HP Omen system hangs

[Pabos]

Hello all,

I have an issue with my brand new HP Omen which has been driving me nuts as of late. The system hangs for about 5-10 seconds in random intervals - sometimes it's several times per hour and sometimes it's just once per two hours. Anyways, I have been able to track the issue down through the event viewer and it seems to be an issue with the hard drive and namely the AHCI controller bus. In the event viewer there are 2 issues recurring:

Error ID 153 - source: disk - The IO operation at logical block address ****** for Disk 0 was retired.

Error ID 129 - source: Storahci - Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.

I have searched the web and applied countless solutions including: applying new drivers to the controler bus, trying generic microsoft drivers, editing the registry for the storahci service and NoLPM key and adjusting AHCI settings for my hard drive in my power profile from DIPM to HIPM or Active, I also tried the command "bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes" and to no avail. Oh yes, I also tried running the HP diagnostics for the harddrive (using F2 at startup) and it passed in all regards, so this must be a software issue. Unfortunately I wasn't able to determine any pattern in the errors occuring relative to what I was currently doing.

To be frank, I am quite sick of this issue. I have bought a laptop for a considerable amount of money and I expect it to run perfectly. Not to mention that this is a gaming notebook and if it freezes / hangs several times every hour it just makes gaming impossible.

I thank you in advance and look forward to finnaly resolving the issue.

Thanks

[erico]

I suggest that you download the Sandisk SSD dashboard to see how the health of your SSD is.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/15108

That is,of course, only if your Omen has a Sandisk SSD installed.

[Pabos]

Thank you for your reply.

I have downloaded the Sandisk dashboard and it shows that everything is fine with the SSD. Like I said, I do not believe this is a hardware issue, I believe it is a software / driver issue.

Thanks for further assistance.

[erico]

Did this hang issue begin after a Windows or HP update took place?

Since you have not had the Omen very long, I have a couple of questions. 

1) Have you created the usb recovery media?  That is very important thing to do as soon as possible. 

2) Have you considered running a Windows Refresh or factory image recovery? 

[Pabos]

Unfortunately due to the nature of the issue I am not sure when it started occuring. At first I thought the programs were hanging etc., and it took me a while to realize that it was the whole system and that I could track the errors via the event viewer.

Anyway, to answer your questions:

1) No, I have not.

2) Yes, I have, but I would do that only as a last resort solution, since I have all the necessary software already set up and it would take me some time to set it up again. Not to mention that I still don't know whether it actually is caused by a driver / windows update or which one causes it.

So what do you suggest I do? Should I restore factory image? Like I said, I do not like this solution, but if nothing else helps, I might have to try it.

One more thing - I tried running the notebook in safe mode (with network) and the issue seemed to not occur (but again, it is kind of hard to tell due to the randomness of occurances... I will test it out some more). Then I went ahead and disabled all items that should be run "on startup" (in the task manager) and it didn't help. The issue started occuring again after a while.

Thank you for any further assistance.

[erico]

You can use Windows own system restore to return the operating system to available restore points. You will not lose any documents or programs by using the Windows system restore to troubleshoot the issue.

You can set up your notebook's OS to produce memory mindumps so troubleshooting can be far more accurate than with the use of the Event viewer.

How to enable memory minidumps in Windows 8.1.

http://www.howtogeek.com/196672/windows-memory-dumps-what-exactly-are-they-for/

Enable memory minidumps to be produced when your system crashes. Save them to an online account. YOU can provide a link to the memory minidump so it can be used to help determine the cause of the freeze or crash event.

[Pabos]

Thanks for your response.

I have set up the notebook to create minidumps and right now I'll try to restore it to a point right before several major updates have been installed. I will post whether it has affected the issue.

Thanks.

Edit: I think I need to clarify on what I mean by "freeze" or "hang". My system doesn't crash, there is no BSOD and therefore there won't be any memory dump. The system "hangs" for about 5-10 seconds meaning that all apps stop responding, sometimes even the sound stops playing and I basically can't click anything, but all this time I can move the mouse around and it shows the "processing" wheel cursor. After the 5-10 seconds, everything returns to normal and I can continue doing what I was doing.

That is why I am not sure if the minidumps are going to be of any help. I'm still going to try the system restore and post the results afterwards.

[erico · Accepted solution]

Just so you know. My current HP Product loan is an Omen 15. I have had it for about a week now. I have been playing my Steam Games on it. I play Borderlands,  Borderlands 2, FarCry and FarCry 2. I have had nothing happen in terms of hangs, crashes or other odd behavior.

If my product loan developed issues such as yours, I would  run the hardware disgnostics tests. If no fails were present I immediately go with the system restore tests and if no positive results,  try a system refresh. If that did not reolve it, a factory image recovery would certainly be in order.  If no joy after all that, I would go straight to watrranty service 

You should also consider using Microsoft's System Internals  ProcessExplorer utility to try and see what processes are runnng  that may be causing the issue. That is if Process Explorer will run when the hang starts. 😉

Process Explorer (by Mark Russinovich)

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

[Pabos]

Thanks for the suggestions, Provost.

The Microsoft's System Internals Process Explorer was the first thing I did in diagnosing the issue, but to my surprise there was nothing unusual at the times of hangs.

Anyways, I've reverted to a (relatively) old restore point and so far the issue is gone. But I'm not cheering yet, since it might come back in a few hours.

I will post my results after a couple of hours / days of use to see if the issue is really gone.

Thanks!

[Pabos]

Update: The issue prevails :(. Since I have no earlier points of recovery than the one I tried now, I will try the Windows 8 "Refresh" function, and if that doesn't help, then I'll have to restore the factory image.

I'll post further updates.