Vista Home Premium On Gateway Locks up intermittently

Recently I have had issues with my laptop just locking up. I'll walk away
and start doing something else, then I'll comeback and the screen looks
normal. Then I'll either try and move the mouse (via the pad) and nothing.
I've sometimes had the sidebar open and other times it locked up it wasn't
on. Either or it still locks up.

I have to do a hard reset and this is not a good thing. Certainly this
machine and others are not built or designed for this type of performance.
Please help.

Open the Event Viewer to see if there are any logged reports that might give
a hint of hardware
failure or service that might help in better diagnosing the problem?

I would also check Problem Reports and Solutions to see if there any
solutions to problems you might be encountering.
--
Andre
Blog: http://adacosta.spaces.live.com
My Vista Quickstart Guide:
http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog...3DB!9709.entry

"Ray" <> wrote in message
news:74BAA9C5-5509-4C34-9BFE-...
> Recently I have had issues with my laptop just locking up. I'll walk away
> and start doing something else, then I'll comeback and the screen looks
> normal. Then I'll either try and move the mouse (via the pad) and
> nothing.
> I've sometimes had the sidebar open and other times it locked up it wasn't
> on. Either or it still locks up.
>
> I have to do a hard reset and this is not a good thing. Certainly this
> machine and others are not built or designed for this type of performance.
> Please help.

Hi, just did a google search on this issue and it came to this forum
posting. I am having EXACTLY the same issue as the person who made the
original post. The system seems to lock up at random, and I mean at
random.

Sometimes I'm doing something, sometimes I'm doing nothing at all.
Maybe a program is running, or I'm using the internet, maybe playing
some stupid little game, and other times I'm not doing anything, I'll
just walk away for a few minutes with a web page open, or nothing on but
the desktop and come back and it's locked.

Lockup may occur within 5 minutes of starting up, could take hours to
happen, and I've even gone a as much as a day without the system locking
up.

I used vistas memory checking utility when it restarts the laptop and
checks the ram in what appears to be a semi DOS mode. That came back
clean. I used the Reliability and Performance tool in the control panel,
no reports are generated except to say there was a disruptive shutdown
(IE: the computer was shutdown improperly, meaning I had to force it
with the power button) which doesn't help me figure out what's going on.

System lock up is exactly as described in above posting, mouse cursor
and keyboard completely unresponsive, computer not functioning. I'll
also add that if any audio is playing when the system locks it will just
do a repetitive stutter of the last maybe half second of audio that was
playing at the time, though audio does not have to be playing to get a
lockup, this is just an added bonus if it happens to be on at the time.

I'm running a gateway m-series laptop.


--
FunkyBacon

FunkyBacon <> wrote:

>
>Hi, just did a google search on this issue and it came to this forum
>posting. I am having EXACTLY the same issue as the person who made the
>original post. The system seems to lock up at random, and I mean at
>random.

How old is the computer? New enough to still be covered by warranty?

Are you sure you have all the proper drivers installed? Sometimes
Windows Update will change things for you - if you're not careful -
and you'll end up with a driver problem.

Check Gateway's site for all the proper drivers for your unit.

>Sometimes I'm doing something, sometimes I'm doing nothing at all.
>Maybe a program is running, or I'm using the internet, maybe playing
>some stupid little game, and other times I'm not doing anything, I'll
>just walk away for a few minutes with a web page open, or nothing on but
>the desktop and come back and it's locked.
>
>Lockup may occur within 5 minutes of starting up, could take hours to
>happen, and I've even gone a as much as a day without the system locking
>up.
>
>I used vistas memory checking utility when it restarts the laptop and
>checks the ram in what appears to be a semi DOS mode. That came back
>clean. I used the Reliability and Performance tool in the control panel,
>no reports are generated except to say there was a disruptive shutdown
>(IE: the computer was shutdown improperly, meaning I had to force it
>with the power button) which doesn't help me figure out what's going on.
>
>System lock up is exactly as described in above posting, mouse cursor
>and keyboard completely unresponsive, computer not functioning. I'll
>also add that if any audio is playing when the system locks it will just
>do a repetitive stutter of the last maybe half second of audio that was
>playing at the time, though audio does not have to be playing to get a
>lockup, this is just an added bonus if it happens to be on at the time.
>
>I'm running a gateway m-series laptop.

Refurbished laptop, still under warranty supposedly, but support i
handled by a company called Seneca Data with bankers hours and they'r
quite hard to get on the phone... guess that's a side note for peopl
thinking about getting a refurbished model from gateway..

Anyways, went to the gateway site and had a look in the support sectio
for drivers etc. Everything is from middle of 2008, and drivers listed
such as was the case for the integrated graphics, might not even be th
latest ones. I'll try to get hold of support again tomorrow

--
FunkyBacon

good luck
I too have a gatewy, but a laptop
whenever I call them, all they want me to do is reformat

--
pacinitaly

Well here's an update. You're right Pac, the moment I finally got on th
phone with Seneca, when I explained what was going on, first thing the
wanted to do was reformat, though the tech said most likely it'
hardware and not vista. They wanted me to box up the machine and send i
back and hopefully I'd have a new one in 2 weeks maybe more

As it turns out, since it was purchased from Tiger Direct, and th
particular model has sold out, I was able to exchange it with the
instead for a better model, and I should have it before I have to retur
the old laptop. Turns out it probably wasn't a vista issue afterall

--
FunkyBacon

Right On FunkyBacon

I hope it all works out for you.

I'm in the process of cloning my laptop now. It takes about 40mins
73%don

--
pacinitaly