Vista Freeze upon user login

[kenshinx13]

My laptop, a HP Vista home premium 64x recently began freezing upon logging in to my user. I have had it for 3 years and this is the first time I've had this issue. It worked normally until a few days ago when it shut itself down during the day. upon rebooting it proceeded as usual until i typed my password to log in.

The desktop began loading my icons and a few basic startup programs and then froze, showing a black screen with a blue solid bar at the bottom. I had to hard boot and restart so i logged back in and had the same problem each time.

After assuming it was heat i unplugged and removed the battery and used some canned air on the vents carefully. this was after trying a few system restores thst didnt help. One time it said something like hardware/software was preventing it from starting properly and reccomended another restore. that still didnt work.

Eventually after letting it sit i tried again and it loaded fine and worked again. During that time i ran several virus scans and found nothing.

(continued)
After a few days i hit the same problem only now i cant get it to work again. i have done some research and heard people talk about doing checkdisk to scan for problems.

I'm sort of a computer novice so i don't know how to do that. can someone explain how? and also if you have any theories let me know.

Also, Safe mode works perfectly but Normal mode is what freezes. Any suggestions would be great

 

[richc46]

Welcome
Download and run a full updated scan with Malwarbytes, in addition to your Virus Scan.
Try a clean boot to solve the problem if the above is negative
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135
If a clean boot does not help try a system restore.
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html

Do the steps in the order given.

 

[kenshinx13]

three comments while i'm reading through that clean boot link.
1) i have malwarebytes already and had used it to check the computer already and found nothing
2)i have attempted system restores already at several different points and have yet to see it work
3) before i attempt the clean boot troubleshoot should i try that checkdisk i mentioned?

thank you for the fast response and i hope this provides more info to analyze the problem

 

[kenshinx13]

three comments while i'm reading and before i attempt the clean boot troubleshoot
1) i have malwarebytes already and used it for the scans i mentioned.
2) i have attempted system restores at several different points but it didnt work so far
3) should i attempt the checkdisk scan to look for problems first or just do the clean boot?

thank you for the fast response and i hope this provides more info to analyze the problem.

 

[richc46]

If it works in Safe Mode, I think that clean boot is the answer.
I dont think that chkdsk is the answe,r in this situation, but it should be done once a month or so anyway, so feel free.

 

[kenshinx13]

umm didnt mean to double post but it said my message failed at first

 

[richc46]

Dont worry about that, lets just get that computer working.

 

[kenshinx13]

ok here is a status update and a question i have followed the clean boot troubleshoot guide to step 3 and the problem didn't appear at all with any of the programs as i went through them. is it possible that they simply overclocked my computer when on at the same time? let me know if you agree

 

[richc46]

What happens many times, is that a program malfunctions. After you remove them from start up they reset and are ok. It has happened before. If your computer is, now running properly consider is solved.
If it returns, just post and we will continue.

 

[kenshinx13]

retuning the setup back to normal resulted in the problem again, any suggestions? also when the steps say uncheck the "load startup items" are they the same as the services tab? or is it different from the startup tab

 

[richc46]

Must be some miscommunication, I thought that when they were all back it worked.
Follow the instructions and do only a few at at time, and use the computer for a while, then go to the next batch. The answer is with msconfig.
Stay with the startup tab.

 

[kenshinx13]

after checking the programs in the startup tab it seems to only crash when I have most/all on upon startup, otherwise nothing seemed to go wrong at all. I imagine its rather late to expect a response so i will continue to check a few more things in msconfig and post my results unless i see any theories. Thank you again for the help so far. I hope this narrows it all down

 

[richc46]

Remove them all, then put a few back at a time, and use the machine. If no problem, put a few more and use the machine. I am quite sure it is not the fact that there are a lot of programs, but rather there are one or two that cause the problem. Take your time do it slow.