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Really Frustrating Laptop(s) Issue(s)

MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered User regular
This is causing me major stress, so would really appreciate some help.

I have a Toshiba laptop running Windows 8 and a Lenovo Y410p running Windows 8.1. I have MSE running on both, and have run Malware Bytes on the Toshiba.

Pretty much since day one - still on Windows 7 - the Toshiba has suffered from random lockups. No error message, just not responding to commands, though the mouse will usually work. If I'm playing a game or music, the sound will get stuck in a loop. Requires a full Power-down and restart to get back into the desktop. This has been going on for years.

This month I bought the Lenovo. It shortly begin experiencing the same issues as the Toshiba. I exchanged it, and now the new one is doing the same thing. I have no personal files on the Lenovo, just the basic OEM install with Steam and some games. It seems to recover from the lock sometimes but not always; locked up while downloading Ninja, with no error message.

My crazy theory is something is getting in through my AT&T network and turing these into zombies. I changed my modem password, admin password and added MAC filtering last night.

I'm just so frustrated with a new laptop behaving like this - let alone the Toshiba - so any guidance would be great. I'm fairly experienced with Windows, hardware, etc.

Posts

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Two things you should do:

    Check the error logs using the event viewer which is available in the control panel. Likely there's going to be errors of some sort in all the categories that can all be ignored; look for errors that correlate to the time that these lockups happen.

    Make sure the laptop isn't overheating. Use a program like speedfan to monitor the laptop's temps. Do they get high right before this happens?

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited January 2014
    What should the temps be? Something in the high 90s, right? Speccy is showing average of 104F for the CPU (Intel i7, 4 cores). SSD is 112, and HDD is 83.

    Anything in particular I should look for in the error logs? I never really had gotten into these, so not sure what just sounds bad and what really is.

    For example:
    Log Name: System
    Source: Ntfs
    Date: 1/24/2014 6:11:12 PM
    Event ID: 55
    Task Category: None
    Level: Error
    Keywords:
    User: SYSTEM
    Computer: Lenovo
    Description:
    A corruption was discovered in the file system structure on volume C:.

    The exact nature of the corruption is unknown. The file system structures need to be scanned online.

    Event Xml:
    <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"&gt;
    <System>
    <Provider Name="Ntfs" Guid="{DD70BC80-EF44-421B-8AC3-CD31DA613A4E}" />
    <EventID>55</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-01-25T00:11:12.742687600Z" />
    <EventRecordID>3739</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="476" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>Lenovo</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
    </System>
    <EventData>
    <Data Name="DriveName">C:</Data>
    <Data Name="DeviceName">\Device\HarddiskVolume6</Data>
    <Data Name="CorruptionState">0x1c</Data>
    <Data Name="HeaderFlags">0x802</Data>
    <Data Name="Severity">Critical</Data>
    <Data Name="Origin">File System Driver</Data>
    <Data Name="Verb">Force Proactive Scan</Data>
    <Data Name="Description">The exact nature of the corruption is unknown. The file system structures need to be scanned online.
    </Data>
    <Data Name="Signature">0xe2b3f0fb</Data>
    <Data Name="Outcome">Pseudo Verb</Data>
    <Data Name="SampleLength">0</Data>
    <Data Name="SampleData">
    </Data>
    <Data Name="SourceFile">0x42</Data>
    <Data Name="SourceLine">1436</Data>
    <Data Name="SourceTag">345</Data>
    <Data Name="CallStack">Ntfs+0x178e59, Ntfs+0xb9ce1, Ntfs+0x178d6b, ntoskrnl+0xa11b9, ntoskrnl+0x8d2e4, ntoskrnl+0x1542c6</Data>
    </EventData>
    </Event>

    MichaelLC on
  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    edited January 2014
    Hard drive corruption could certainly be it. Run chkdsk and see if it can repair anything.

    I've also seen instances of this error ID caused by AV software.

    Bigity on
  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    Doing a search also results in some reports that certain power settings were causing these errors for people.

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Those temps are all fine as long as they're in fahrenheit and not celcius.

    In the logs you should be looking for things that happen in time with the lockups.

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited January 2014
    Ran chkdsk through the HDD properties window, didn't register anything. Played Dishonered for several hours last night, no issues. Yes, temps are Fahrenheit.

    Noticed there is an unnamed program listed when I'm shutting down; just says this program is still waiting to close, but there's just an icon shown no name. This happens a lot with the Toshiba. Just so strange since I'm not doiungvcanything intensive or out of the ordinary.

