Skyfire keeps crashing

[Willow78]

I bought a Skyfire laptop last year one of the 1st generation ones I think as it has a 2nd Generation Core i7, anyway all was well for many months, it has Window 7 home premium on it originally, but I upgraded to windows 8 when they had the £25 upgrade deal. All was fine for a few months.

Now I seem to keep getting random crashes, usually in Internet explorer it just locks up the whole system but can be in other programs and sometimes it crashes then comes up with a message the driver has crashed or something and it has recovered.

Was wondering of this is an issue with upgrading from windows 7 to 8 or a problem with the graphics chip? It has not blue screened or anything though!

 

[Willow78]

I have a suspicion it may be Internet Explorer 10 that's crashing it as that's what I'm using when it goes, games play alright though. Been wondering if I should try the 8.1 test

 

[Tom DWC]

From what you've described it sounds like the Internet Explorer installation may have become damaged/corrupted, it can happen with the version updates from 8 - 10 on both Windows 7 & 8 and maybe as a result of the Windows upgrade too. Because of the way Microsoft integrate the browser into the OS it can be tricky to fix.

It might be worth trying the steps outlined here on the MS website: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923737#fixit4me

But if it's an isolated issue relating to IE then it might just be easier to download another web browser - unless you have a specific need to use Internet Explorer.

 

[Willow78]

I think I may have cracked it, a few years ago I had a problem on windows 7 that I only fixed by creating a new user account, I did that again here and it seems to have done the trick, the account also started having problems opening libraries as well (the icons for the docs, pics, music ect)

It could be my profile became corrupt and caused all the issues, it could be something else but a new profile also fixed it. Hopefully this is now fixed fingers crossed!

 

[ubuysa]

I think I may have cracked it, a few years ago I had a problem on windows 7 that I only fixed by creating a new user account, I did that again here and it seems to have done the trick, the account also started having problems opening libraries as well (the icons for the docs, pics, music ect)

It could be my profile became corrupt and caused all the issues, it could be something else but a new profile also fixed it. Hopefully this is now fixed fingers crossed!

With all due respect that sounds like a workaround rather than a fix.

If a new account doesn't experience these random crashes I think I would be tempted to back everything up and do a clean re-install of Windows 8. My worry would be that, whatever the problem is, it's likely still there and you are currently just masking it. I know a clean re-install is a lot of work but I think that it's worth it just for the peace of mind.

 

[Willow78]

well it seems to be working on the new account so I recreated the old account and the crashing came back

I've been thinking of a clean reinstall probably best

 

[Willow78]

I did the windows 8 "refresh" seemed to work well for a while then the crashing started again. Seem like after I installed Norton IS 2013 reliability went bad. Some times it recovers sometimes it does not, also sometimes it mentions the graphics driver has recovered or something? It has not blue screened or anything (if windows 8 still does that I don't know)

A proper reinstall completely, back up my work then format completely seems the best bet at the moment

I can play a game on it for hours and it works great and a few minutes on the desktop and it crashes, seems odd!

 

[ubuysa]

I don't use Norton so I don't know it at all, but does it have any sort of intrusion protection feature? I'm thinking of tools that let you control which programs can use which system facilities (run programs, access memory, access disk etc.)? If it does I'm wondering whether it's preventing certain features of the graphics driver from operating properly (since you get messages to that effect). I would suggest that you try turning all Norton features off for a while and see how you get on. To be honest, if it were me, I'd uninstall it completely and see how you get on.

I think your decision to do a clean reinstall is wise, you clearly have an unhappy system. I would also hold off reinstalling Norton, or any security product for a few days. Windows firewall will be good enough to keep the nasties out and if you're careful what you access on the Internet you needn't worry about virus or trojan infections. See how you get one with basic vanilla Windows, it's not impossible you have some sort of hardware problem and the only way to be sure is to stick to just Windows and drivers for a day or three and then gradually reinstall your third-party software (and I'd leave Norton to last if I were you).

 

[Willow78]

well I have now done a FULL reinstall of windows 7 then upgrade to 8 pro.

I solved a problem I had when I first got the laptop that is certain games like Sonic 4 and tales of monkey island on steam would not work on the laptop at all. Sonic said it needed java but that was installed and updated on the last system? cant understand why they would not work but they do now, so thats great!

I have also changed from IE 10 to Chrome, could not stand the crashing, its seems to me odd it would crash and the graphics driver as well in IE, that program would either crash but restart a lot or freeze the whole system up sometimes restarting.

Hoping changing to Chrome solves the issue fingers crossed. I just think IE is seriously buggy, maybe the combo of win 8 pro / IE10 and my laptop did not go right!.
The thing is I could play games for hours on steam and no crash but use IE and it tanked the OS.

 

[Willow78]

well good news, the last few days using Chrome have stopped the crashing! Obviously Internet Explorer was causing all the issues. Laptop is now back to stability!
when I did reinstall it IE did crash, but that was after I installed the updates (usually when I also install security software as well). so I would imagine some update probably cause it.

at least chrome is not needing to restart all the time like Internet Explorer!

 

[Willow78]

well the crashing keeps returning! I also had suspicions on my intel centrino ultimate n 6300 wifi. did a check online and found a thread with the same issues, also when under load it crashes. downloaded something from steam the other day crashed 4 or 5 times in a row, only crashed when downlading.

I do have a wifi N USB dongle spare so thinking of trying that. Strange I keep thinking its one thing or another, but in all that it the wifi that keeps going down

 

[ubuysa]

This is a long-shot, but worth a try now I think. You might want to test your RAM, it's not impossible that you have a flaky RAM card that's causing your issues, it certainly sounds more like a hardware issue now you've re-installed Windows.

The best way to test your RAM is to download Memtest, extract the ISO file, burn that to a CD and then boot that CD. Memtest will start running immediately. Leave it running overnight, if there are any errors reported in the morning you should re-run Metest on each RAM card in turn.

You're right about the Intel wifi card having issues too, I would not buy another Intel wifi card. Give the dongle a try but be sure to disable the Intel card first, just in case...