WiN 7 hates me more than i hate it - but i'm catching up fast.

My experience with Win 7 so far on this other PC is a sad sad story. I'm posting this here as it involves installation of WiN 7 and maybe the only answer left - a hardware issue is the culprit?

Win7 x 64 has been installed for about a week. Recently it started crashing (not BSOD more like an electrical power failure).

The crashes occur at any time and various situations.

e.g. On boot especially the welcome screen. Sometimes its even before the windows fairies appear to form the logo. Also, often during clicking on a folder, file or flash drive to open or close them. Then it works fine for an hour or two or more.

I have tried loading win 7 CD on other drives and it never gets past "completing installation". Other times it wont reboot when it self shuts down during installation.

No image will restore (Macrium & snapshot) nor will it clone. Every time the result is a blue-screen desktop accusing me of having a non-genuine copy. The copy is genuine from the PC shop who is a registered reseller and everything looks genuine. This is the second copy of Win 7 we have bought for this PC. The original Win 7 did similar nasty tricks so we thought we were swindled 7 bought another copy elsewhere.

I'm starting to think its some sort of driver issue or maybe a hardware drama. But I'm not experienced with any of this. I asked in win 7 forums but they're too busy to lend a hand. I've added a download link for some logs if they help.

Here's the logs: AaLF Logs

 

your hard drive might be corrupted. If windows installs, that means it recognizes the hardware. But if a section of the hard drive is corrupted/damaged the installation will be corrupt. It might work sometimes but sometimes will crash.

I had a similar problem on a laptop, I had too install windows 3 times before it finally took. And then it was real slow and occasionally BSOD. And the hard drive wouldnt backup with true image, it would hang about half way through everytime. Also I did have a backup image of this computer but again true image would hang when installing that is why I reinstalled windows.
I use spinrite to confirm hard drive was corrupt, but it would take weeks to fix it going bit by bit, after 3 hours it was only 2 percent done on the repair. Chkdsk can work for minor corruption but in my case it wasnt fixing it.

MY own fix was to partition the drive into 3 sections, the area I suspected was bad, I left as unallocated area, so windows doesnt see it and try to write to it. I then used true image to try and install my backup image on one of the other partitions, it worked the first time, computer booted up and was a fast as before. Hard drive still has a bad sectors in it, but has been working fine for the past 6 months.

Thats what your problem sounds to me.

 

It does not sound genuine. Does the disk say Microsoft on it? Does it have the halographic Windows logo on it? If not, it is fake and the shop is likely a rip off.

Did you run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on this older machine first - to see if fully compatible?

You said it worked for a week then you started crashing. That indeed sounds like a hardware problem and not something to blame on W7. You said, "not BSOD more like an electrical power failure". So did you check your PSU as your own suspicions suggest? I always want to ensure I have good power before troubleshooting so the first thing I would do is swap in a known good PSU.

***

 

This sounds like a hardware issue. Windows has protections against crashing in a way that just suddenly powers off -- the protection being the stop error (blue screen). So that sudden 'power off' usually suggests hardware.

My first guess would be memory.

 

The Mediafire link doesn't work, the files are removed.

If it was my PC, i 'd do:

- Run Crystal Disk Info. Check what it says about the health of your hard disk. If it's fine proceed:

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

- Go to start button, in the search field, type "cmd", without the ", right click to the cmd.exe that will appear and "run as administrator". In the command prompt, type "sfc /scannow". Without the ". This will attempt to repair Windows files.

If nothing changes:

- Run Memtest
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

If all is well in Memtest and problem persists:

- Get new drivers for all your hardware.

- Reinstall Windows, with custom install (or is it called advanced?). Anyway, you should see a screen with the partitions. If the partition you want to install to is the only on the disk, choose "delete". It will then appear as "raw". If you have Win7 Pro, there will also be a 100MB "system reserved" partition. Delete it too. It should then merge with the main partition as a bigger raw partition. Select it and let Windows install there (it will auto-format it).

If the partition isn't the only on the disk, just format it in NTFS.

- Install the updated drivers.

When doing Windows update for the first time, under critical updates, DON'T install an update, which is UNTICKED by default, that ends in "33", something like KB....33. That's a patch that re-checks for genuine Windows and has caused some users to have mistakenly flagged their installation as pirated. That's why also MS avoids to give it ticked by default. EDIT: Checked my archives: It's KB971033. Don't install that.