    MichaelLC on
  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Try running an offline chkdsk just to be sure, I think the command is something like chkdsk /r /f
    It should make you restart your computer, because it can't do it properly while the disk is in use. I would also say that investigating your power management stuff is worthwhile. I'd also uninstall any of the toshiba software you don't actually use.

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Did th console and ran chkdsk, didn't seem to have any errors , but the Event Viewer has 310 "bad block" errors - after a week of use. So guessing bad drive?

    Is that normal to have two bad drives on different machines?

    Thanks for the help, so upset having to deal with this. All I want to do is shoot the mans!

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Who manufactured your hard drives?

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited January 2014
    Looks like a WD Blue. Er, guess that'd be a Seagate?
    ST1000LM024 BP 9.5mm 5.4K 1T HDD

    Also has a Toshiba SSD for caching:
    Toshiba THNSNY024GMNS NGFF 24G SSD

    MichaelLC on
  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    edited January 2014
    Oh, also, what drive is reporting the bad block errors. The name of the drive may not be the name you're used to seeing, if that's the case, it's probably using the names listed in the disk manager software which you can access in the same administrative tools system as the event viewer.

    Do you get the same lockups in safe mode?

    Edit: Keep in mind that the drive that's throwing the errors doesn't have to be an actual hard drive or ssd, but could be an external drive, a usb thumb drive, an sd card, or pretty much anything that you can read data off of (even an optical drive, although this is very unlikely).

    Also, you can enter safe mode by pressing f8 while the computer is booting into windows. Safe mode with networking will let you access the internet and should be fine for these purposes.

    LD50 on
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited January 2014
    Lools like it's 'Disk 0,' which seems to be the primary 1TB drive.
    Log Name: System
    Source: disk
    Date: 1/27/2014 12:32:46 PM
    Event ID: 7
    Task Category: None
    Level: Error
    Keywords: Classic
    User: N/A
    Computer: Lenovo
    Description:
    The device, \Device\Harddisk0\DR0, has a bad block.
    Event Xml:
    <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"&gt;
    <System>
    <Provider Name="disk" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49156">7</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-01-27T18:32:46.174773300Z" />
    <EventRecordID>6237</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>Lenovo</Computer>
    <Security />
    </System>
    <EventData>
    <Data>\Device\Harddisk0\DR0</Data>
    <Binary>030080000100000000000000070004C0000100009C0000C000000000000000000000100000000000BD53000000000000FFFFFFFF000000005800008402040000FC200AFF42072000000000003C00000000100C0100E0FFFF3053E00100E0FFFF00000000000000001010720900E0FFFF0000000000000000000800000000000028000000080000001000000000000000F00003000008000000000000110000800000000000000000</Binary>
    </EventData>
    </Event>

    Did not appear to get errors in Safe Mode. Will run a longer test.

    Only have the 1TB and the 24GB SSD, plus the optical drive but no disc in there.

    edit: Here's a snapshot of my Event Log.
    https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Elt2aED8ifk/UuasYbYu6-I/AAAAAAAACwo/YW0-DkUI1Lc/s800/Capture.PNG

    MichaelLC on
  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Ok, so you have a software issue. It is most likely your antivirus software, but it could be something else too.

    Bad block errors don't actually happen anymore, because the drive's own controller handles detecting and 'fixing' them transparently and doesn't even tell the OS unless it asks. The fact that they stop happening in safe mode is another indicator that it's not actually a hardware issue.

    What antivirus/antimalware do you use? Try disabling all that kind of stuff, and then use the computer for awhile in unsafe mode and see if you still get the errors.

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    @LD50, thanks for your help so far!

    Running CCleaner. Apparently 'disk 0' is the SSD, not the Toshiba. That's actually better, I guess? Maybe I'll see if I can just turn it off/disable it.

    I'm using Windows Defender, but laptop came with McAfee, which is why I'm running CCleaner.

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Like I said though, the drives are fine. The bad block errors are a result of software interfering with Windows' normal operation. It may not be your antivirus software, but something else that's causing the problem.

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Safe mode ran for hours without issue.

    Did a selective boot and rebooted only with system services. After a loooong load it came up fine and was able to play some game.

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    At this point, I'd go through enabling services one at a time and using the laptop for a day or so until you start getting errors again. That should tell you what specifically is causing the problem. It's probably something that is on both laptops (assuming the other laptop is suffering from the exact same problem).

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Tried the selective boot again and just sat on Rebooting.., for an hour.

    Sending it back to try number three. What the hell am I doing to it? Should I leave the OEM crap on the new one for awhile? Thought I did with the first and still had problems.

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Get rid of all the OEM crap, and avoid using the software you normally use as something that you normally install is likely the culprit.

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