Got home last night. Opened up my laptop. Used it like normal (more or less) and after about 10 minutes, it froze. The mouse worked for about another minute, but beyond moving the pointer around on the screen, I couldn’t do anything else. I unplugged the laptop and pulled the battery. This went on all night. It worked just fine before I left for work in the morning, when I got home, it started doing this, so I know nothing changed WRT to the computer while I was gone. I’m confident it’s not a heat issue as it runs just fine for hours in safe mode. I downloaded and ran Malwarebytes and it came back clean. I couldn’t make it through Adaware, so I ran that in safe mode. It was running while I left the house this morning, but I doubt it was going to find anything.
The only thing that changed was that I upgraded my router. The only router was Wireless b, the new one is b/g/n. On top of that, and I haven’t had a chance to test it out yet, but I think and I’ll test it out when I get home tonight, that if I run it in regular mode with the wireless card turned off, it might be okay. But if that’s not it, I’m at a loss.
Any thoughts?
I should mention that it seems to be okay in safe mode with networking. I’m wondering if it’s running on g or n in regular mode but in safe mode it’s going back to wireless-b. Since I just got this router yesterday, and it started happening right after the first time it connected, I assume it’s part of the problem. It just seems odd. But since this computer has never connected in g or n, maybe that’s part of the problem.
I can’t think of a logical reason that the router would be causing it.
It seems very foolproof, upgraded router, problem with PC, must be because of router… but in reality, it could be a coincidence. Don’t set yourself on the router solution, it’s possible, but it’s very unlikely – especially if your computer works fine in safe mode.
You could have an unrelated issue that just happened to rear itself at the same time. I assume you’re running windows? Have you tried running disk utility and repairing your system files? A corrupt system file caused a similar issue on an old Toshiba laptop I had.
I’m not locked on it being a router problem, it’s just that it’s literally the only thing that’s changed between when the computer was working and when it wasn’t working.
It’s really odd.
When I get home, I’m going to let it run in regular mode for a while with the wireless card turned off. If it doesn’t freeze, then I’ll assume it is network related and start looking into that.
While I agree that the router is likely not the issue, it is odd that the problem cropped up after connecting to the new router.
It may be possible that there may be a hardware problem with the wi-fi card in your laptop where connecting at G or N levels causes problems, but connecting at B levels does not. To test this, set the router to connect only using 802.11b, and see if the issue continues.
That’s the next thing I need to do. I looked at the router for just a few second this morning and didn’t see a way to do it. When I get home from work, I’ll look more closely.
What sort of video does the laptop have? Discrete card, or something built into the chipset?
I’m wondering if the GPU is overheating in regular performance mode. In safe mode, it’s running at a lower resolution. If it’s integrated graphics, then possibly one of your memory modules is failing. If a discrete GPU card, then it could be memory on the card that’s failing.
How would I find that on a laptop? Under display adapters it lists Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family (twice).
Also, it seems to run fine in safe mode connected via wireless-n, so I think I can rule out the router as part of the problem…I think. Later on, I’ll try running it in regular mode, connected via wireless-b and see what happens.
Another thing. There’s 2 ram chips in the computer. It’s showing 4 gigs and since I doubt the computer came with more then 4 gigs installed, I’m going to assume they’re both working fine.
Okay, so stopped home at lunch time, booted into safe mode with networking and left it on until I got home from work. All was fine. After about 10 minutes of using it, it froze (in safe mode). It froze a bit differently then it usually does, but the end result was the same. Right now, I have it in regular mode, with the wireless adapter turned off. We’ll see if it freezes that way.
I’m also changing my router to 54Mbps, which, if I understand it correctly, will only allow my computer to connect in b or g. I’m sure it’ll chose g, but I don’t see anywhere to force a b connection. After a little while, I’ll turn on the wireless adapter and see what happens, unless it freezes before that.
An old laptop of mine did the very same thing for a couple days, before it refused to start altogether. In my case it was a complete hard disk failure. Are you getting blue screens?
Not a router issue. Router problem might freeze net response but it would not lock up the entire pc. Sounds like a MB, thermal regulation, or hard drive issue. Check notebook air vents to make sure dust is not clogging them. If you have impt data back it up ASAP.
After my last post I changed the router to b/g mode (also changed the SSID to something without exclamation points. Can’t see that being an issue, but might as well) and after a little bit of stumbling I hopped back on line. I’ll chalk that up to being in and out of safe mode all day. Just took a reboot or two. Downloaded and ran Spybot which came back clean. Everything’s been fine for the last 5 hours.
Tomorrow night, if I’m bored, I’ll put the router back into N and see what happens. If it locks up, then I’ll assume there’s a problem with the wireless adapter and I’ll see if I can update the driver. In the mean time, I really don’t transfer anything between the computer and any other device in the house so the difference between g and n is pretty irrelevant.
Anyways. All seems to be good and router is doing what I needed it to do. I’ve been streaming Netflix to my new TiVo. For some stupid reason whoever programmed the Netflix App for Tivo did a sloppy job. If the Tivo loses it’s internet connection while in the Netflix app, instead of just dumping the app, the TiVo reboots. It takes about 5 minutes to come back online and it takes my internet connection about 90 seconds to come back to life. What’s really odd is that my internet connection, in the last 6 years has been down maybe 10 times, including little hiccups. Since I’ve started using Netflix instant, it’s suddenly starting going down two or three times a night (while streaming), which makes me assume that either Netflix/TiVo is killing the connection or it’s overwhelming the router (I never tried bypassing the router).
Anyways, I upgraded to a new router that was A)new and B)had QoS controls so I could give the TiVo that streams Netflix the highest priority. So far so good. I’m sure I’ll still have problems, but so far they’ve been cut back considerably since I’ve watched about 7 or 8 episodes of a TV show with no reboots. With the Linksys that would have meant at least 4 or 5 reboots.
I’d revisit the overheating theory. Only takes a little while to check. use Speedfan or any other such app to see what your fans are doing, and what temp your CPU and GPU are.
I’ve had some really weird battery, shutdown problems with mine in the past. One of the solutions was that (at the time) ASUS wasn’t compatible with Lojack for computers, uninstalled the lojack (can’t figure out WHY it came as a d/l option on the new computer if it didn’t actually work with it), and it was fine after that. One of the other issues was with the energy saver settings. It’s been a few years (and was my former ASUS not my current one).