Notebook total freeze - no log

[banic]

I recently installed vista 64-bit. Now sometimes my notebook monitor shuts down to black and pc hangs. Only solution is the power off button for a few seconds. And no log is created when this event occur.

PC temperature is OK. I should also have the latest drivers for the hardware.

I disabled "automatically restart at system error" but i still don't get the blue screen.
Could it be the monitor itself?

Any ideas?

 

[Tmagic650]

Go back to Vista 32 bit... Evidently the 64 bit video driver is not compatible with your system

 

[almcneil]

Tmagic's point is very insightful! When you migrate to the 64-bit version of Windows, you need to upgrade your device drivers and some programs as well to 64-bit.

Why did you switch to Vista 64-bit? Needed more system memory?

Best,
-- Andy

 

[banic]

I didn't upgrade from Windows XP. I did a clean install to a Vista 64-bits. Reason is because i have a AMD Turion 64-bits X2 CPU and wanted to use this feature.

Graphic driver I'm using is already 64-bit so no need to update drivers?:
ATI Catalyst™ 8.10 Display Driver for Windows Vista (64 bit) - Radeon X1250.

But the thing that really confuses me is why there's no log created...

 

[Tmagic650]

"I did a clean install to a Vista 64-bits"... What OS was on your notebook originally? XP Home? Just because your notebook has a 64-bit processor doesn't mean that Vista 64 bit will run on it, as you are finding out here...

 

[almcneil]

"I did a clean install to a Vista 64-bits"... What OS was on your notebook originally? XP Home? Just because your notebook has a 64-bit processor doesn't mean that Vista 64 bit will run on it, as you are finding out here...

Just to ad to Tmagic's comment, the real reason for 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista is really for the microprocessor, it's for the addressable memory. If you do the calculation, a 32-bit number when used as an address, can only reach 4 GB. Well, computers are powerful and complex enough that some need 4 GB or higher of address space. Hence, the need for 64-bit version of Windows (XP and Vista) Windows must be able to reach all the addresses.

Best,
-- Andy

 

[banic]

Before installing Vista Ultimate I checked if its compatible with the system. Originally it was Windows XP Professional. Vista Ultimate 64 Bits wasn't in the compatibility list but these was:

Genuine Windows Vista® Business
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic
Genuine Windows Vista® Business with downgrade to Windows® XP Professional custom installed.

This list doesn't say anything about 64-bits OS. But I installed anyway. Could it really be that...

 

[almcneil]

If you want my personal opinion, I'd stick with XP Professional. Much smaller and easier to manager. Vista in my experience is a real processing hog. I don't have a problem with Vista's features, it's jsut that it takes up so much memory and processing that it's almost prohibitive to use on older computers.

Best,
-- Andy

 

[banic]

Just to ad to Tmagic's comment, the real reason for 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista is really for the microprocessor, it's for the addressable memory. If you do the calculation, a 32-bit number when used as an address, can only reach 4 GB. Well, computers are powerful and complex enough that some need 4 GB or higher of address space. Hence, the need for 64-bit version of Windows (XP and Vista) Windows must be able to reach all the addresses.

Best,
-- Andy

Thanks for your reply...

However about the 64-bits CPU. Beside the memory limitation you should get a more stable system with this. If programs are coded in 64bits the CPU will operate these in that mode. And if you have a 64-bits operatingsystem that should increase performance also. Of course the increase would be even higher if I had more memory but that will eventually come.

About my problem...
I think I need to check more driver updates for the hardware components, just to make sure they all support 64bits Windows Vista.

 

[Tmagic650]

Yes, Andy is correct... I built my current system to handle the Vista 32-bit OS. I never considered using Vista 64-bit because of driver availability/compatibility.The motherboard, and CPU are the most critical hardware and the increased memory need to at minimum 2GB memory for Vista, is what needs to be addressed when choosing Vista (any version)

"This list doesn't say anything about 64-bits OS. But I installed anyway. Could it really be that"...

Yes it could be that! You don't have to ditch Vista, just revert to Vista Ultimate 32-bit. I bet your monitor and instability problems disappear

 

[banic]

Problem solved.

Just downgraded video driver and its working wonderfully...at least for 4 days now.

Thanks everyone.

 

[kimsland]

Thanks for the update :grinthumb

Just a For Your Information

64 Bit is much better than 32 Bit, and is highly recommended on Vista OS
32Bit being slowly (but surely) phased out

 

[banic]

I had Vista 32-bit since release and never had problem with it. But now with 64-bit it's even better, expect the earlier crashes due to compatibility driver.

The thing with Vista is to disable all those features and services that take a lot of resource, I don't really know why Microsoft even created some of these. This and having a "clean" system makes Vista superior to all earlier Windows releases. That's my personal opinion and reason why I didn't want to go back to XP.

 

[kimsland]

Well said :grinthumb
Not only that, but Xp cannot utilize DirectX above version 9 (this being one of the biggest factors for Windows gamers)

 

[sjd1968]

Having same problem with 6715b and 64bit Vista

Problem solved.

Just downgraded video driver and its working wonderfully...at least for 4 days now.

Thanks everyone.

I am having the exact same problem. When you say downgraded video driver, what did you downgrade it to, and how do i go about doing this? Thanks for your help.

 

[kimsland]

The original user was using an ATI Radeon Video card
The ATI WebSite (and mostly all Video card driver sites) also carry (allow downloads from their server) older releases of Video drivers

Firstly locate your Video card driver support site
Then locate the older drivers page
Download one (or more) of them

Then go to your Control Panel -> Programs and uninstall your currently installed Video driver
Then install one of the older drivers, previously downloaded

This sounds a little complicated when doing this for the first time
But I'm sure after trying a few older driver packages, you'll get the hang of it

 

[sjd1968]

Thanks for your help.

Rather than rolling it back I seem to have managed to roll it forward to a more recent driver, which I found on the HP website.

I'll let it run on this for a while and see if it solves the problem of crashing.

 

[banic]

Thanks for your help.

Rather than rolling it back I seem to have managed to roll it forward to a more recent driver, which I found on the HP website.

I'll let it run on this for a while and see if it solves the problem of crashing.

When i first had that problem there were no driver updates at hp/ati webpage for vista 64. That was the reason for the downgrade. I think they released some upgrades in january 09, so i did same as you, downloaded and installed the new drivers. Your system will probably just like mine, run without crashes now.

 

[sjd1968]

I certainly hope so. I'm going to keep an eye on it for a few more days before I feel completely confident that the change has worked, but so far so good.

Thanks for everyone's help.