Intermittent freeze on start up- windows logo

Just the general case fan.

Well I think I fixed it.... (touch wood).

After much hassling around and formating / reinstalling. It appeared to work fine each time until I updated my graphics drivers. I have since disabled my 2nd graphics card and it appears to be booting up fine each time (so far).

So thanks for all your help and input looks like we might have gotten to the bottom of it and it appears there is a cross-fire/graphics card issue here.

If it starts struggling to boot correctly again I will smash the tower up and claim of insurance- simple solution.

Thanks again guys.

I was having a difficulty with install hangs of Windows 7 x64 on my custom system:
MB: Asrock 870 Extreme3
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955
Vid: PNY GeForce 9800GT

The hang would occur at the Windows splash screen, and all the words were pixelated and unreadable (looked like white blurs in the general block shape where they should be). I got Windows 7 to install twice previously - security settings, login, etc., but it would crash and hang on restart after I had it up and running, after several dozen fresh installs, and 200 hours of switching settings and hardware and various driver version installs.

I played with all the bios settings, I got a new video card, I switched out new hard drives, and nothing fixed the problem. On the last install I reset the MB bios, and disabled the quad core feature. BINGO - windows installed, and did not hang on restart. When I enabled the quad core feature Windows started installed AMD phenom drivers (four times in the driver install window) and then on the mandatory restart Windows 7 hangs again, this time before the splash screen comes up. And now it hangs even after disabling the quad core feature.

Hope this helps others who may have similar problems, but now I need advice on how to fix the quad core restart issue.