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It’s been a while since I brought up anything related to my Windows 7 freezing. Mostly that’s because I turned Aero off and it hasn’t frozen since… but also b/c I haven’t bothered to try anything else. That is until earlier this week.

At the end of January Microsoft released a optional update for Windows 7. Might as well try it, right?

Ya, fail.

I installed the update (along with a few other Win7 updates for the month. Restarted. Turned Aero back on. Then left the system idle for a while.

Came back to check it after a while and bam, froze. Did the same thing. The system “woke up” but I couldn’t get my taskbar or anything. Exact same symptoms as before.

Sadly I think I’m throwing in the proverbial towel on this one. Will just end up buying another video card at some point and giving that a try. I don’t think it’s a driver thing. I think it’s a hardware thing.

Just under a month ago, I installed Windows 7. The next day I noticed a freezing problem. Ok, so it wasn’t so much “freezing” as it was some sort of graphics issue.

Initially tried disabling Windows Defender and EFS. I really had no idea what was causing it. And the few threads I found online didn’t seem to have any more of a clue than I.

After taking a few minutes to think about it the next time it happened, I recalled the Aero Peek function and some of the other weird stuff that Aero does. Perhaps a graphics problem? So I’m running an Nvidia 8600 GTS from XFX with 256 MB of memory. Driver was 100% up to date directly from XFX for Windows 7 64 bit. Then I disabled Aero and went to the Windows classic view.

Have not had the problem since. That leads me to believe it is either a driver problem, a video card problem, or an Aero problem.

Today I downloaded an updated driver and have turned Aero back on. Now it is merely a waiting game to see if the problem has been actually fixed or still remains.

EDIT: Nope. Still not fixed. Turned Aero back off. Back to Windows Classic.

I think I was able to cure my Windows 7 freezing issues for good (OK, maybe not cure, but bypass).

How?

I disabled Aero and went back to Windows Classic. Hasn’t frozen since. In my last post I hinted at a video problem – and I suspect that may have been it. With Classic enabled, the Aero “Peek” and other little things like that are disabled with the Aero package as a whole.

And like I said, it hasn’t frozen since… going on nearly a week now. I couldn’t get by 2 or 3 days before.

Just when I thought I got all of my computer problems straightened out…

The “combo drive” (CDRW+DVDROM) in my Macbook decides to shit the bed. OK, so it’s not totally dead – but it makes some awful noises and decides to randomly spit out a disc it’s trying to read. Definitely a drive problem. Does the same thing in Windows. I wasn’t even able to play Starcraft that I installed on it. Just ejects my disc.

eBay to the rescue though. $60 later and I have a replacement drive on the way. This time figured I’d go with a “superdrive” … or what Apple calls a DVD burner. Damn things are expensive.

A new replacement drive is $100+ and some were as high as $200 depending on where you look (iFixit, I’m looking at you). With instructions from iFixit, it shouldn’t be too hard.
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Jumping back to my last post…. I may have made some progress in my freezing issues.

If you recall, my Windows 7 system would freeze up after being idle for any length of time. I could move the mouse – but do nothing with it. No key combinations would work either. The hard drive activity light would blink regularly but not actually do anything. Eventually the system would start responding again. Sometimes after a couple minutes, sometimes after 20 minutes.

I might have made some progress. Since posting that message I’ve disabled Windows Defender (because it is awful and I don’t need it anyway) and have disabled the EFS service. Since then, everything seems OK so far – but this is really a day to day problem so while it might appear to be resolved now, it may return tonight or tomorrow.

I suppose this is a follow up to my Windows 7 install and initial thoughts… I have been having a problem. I initially mentioned it here.

Situation is this: After the system has been idle for a period of time (I don’t know, 20-30 min?) and I move the mouse, I’m unable to click or do anything. The mouse moves but that’s it. CTRL+ALT+DEL doesn’t work. CTRL+SHIFT+ESC doesn’t work. I can see a consistent and repetitive blink from the hard drive activity light but it doesn’t seem to be actually doing anything. If I leave the system alone for a few minutes, it returns to normal.

At first I had just forced it off (held power button). It booted fine and everything was OK. I checked the power settings and set EVERYTHING to Never or Off. I do not use a screensaver – I have the monitor set to turn off after 30 minutes but that seems to be irrelevant since it will also do it with the monitor still on.
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