Need help with Samsung Q430

[crazy stumped]

Hello. I have received great help from this community in the past and am hoping that the tradition will continue.

I recently purchased a Samsung Q430 back around July or August. The specs are as follows: Intel i5 Core Processor, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, and Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics adapter. A couple of days ago it started to hang. It doesn't completely lock up the system, but it has slowed to an excruciating crawl. It's very difficult and frustrating to use the computer in its current condition.

I am usually fairly knowledgeable about computers, but this one has me stumped. I am experiencing sporadic shutdowns along with slow operating system performance. I am running Windows 7 Professional x64. The machine came with Windows 7 Home Premium x64, but I upgraded as soon as I got the laptop. But that was months ago. Every now and again the system runs fine. Yesterday I completely reinstalled all drivers and have the same problem. I have restored Windows to different points before I started having problems. No luck there either. I use Avast Antivirus and have run a virus scan using both that and Microsoft Security Essentials. Neither check has turned up a virus. I used Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and found no malware either. I have the same problem when I boot up into Safe Mode, so I can eliminate the graphics driver.

Event viewer shows the following stats for the last week: 13 Critical errors, 430 Errors, and 98 Warnings. The most common error I see in the log in Service Control Manager, and the most common critical error I see is Kernel-Power. I suspect the critical errors are from the system failing resulting in BSOD, so that doesn't help me much. And I've looked up several of the Error IDs on Microsoft's Knowledge Database but it didn't help me out either with the troubleshooting.

At this point, I'm looking for help pinpointing whether or not I have a hardware issue or a software issue with Windows 7. The laptop is only a few months old, so I suspect that hardware is not at fault, but can't be completely sure. The laptop doesn't feel like its overheating either.

As I write this on my desktop computer, my laptop just received a BSOD on iastor.sys. Hopefully this helps. Please let me know what other info you guys need if I have left anything out.

Thanks in advance,

Adam

 

[rolli59]

Based on what you have done with the OS you might be experiencing hardware errors. My first suspect would be the ram, you can check that with memtest.

 

[dgr59]

I have the exact same problem, upgraded to win7 professional, defaulted back to new once. mem test shows no errors. scanned with malware bytes, spybot, I am quite knowledgable about pcs, but I cant figure this one out...
HD light is constantly on when slowdown happens. taskmanager shows nothing running but default services, cpu load is 5-10%. Works sometimes but when you click on something like start menu or task manager during slowdown can take up to 5 minutes for the selection to even pop up. I do have the same iastor.sys error. A drive scan & repair did initially find 2 errors, looked like internet explorer errors, but repaired them, subsequent scans show no problems.

Please tell me you found the fix, as I am about to return this pc.

 

[gmc74]

I am running into BSOD's, no slow downs in the machine, just seemingly random BSODs.

I have replaced the HDD with a SSD running 64bit Win 7 Ent
I have replaced the 4GB of RAM with 8GB
I have replaced the optical drive with a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive

I have installed the OS multiple times, clean installs. I think the issue revolves around the 310M drivers, but I can't tell for sure

 

[xigid]

I am running into similar problems. No slow downs to that I have noticed, but I will walk away, and come back an hour or two later and the system has shut down. Or I will go to sleep, and when I wake up it has randomly shut down. I have not made any upgrades yet.

 

[xigid]

Since I posted this, I believe I may have found the answer in my particular case. I have recently upgraded the memory to 8gb, similar specs to factory, and also upgraded to a Vertex2 120gb SSD. When I reloaded windows, I chose not to install all drivers from the samsung website, other than the Nvidia driver as the current nvidia drivers do not support this model laptop for install. I installed all drivers, except the Realtek Sound driver, and have had zero issues with the random restarts.