Windows 7 Random Freezes and Sophos Anti-Virus 7.6.13 (?)

[niglch]

Hi everyone,
I'm running Windows 7 Pro x64 on a Dell XPS M1530, and I've been having issues with the system locking up intermittently. The lockups occur at random and seem to be independent of how many and what programs I am running. Lockups have occured both when the computer is idle and when it's running multiple different programs. The freezing usually lasts between 30 seconds and 3 minutes after which the computer returns to normal and things I attempted to do during the non-responsive period will usually happen all at once. IE usually stops responding completely, music from WMP will cut off, and most other programs will not be usable. The mouse usually stays responsive, but trying to interact with any other programs will usually cause them to stop responding as well. Ctrl+Alt+Del and the task manager are not responsive until the system unfreezes. Perhaps the strangest thing is that the HD activity light turns on solid through the whole thing even though I can't hear the hard drive actually making any noise.
This has been puzzling me for a long time. Thankfully, these forums have recently taught me the usefulness of the event viewer, and I found that "SAVOnAccess" (which I believe is Sophos Anti Virus On-Access Scanning) reported 11 errors simultaneously at about the same time the system froze. I viewed the error history for SAVOnAccess and found quite a few instances where something like this happened. The error descriptions look something like this:

File [...\Device\HarddiskVolume2\Windows\system32\pcwum.dll]'s scan succeeded following a timeout/busy condition - it is being logged in case it contributed to that condition. Process taskmgr.exe, (start check timestamp [ 1ca63104de0b9e7]).
​

or

File [...\Device\HarddiskVolume2\Windows\AppPatch\AcGenral.DLL]'s scan succeeded following a timeout/busy condition - it is being logged in case it contributed to that condition. Process ALUpdate.exe, (start check timestamp [ 1ca5f34c8e4232d]).
​

These two errors were recorded almost simultaneously followed by the system freezing. I couldn't find any other reported errors besides the ones from SAVOnAccess within an hour of the freeze.
I'm running Sophos Anti-Virus v.7.6.13

Has anyone else experienced anything similar to these lockups? Of course the question is if the OnAccess scanning is actually causing the system freezes or if it is the other way around. I'm probably going to try disabling the OnAccess scanning to see if it stops the freezing.

 

[FuzzyW]

same problems here but with Windows XP SP3

like the subject / title says ...
exactly the same, since about 3 weeks now. has maybe something to do with hibernation which i often use, it has other side-effects as well.

Sophos isnt updated after the freeze, but when i click update manually it updates perfectly

 

[Morpher]

I've been having the same problem, since I moved from RC to RTM. The difference is that in Event Viewer I get a security log called Logon and right after that a Special Logon every time it hangs(with the same symptoms).

I've put installed two times Windows 7 after that and every time this happens within 2 or 3 hours after the installation. The first time this happened the next day. Now it happened 20 minutes after the first proper boot.
The system is virus-free as far as Avira says and this happens before I have even began to put the software I use.

Any suggestions?

Here are the logs that Event Viewer shows. Hope they help!

Special Logon error details:

Special privileges assigned to new logon.

Subject:
	Security ID:		SYSTEM
	Account Name:		SYSTEM
	Account Domain:		NT AUTHORITY
	Logon ID:		0x3e7

Privileges:		SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege
			SeTcbPrivilege
			SeSecurityPrivilege
			SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege
			SeLoadDriverPrivilege
			SeBackupPrivilege
			SeRestorePrivilege
			SeDebugPrivilege
			SeAuditPrivilege
			SeSystemEnvironmentPrivilege

Logon error details:

An account was successfully logged on.

Subject:
	Security ID:		SYSTEM
	Account Name:		VAULT2$
	Account Domain:		WORKGROUP
	Logon ID:		0x3e7

Logon Type:			5

New Logon:
	Security ID:		SYSTEM
	Account Name:		SYSTEM
	Account Domain:		NT AUTHORITY
	Logon ID:		0x3e7
	Logon GUID:		{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}

Process Information:
	Process ID:		0x1ec
	Process Name:		C:\Windows\System32\services.exe

Network Information:
	Workstation Name:	
	Source Network Address:	-
	Source Port:		-

Detailed Authentication Information:
	Logon Process:		Advapi  
	Authentication Package:	Negotiate
	Transited Services:	-
	Package Name (NTLM only):	-
	Key Length:		0

This event is generated when a logon session is created. It is generated on the computer that was accessed.

The subject fields indicate the account on the local system which requested the logon. This is most commonly a service such as the Server service, or a local process such as Winlogon.exe or Services.exe.

The logon type field indicates the kind of logon that occurred. The most common types are 2 (interactive) and 3 (network).

The New Logon fields indicate the account for whom the new logon was created, i.e. the account that was logged on.

The network fields indicate where a remote logon request originated. Workstation name is not always available and may be left blank in some cases.

The authentication information fields provide detailed information about this specific logon request.
	- Logon GUID is a unique identifier that can be used to correlate this event with a KDC event.
	- Transited services indicate which intermediate services have participated in this logon request.
	- Package name indicates which sub-protocol was used among the NTLM protocols.

 

[FuzzyW]

i don't exactly know what these logon problems mean and what is the cause of them. I actually found out that my comodo firewall has a feature to check dll-injections / changes in dll's. This is probably the cause of my problem. I turned it off and my computer didnt freeze yet.
Maybe the built-in firewall from microsoft or a thirdparty firewall (or avira?) is checking changes in dll's and is freezing the computer.
hope this helps

 

[Morpher]

It's probably the built in, cause I've installed avira just yesterday evening and before that there wasn't any third-party antiviral protection nor firewall..
Thanks for the hint! I'll give it a try