Brand new HP has frozen up 3 times. Ideas?

NateHodge · 12-07-2008, 15:53

I bought an HP laptop a week ago. The only thing I have put on here are Full Tilt Poker and Limewire the day I got it. And tuesday, I put Itunes on here. Tuesday night, while playing poker, it froze up. Even Ctrl-Alt-Del didn't get me a response. It did the same thing wednesday, and again just a few minutes ago.

At first, I was thinking it was Itunes since it ran like a sewing machine until the day I installed Itunes. But thinking back, all three times it locked up, I was playing poker. Any ideas? Has anyone heard of any issues with the programs I have installed?

FYI: I am running Vista 64-Bit and I use Norton.

betyourlife · 12-07-2008, 15:57

Return it?

stolivar · 12-07-2008, 16:18

IT is one of the biggest problems on letting in spyware, virus's and trojans.

steve

IndyGunFreak · 12-07-2008, 16:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by stolivar

IT is one of the biggest problems on letting in spyware, virus's and trojans.

steve

I'd have to agree, but it doesn't appear Limewire is the culprit.

Use the Laptiop for anything but Full Tilt for a while, and see if all goes well. Maybe a couple hours. After said couple of hours, if nothing happens, fire up Full Tilt, and see how it goes. If it Freezes up w/ Full Tilt running, thats a pretty good indication.

Beyond that, does it appear the Fans are running, Good ventilation, etc?

IGF

NateHodge · 12-07-2008, 16:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by betyourlife

Return it?

I'm guessint that would be a no-go. I'd be willing to bet they would claim "software issues causes by third party vendors".

Quote:

Originally Posted by stolivar

IT is one of the biggest problems on letting in spyware, virus's and trojans.

steve

I agree 100% that people with no knowledge of what to look for should stay the hell away from limewire. It is a big outlet for Trojans and trackers, but like I said, alot of people don't know what to look for or how to safely use it. And, people that don't know what they are doing use it blindly with no protection. So far, I have had 2 other computers and have run limewire on both without a hitch. My step dad has also had 2 laptops that he run limewire on with no issues. But I don't allow anyone to download anything onto my machines. On this HP in particular, I haven't even downloaded anything.

***volsbear*** · 12-07-2008, 16:46

How much memory?

NateHodge · 12-07-2008, 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by volsbear

How much memory?

According to manufacturers specs, 320GB hard Drive, 4gigs of ram. Looking at the C drive, 248GB free of 288 total.

***volsbear*** · 12-07-2008, 16:53

I don't hear about too many laptops running well with Vista. Remember, the operating system alone sucks up 1.5GB.

NateHodge · 12-07-2008, 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by volsbear

I don't hear about too many laptops running well with Vista. Remember, the operating system alone sucks up 1.5GB.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Vista, which brings up another topic. Can I downgrade to XP? The Office Depot guy said no.

***volsbear*** · 12-07-2008, 17:01

Actually I believe you can. My brother is part owner of a large computer company and they downgrade to visits on each machine before it goes to customers. I'm not sure how it does it though.

Kentucky_Guy · 12-07-2008, 17:23

Youve got two problems:

Limewire and Norton.......Your computer is loaded with viruses and spyware right now

Limewire is loaded with viruses and trojans, and you HAVE to have a high-quality anti-virus, spyware program to use with it...

and norton AINT' IT....Norton is the biggest POS antivirus on the market......

get yourself a copy of NOD-32 here :

http://www.eset.com/

get the 30 day free trial and you will find God knows how many nasty things on your machine from Limewire.....

I use Limewire with complete confidence with NOD32...it picks up the corrupted files before they even download....then move on to the next download til you find a good one......

and as soon as you download NOD32, completely remove that over-bloated, resource hog Norton off your machine.....

**DustyJacket** · 12-07-2008, 18:04

+1 for Limewire (you aren't downloading pirated copyrighted songs are you?

)

Big Al 24 · 12-07-2008, 20:12

LIMEWIRE!?!?!? I can't believe there's people still using that. Yeah I'd wipe the whole machine and never use Limewire again. At least use Utorrent or get hooked into a Usenext account like a modern human being. I'd try Utorrent if you need to share. And just so people know, there's plenty of legal downloads that happen with torrents. It's not all music and movies. Limewire???

