or registry fuckup or something along those lines.
1) It was a pre built system so came with some crap (not much, mind). Either something is interfering with something else, or something i removed didn't remove properly?
2) The first thing I did when starting up for the first time was run windows update. However it was pretty late when I did this, so I did cancel the update the first run through to go to bed. Maybe something didn't cancel properly and there's a half file somewhere fucking things up?
Anyway, I'm not really settled in to the laptop yet, so do you guys think simply reformatting it and starting over would be a sensible course of action?
If not, any other ideas?
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Make sure you have everything at hand before you proceed, OS disk, drivers, applications, etc.
There are a number of reasons to keep Windows 7, it's designed to work better with modern hardware especially SSDs, and assuming you're running a 64bit version to support 4gb+ RAM then downgrading to Windows XP, even the 64bit version, is a bad plan. Also you'd lose Direct-X 11 while running a DX11 graphics chipset on a gaming laptop...
As for diagnostics, I'd suggest hitting ctrl-shift-esc, going to the processes tab and sorting by cpu usage. Then wait for the laptop to seize up and see what, if anything, is chewing up CPU time. That's usually a good indication in these situations. If nothing is chewing up CPU time then it may be a hardware issue.
Another thing to try is restarting the laptop in Windows safe mode and seeing if it's okay without all the programs and drivers loaded.
Anyway, I'll try the ctr-shift-esc thing and see if that gives me any clues. Otherwise I think i'll just nuke it from orbit and start over.
Thanks for the replies btw!