System freezes for a few minutes on startup

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csew004

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#161877 22-Jan-2015 11:26

Hi all, new here so if posted in the wrong place please advise.

Am looking for some assistance with a problem with my laptop, Lenovo E520 running Windows 7 64 bit. Had laptop for about 5 years but now experiencing an issue every time I start up.

Once logged in, after a short period of time (generally about 5 minutes) the system slowly becomes unresponsive (can't move cursor, pushing buttons does nothing, screen freezes, sound stops playing) for a short period of time (generally up to 5 minutes), after which the system works normally.

I thought it may be related to browser/flash but occurs even when browser is not opened. My guess is it's hardware related but can't think what may have caused it. Anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

raytaylor

4017 posts

Uber Geek

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#1220035 22-Jan-2015 12:53

Run hdtune over the hard drive and check for bad sectors would be my first guess.

Hard drive or laptop was probably moved too many times while a certain common file was being accessed and has caused a bad sector.

Ray Taylor

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solival

160 posts

Master Geek

#1220037 22-Jan-2015 12:54

There can be several causes of this behaviour.

First thing to check is process window. Right click on task bar and choose option "Task Manager" (or "Process explorer" don't remember exactly). Then click on CPU % column header to show most busy processes first and try to see if something eats lots of CPU time during laptop freeze.

If issue appear only after reboot (once). Then probably easiest way will run recovery of your OS from recovery partition. This will drop all your user data though.

csew004

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1220692 23-Jan-2015 12:18

Seems to be fixed now, removed some programs from startup, unsure which was the problem but hopefully it stays away! Thanks for the tips.

timmmay

20587 posts

Uber Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#1220723 23-Jan-2015 12:52

If it comes back suggest you reinstall the OS - 5 years is fairly mature, a clean out often helps.