Windows 7: Windows 7 professional x64 stucks while booting on ASUS A52J laptop

Hello.

I have new laptop, ASUS A52J, i3 processor, 4 GB of memory, 640 GB hdd and so on.
It runs legal Windows 7 professional, x64 system and it usual memory usage after booting is around 40% as I have many applications loaded on boot (Skype, MSN, Hamachi, Avast, MSE, and few other utilities...)

It worked perfectly for few months, though it needed minute or 2 to completely load and boot, those few minutes were acceptable in every way.

Suddenly, I don't know why, when I turn on the laptop, type password and desktop appear it just stucks at that point. Anything I do in that 15 mins and sometimes more causes laptop to completely freeze. I cant even invoke task manager.

Its completely frustrating see this quite good configuration struggling to load and boot windows.

From your experience is this windows issue? Can this be connected with some recent windows 7 updates? Also, I checked memory with windows memory diagnostic tool seeking for some memory issues, but it whole test passed for several times without errors. I did repair using windows 7 DVD but this didn't solve the problem.

Avast free AV, Microsoft Essentials and Malwarebytes (all newest versions and updated ) didn't report any malware/virus/trojan on the system.

Can I suspect some faulty hardware on brand new laptop?

What are your suggestions?
Ty all in advance.
Dean

Hmmm.........first thing I notice is that you have both Microsoft Security Essentials and Avast. You should pick one or the other, not both.

Type msconfig.exe in the start box and go to msconfig. Look at the startup tab. Uncheck everything except your antivirus and restart. Does that improve things?

Look at the services tab of msconfig. Check "hide all Microsoft services". How many services are then shown and do you need them all to be running?


Have you downloaded and run the hard disk manufacturer's disk tools?

You are absolutely locked out of Task Manager?

Run only one antivirus at a time, using more will cause conflicts
40% of RAM usage is normal but you should properly maintain your system, an utility like Ccleaner may be used
Download CCleaner 3.12.1572 - FileHippo.com

Run an SFC scan SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

In addition I would run a clean boot, at least to troubleshoot what's causing this.

For absolute best performance I would run a clean boot at all times, since programs dont' need to start until you run them or else it allows freeloading on your RAM/CPU and Startup time, spyware such as Google Updater which builds a profile that follows you to every site pasting its ads up based on your profile like Big Brother.

To try the clean boot, enter msconfig>Startup and uncheck everything except the one AV you settle upon. Then in msconfig>Services, select Hide All MS Services, do the same. After reboots periodically check back to see that nothing has snuck back in - if so turn it off in its Program Preferences or Uninstall it.

If this fails to solve the problem, work through these troubleshooting steps

As a last resort use the tool which the Pro's use to trace these issues: Gathering a Startup, Shutdown, Sleep, Hibernate, or Reboot Trace - Windows 7 Forums

Hi to all.

1st I want to thank you for taking interest in my case and giving me all these suggestions, they are all much appreciated.
I found that Ccleaner is quite good utility. My problem was gone after I deleted MSE and used msconfig to disable some unneeded services and utilities that were working in the background. Also I agree with last post, and to be honest didn't know that Google updater is a spybot. Ty for clearing that up.

I will disable some more services incl that Google thing to gain more performance.
My laptop is running smoothly now thanks to you guys. Much experience in just few posts, great

Dean