[isaak]

A friend of mine recently downloaded a copy of W7 and installed it smoothly.

The problem that has arisen is that it randomly crashes, forcing him to restart his computer. It can only maintain the desktop for around 5 minutes before crashing, but recently it lasted for about an hour before crashing again. It seems whenever programs are opened in it it crashes...

i thought it may be that his computer didn't meet the requirements
the only other thing i know would be a faulty disk or files missing from download??

thanks in advance

[Mac Daddy]

That's odd do you have a breakdown of his system components Issak?

[isaak]

I have just emailed him for them, but i believe its a pentium D with 3gb DDR ram and a 250gb harddrive..thats all i know.

Will update this post when i get word from the friend

In the meantime, thanks for the reply Mac

[Mac Daddy]

Most welcome mate I will check after work if someone already hasn't helped out

[RE III - Frankie]

This is possibly still only theorizing, but it sounds like hardware to software incompatibilities. What programs is he trying to run? I have had similar problems myself after I installed a new graphics card.

[craig5320]

Grab Hardware Monitor to get his temps CPUID

Also what PSU he's running on.

Run the event viewer > Custom Views > Administrative Events > and see what's there, disk errors software problems etc should all list out there and can give you an indication.

If you don't have the Administration menu enabled for start menu open run and type eventvwr.msc

[isaak]

He was only trying to run programs that came with W7, like Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, so I would think software and hardware compatibility would be irrelevant? His system is quite old but I'm sure it meets the requirements..

Could it be a problem with the installation? His original install would only turn on 50% of the time, and if it did manage to turn on it would freeze within 5 minutes. After a reinstall, it lasted for a few hours before freezing..

I will pass those things on Craig

*edit* Craig, if his computer only lasts for a few minutes, how do you suggest he runs these diagnostics?


Would it be best if he just takes it in for repair :S

[Mac Daddy]

What OS was he running before?

[isaak]

XP Home

[Tyrsonswood]

That system, if it's what you think it is, should be fine for win7...... not blazingly fast but easily within requirements. It could be a bad download or bad install but I'm thinking more along the lines of Win7 doesn't quite have the proper drivers for it. I've run into several similar situations with some older gear and Win7. The latest MS supplied drivers are not always the way to go. I have had issues with wireless cards, video, and sound cards where an older Vista or XP driver works fine but when MS says there is a new driver and I install it I have lockups, crashes, or very poor performance........ The standard install procedure automatically installs these latest drivers without your knowledge so it's not the fault of the owner of this system. Which driver it may be I can't say, but I'd bet it's driver related.

Before anybody tries to chop my head off for bad mouthing an OS every body thinks is great, this is all with P4 or earlier gear that I'm talking about............... Win7 is "not so great" on the old stuff. It runs, but it's flakey and I'm not impressed. Contrary to what I've read, win7 IS a hardware hog and XP runs much smoother and faster on my old gear. I've yet to experience otherwise.

There is a point during a custom install where it does give you a chance to not install these drivers automatically, actually you have to stop it from doing so, it will load generic drivers instead and will run okay..... then if it's stable you can load older drivers for video, sound, network adapter, etc. (usually the Vista drivers are safe). Then you can try the Win7 drivers one at a time, if they don't work I've seen win7 uninstall these and revert to what works. Or you can use system restore and go back to before that drivers installation if it doesn't do this itself. If they do work you may pick up a little performance.

If you can get some more system specs it may narrow the problem down a little bit.

[isaak]

Ok. Thank you for all the replies everyone. He ended up reverting to Windows XP because of the troubles.

[Mac Daddy]

OK Isaak if he wants to give it another try let us know. I have Vista Ultimate installed on a 478 socket Celeron system using a Soundblaster Live Value and it works without issue. I would imagine Win7 would be similar in compatibility.

[isaak]

Off topic and reviving thread, but I just installed windows 7 on a 50gb partition along with vista (dual booting)

loving it so far got a performance score of 5.9, my harddrive let me down! 6.8 for both graphics sections and 7.3 for cpu and ram. I'm happy!

[Mac Daddy]

Good stuff dude have fun with it I am