Windows 7: Revisiting 'Doing clean install....' with a return of old problem

In my last post to my original thread "Doing a clean install and need advice" I spoke prematurely as all had gone perfectly yesterday. This morning I started it up and was greeted with it "installing 100 updates" or something like that. That done it restarted and all was fine for an hour or so. At that point I had to leave for a bit and just left it on. An hour or less later I returned, jiggled the mouse and nothing occurred. Had to hold the button to shut down and then restart, which it did but now had red fine pinstripes covering the entire screen, but it was still functional. Had to do two Restart Repairs and finally got to a Safe Mode. Made a screen shot of the Event Log which is attached that shows the stripes also. I tried the System Restore option, selecting 4 different times to restore from and none would complete the restore.

In so doing I recalled that before doing the reinstall yesterday, when I was having all of the previous problems with screen freeze and striped screens, etc., many times all functioned fine until I left the computer running while I was out for as much as an hour or more. When I returned the thing would be frozen and often returned with stripes and colored swirls and other problems, all similar to today's lousy results. Did multi Start Repairs and reboots to finally get it to work.

Could any of these problems be associated with a video card? I checked and its fan is running and I don't know what to do beyond that point. I removed and re-seated it.

As before, all suggestions will be appreciated. Maybe the event log will mean something and point the way to a solution. Should I just get a new video card and give that a try? What else should I do? Could one or more of the updates have caused the problem? Thanks, Roving.

Have you got the latest drivers for your video card?

Checked and it reports that it has the latest driver.

Do you know what updates were installed?

Did you install the drivers manually from vendors website or let MS do it. I found that letting MS update the drivers can and do cause issues that your are experiencing. MS will determine what the best driver is needed all right, even if it's an old out dated driver.

It's recommended to always download drivers from the source and install manually just after a clean install.

I must respectfully disagree with bassfisher. Based on countless thousands we've helped to Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 it's best to go with the drivers given by the installer and quickly updated via optional Windows Updates when you enable Automatically get recommended drivers and updates for your hardware.

This is not XP. MS spent close to a billion dollars getting the drivers into the installer and via Updates, even paying manufacturers to build them under WHQL so they wouldn't hold out and MS would have them first.

There is a one-in-a-million possibility a driver in the Updates package caused this problem but it could also be an Update itself. This is why as it says in the tutorial it's best to break the Updates into smaller packages and observe their install just like Program installs to watch that they install correctly and gauge performance after each install.

What I would do now is System Restore to before the Updates were done, then install them in smaller groups monitoring closely each one's progress. If the problem reoccurs then Restore to before that group and install those Updates singly to find the problem update, post it back here and in our Updates forum. MS also provides free email support for Windows Updates on its website.

If you didn't follow the Best Practices for Windows 7 install in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 then I would start over and hew more closely to them as there are rarely problems reported when they are followed.

It has been set to automatically get the updates as Rocker suggests.

You'll need to set Updates to notify you so you can break them up into smaller groups to isolate the problem update. Take small bites until you find the one that's choking you.

I am now at the point with my new clean install where all is running smoothly andhave 111 important updates and 8 optional updates waiting for download and install. I plan on doing 15 at a time and then using it for two days or so and then adding 15 more and using the same routine with them. I will be creating a new defined restore point after each segment proves that it is all OK. That should help finally isolate the problem if indeed it lies within the updates as now suspected. I'll also be adding back my usual group of regularly used programs. This should do the trick......I hope. Thanks for all of the help!

Are you sure you downloaded the latest ISO as gregrocker advises - this does seem a lot of updates. I have done the clean install and certainly didn't have 111 updates.