Windows 7 freezing on Startup screen

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simon14

1889 posts

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#69277 5-Oct-2010 17:00

Not sure what to do here.... just about every time I turn on our Windows 7 PC, it freezes on the Starting Windows screen.

I have to turn the computer off and start it back up again. Windows then does a scan and tried to fix problems. It fails doing this and asks me to restart my PC again.

I can get into windows in safe mode and can sometimes get in (like now) with no issues after restarting a few times.

Anyone know what I can do to fix this? Hopefully it's not a reinstall??

leostretch

21 posts

Geek

#388397 5-Oct-2010 18:18

Hi there,

Have you tried checking for memory errors?

What you are describing sounds a lot like a problem I recently had, and that turned out to be the cause of it

Link here to run diagnostic;

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/715-memory-diagnostics-tool.html

HTH, Leo

b0untypure1

1426 posts

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#388504 5-Oct-2010 21:56

if i was you, id check my ram sticks and hard drive for errors, then reinstall windows.

simon14

1889 posts

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#388877 6-Oct-2010 18:59

Memory is fine, done the scan as you suggested.

Ended up restoring windows back to a point in time. Stored Windows back to 2/10/2010 at 11:33am and it now starts up perfectly.

This is just before i updated my computer with the following updates:

Security Update for Microsoft .NET framework 3.5.1, Windows 7 KB2416471

and optional:

Definition update for Windows Defender. KB915597

I'm now worried that one of those updates caused my computer to crash....

simon14

1889 posts

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#388885 6-Oct-2010 19:36

hmmm... it happened again!

This is frustrating, this is a newish computer... purchased from a small local pc shop 8 months ago!

Never should have left my trusted Dell!!!

simon14

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#388886 6-Oct-2010 19:37

Surely it can't be hardware if it starts normally 1 out of every 8 times?

I'll try a full reinstall after i'm able to get a backup of everything.

urban

487 posts

Ultimate Geek

#389002 6-Oct-2010 23:48

Have you also tried running your rig on one stick of ram? and then swapping out for the other one to see if one of your ram sticks is causing the issue.

And have you also got a spare hard disk you can use? reinstall windows , and see if it does the same thing.

I ran into the same problem as you awhile back and it was my hd that had bad sectors that was causing bsod's and startup freezes. it's all a process of elimination i'm afraid :)

simon14

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#389018 7-Oct-2010 06:35

With the bad sectors in the hard drive, is it a case of replacing the hard drive or running a scan?

Sorry, i'm useless at this stuff!

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urban

487 posts

Ultimate Geek

#389083 7-Oct-2010 10:37

simon14: With the bad sectors in the hard drive, is it a case of replacing the hard drive or running a scan?

Sorry, i'm useless at this stuff!

I'm just as useless :)

Run disk check(with any luck this may fix it), and see if there are any bad sectors on your HD, failing that just reformat the entire drive before reinstalling windows.

Worse case scenario is that you have to replace it.

Ragnor

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#389198 7-Oct-2010 14:36

I would suggesting a full scan with malwarebytes to check for any malware.

Also use sysinternals autoruns to disable un-needed junk that may be loading at startup.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

simon14

1889 posts

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#389311 7-Oct-2010 19:36

OK - today she's starting up perfectly. Restarted 5 times and no issues.... weird....

CdTDroiD

869 posts

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#389980 9-Oct-2010 21:11

Try installing Windows on a new hard drive then copying all your files over as a backup from the old drive. Issues like that ive found carry on untill you loose everything, pays to back it up before it happens, you can buy a 250gb hard drive for $60 or something, well worth it.

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richms

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#390030 10-Oct-2010 00:16

I have had this before on a dickky video card.

If I restarted it would never come back up, had to either reset or power cycle it and it would come up most of the time, and within a day or 2 would do that thing where it blacks out everything and event logs something about the graphics driver. got worse and worse and when I had finally had enough I pulled the card and the fan was dead and the heatsink was covered in dust that looked and smelt like it had got really really hot.

Richard rich.ms

simon14

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#393090 18-Oct-2010 10:52

Still working fine.....

Never found out why it was freezing, weird!

wreck90

780 posts

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#393097 18-Oct-2010 11:11

Good it's fixed.

There are a billion possible reasons.

It's amazing pc's work at all given the countless number of hardware/software combinations they must deal with.

I find, a good method to diagnose startup issues, is to unplug everything except the keyboard & mouse. I've had problems with USB/esata devices . Even now, my PC will only boot 75% of the time when my esata drive is on, so i just switch it off until my pc has started up. .

johnhb67

54 posts

Master Geek

#394142 20-Oct-2010 20:45

I have the same problem with my dell mini.
Can you do a cnt alt del and choose to log out?
thats what I do then after numerous trys I get to log in without explorer halting.
sometimes it takes me a dozen times plus to get in , sometimes the first attempt.
nothing in logs other then explorer halted.
I dont want to do a reinstall, should be some solution out there...