ASUS G51VX-A1 Locking Up

[reiichi]

Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone might have an idea why an ASUS G51VX-A1 would be locking up (freezing) from ordinary programs like AIM 7.1 or Windows Remote Desktop Connection. I've had this notebook since October of 2009 and it was working great until the new year, when some of my programs would start crashing with what looks like memory references (games such as StarCraft). It also seems to freeze every time I run AIM and any user logs in/out on my screen. I ran a memory checker and searched through ASUS' technical support forums to no avail. I even tried uninstalling the DirectX 9 SDK, which a couple users had said caused them programs, which didn't help at all. I've updated the computer to Windows 7 when it came out (Student Edition), and have done a couple reformats here and there, but I've always made sure to have the latest drivers/BIOS/updates from Microsoft and ASUS. Anyone have any idea what could be wrong with the computer? ...I'd rather not have to send it in for repairs or put Vista back on if I don't need to, but I'm willing to try anything if the freezes and crashes don't stop.

[powerpack]

If you don't want to send in? Run one RAM DIMM at a time? Or run memtest? You have bad RAM?

[reiichi]

memtest is what I ran when I checked the RAM in it. ...one of the versions that can boot up from a usb drive. I'm thinking it might be a hardware problem only because it was working perfectly fine and then suddenly stopped, and I don't think it could really be because AIM got an update, because that wouldn't affect windows RDC or StarCraft. I'll try running only one RAM chip at a time, seeing as those are easy enough to replace if they're faulty. ...it could even mean an upgrade.

[reiichi]

Well, after running memtest86+, I can assume my RAM is fine, because it didn't report any errors (I let it run all night, so the thing checked over 5 times). ...I'm just nto quite sure what ended up happening to it, but I can stay away from programs like AIM using free open source alternatives, and I'll try digging up my original Vista disk the computer came with to see if that changes anything. (It's due for a format anyways, because I might dual boot soon) Anyone know if a BIOS update could cause an error like this? Or lack of one, because I'm apparently running the latest on ASUS has released for my model.