- If all fails, i would suspect your power supply is failing and i would also visually check the motherboard for bulged capacitors.

 

About the power supply. You can google for methods to check.

Here's an example:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/f/powersupplytest.htm

It's easier if you have a dedicated electronic PSU tester (i have one), but most probably you don't. If you can't do that, see if you can find a power supply from a friend for a while and try to connect it instead of yours.

Because, as Notok said, this sounds more like hardware failing somewhere. And the RAM and PSU could do "weird things" before dying. RAM can give freezes, PSU usually causes reboots, but i wouldn't know to tell for sure. Could be even the motherboard.

 

ot posts removed

 

It sounds like a hw issue - or several.
Possibly hard disk, but I suspect memory/mobo too.
Mrk

 

I agree it could be RAM, a card, or the motherboard itself. But a failing or "out-of-tolerance" PSU can manifest into symptoms that point to other hardware - struggling due to flaky power.

When troubleshooting electronics, you always start at the wall. It the outlet properly grounded? Is the unit plugged in? Is it turned on? Is the power good? Then you move on from there.

And since, in spite of what other may say, you cannot conclusively test a power supply with a multimeter (this can ONLY be done with a dedicated power supply analyzer or an oscilloscope with the PSU under a proper load), the best way for home users to ensure good power is by swapping in a known good PSU.

I do keep a PSU Tester in my tool bag in my truck. However these testers, like most multimeters, do NOT test for ripple and other anomalies that affect computer stability. So while not a certain test, these testers are better than nothing. I recommend a tester that has an actual voltage readout instead of simple red or green LEDs as they reveal if the PSU meets the required tolerances as specified in the ATX Form Factor PSU Design Guide (see “Table 2. DC Output Voltage Regulation” on Page 13).

Oh, and to ensure your wall outlet is good, every home should have handy a AC Outlet Tester. I recommend one with a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupt) indicator as it can be used to test bathroom and kitchen outlets too. These testers can be found for your type and voltage outlet, foreign or domestic, at most home improvement stores, or even the electrical department at Walmart.

 

I agree.I had the same thing with a HP laptop.I pulled out the bad stick and the problem was resolved.

 

Apart from the things that members suggest above, I would look at the capacitors on the motherboard. See if any are bulging, leaking or distorted. There is a lot of information about bad capacitors on youtube and other sites, just do a search.

 

This certainly used to be a big problem until 8 or 9 years ago, but motherboards stopped using electrolytic capacitors for solid (not liquid and not "solid state") caps after so many board failed due to bad caps. It certainly would not hurt to look, but I have not seen this problem on motherboards for many years.

While I certainly do not, and don't suggest anyone take Wikipedia as the Gospel, they say the last reported case of leaky caps was in 2010 and I suspect they were on a board made way before that.

 

There are still motherboards in production with electrolytic caps (cheaper models that sport solid capacitors only for CPU power), but more importantly, there are still many older motherboards around with all electrolytic capacitors.

That kind of info is what causes the various jokes about Wikipedia, like the infamous [citation needed]. The only meaning in there can be that there is no new "plague" wave of bad caps. But of course, capacitors, still blow up... Of course, certify a new "plague" would also be close to impossible, since by 2010, all mobos use solid caps at least for CPU power, which are the caps that get under the higher stress and more prone to fail.

In the meantime, the older ones, still blow up.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=314066

And the website that turned the "cap plague" into a job still goes on:

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=10

 

Hi all. Haven't read all replies yet. Here's an update:

Seems its something to do with heat. I went to PC Repair shop & he told me that the CPU is dying & maybe the MB & quoted for fix or buy new. But he gave a clue in his sales pitch. I told him " Eventually the PC is crashing BEFORE Windows would start to load." He let slip - 'heat'.

So I raced home, whipped out a 120mm fan & mounted it over the breather holes. Then I googled & discovered 'SpeedFan'. 14 hours now without a crash here & in the middle of a summer heatwave in Sydney. Wooooooooooo.

 

Glad you could solve it. The CPU is hardly ever failing, but mobo yes and heat is also something we should have thought of. You could also replace the TIM (thermal paste) of the CPU cooler with fresh one or even buy a new, better CPU cooler.