NateHodge · 12-07-2008, 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kentucky_Guy

....Norton is the biggest POS antivirus on the market......

get yourself a copy of NOD-32 here :

http://www.eset.com/

I use Limewire with complete confidence with NOD32...it picks up the corrupted files before they even download....then move on to the next download til you find a good one......

I have heard a lot of good things about NOD-32. Supposed to be one of the best(if not THE best), right? After powering on my computer for the first time and going throught the initial setup and creating the recovery discs, I deliberately clicked on suspicious files in Limewire to see what Norton would do. It caught them and stopped cold to my surprise.

I activated Norton because it was free for a year with the computer. before I got this computer, I ran Mcafee because it was free with Comcast. I can still get Mcafee for free, but wanted to give Norton a try first. Can I DL NOD-32 without having compatibality issues with Norton?

Big Al, what is a good torrent client? Last time I used a torrent client, it was BitTorrent, which I liked. I tried Vuse and didn't really care for it. Ideas?

DoubleWide · 12-07-2008, 23:21

I would suspect Full Tilt Poker is causing the problems, but agree you should get rid of LimeWire too.

Since you probably only have a week* to make sure it's not something else. I'd do a full reformat and restore using the restore section or cd if you have them. Afterward run a torture test program like Prime95 to see if you have any problems. More than likely, it's the Full Tilt Poker client.

*A day or two after Christmas, you could try to return/exchange it as a Christmas present that was just opened and is now having problems.

noway · 12-08-2008, 10:26

suggestion;

Linux or MacOSX both would fix your freezing up issues.

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Ralff · 12-08-2008, 13:45

I don't think a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT OPERATING SYSTEM is the answer the OP is looking for.

I'm thinking heat or faulty hardware. It's the only things I've had wrong with my PC that would actually lock it like that.

Big Al 24 · 12-08-2008, 15:49

I believe Utorrent is the most widely used client now. I use it occasionally, and you still have to be careful. The realy gold mine is Usenext, but if you don't know about it, I'm not going to be the one to let the cat out of the bag.

IndyGunFreak · 12-08-2008, 17:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ralff

I don't think a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT OPERATING SYSTEM is the answer the OP is looking for.

I'm thinking heat or faulty hardware. It's the only things I've had wrong with my PC that would actually lock it like that.

Agreed, this sounds more like some sort of hardware issue, which a new OS is not gonna fix. That said, I run Frostwire on my Linux boxes, and am still waiting for some spyware/virus problems..

IGF

solomansousana · 12-08-2008, 17:03

Run HP's system restore, and restore it to a point before you installed itunes and see if that fixes it. If not, do a full system restore.

NateHodge · 12-08-2008, 19:02

OK, i'm gonna DL NOD-32. Is it worth it to pay the extra 20 bucks to get the Smart Security pack, or should I get just the antivirus? And can I add a second computer later for the "2-computer" price or do I have to buy that package now? I have a Dell that needs a display I'll be fixing soon.

Edit: Seems Symantec came in second place in more than a few categories, according to ESET. Must not be too bad

Ralff · 12-08-2008, 20:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by NateHodge

Edit: Seems Symantec came in second place in more than a few categories, according to ESET. Must not be too bad

It's not. But people have their opinions ...

G22owner · 12-08-2008, 21:33

Click start -> run, and type in "services.msc" (without the quotes). Look for the Bonjour service, double click it, click the drop down menu next to "startup type" and disable it (under the general tab). Then, click the log on tab and click disable on there, too. Boujour causes more headaches than it's worth, and it's automatically installed with iTunes.

Edit: I just realized you're using Vista, so there is no "run" option. Just type services.msc into the search box, at the bottom of the start menu.

NateHodge · 12-08-2008, 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by G22owner

Click start -> run, and type in "services.msc" (without the quotes). Look for the Bonjour service, double click it, click the drop down menu next to "startup type" and disable it (under the general tab). Then, click the log on tab and click disable on there, too. Boujour causes more headaches than it's worth, and it's automatically installed with iTunes.

Edit: I just realized you're using Vista, so there is no "run" option. Just type services.msc into the search box, at the bottom of the start menu.

Au contraire! I prefer the classic view, which has a "run" option. Seems easier to navigate for my simple mind. I am doing this right now. Thanks