Reinstalled Windows, and now I get intermittent system hangs.

crackshot91 said:

About 4 days ago, I reinstalled Windows 7. Everything went smoothly and I installed all the drivers and programs I had before, and restored my steam folder. However, I am know experiencing a strange and annoying problem: After a while, I experience a system 'hang'. This hang is triggered by 3 things that I can tell:

1. A UAC prompt (The system hangs for about 6 seconds with a black screen before and after the prompt.)

2. Pressing ctrl+alt+del (Again, it hangs for ~6 seconds before and after)

3. Starting and closing a full screen program, like a game, or alt+tabbing (About a 6 second black screen)

When I boot up my PC, everything is fine for a while... Games open and close quickly, I have no problems with alt+tab, and UAC is quick. I'm not sure what causes the hangs. It is really bugging me.

I really hope you can help me solve this problem. I will provide any information you ask. Please help. :)

EDIT: OK, I believe I may have discovered the problem. I restarted my PC about 1 hour ago and everything had been working fine since. However, I was just watching a Netflix video and after about 6 minutes, I tested to see if everything was okay, but my system is hanging again. It only hangs when I do one of the things I listed, though. Is it possible Netflix/silverlight is causing this? Even if I close out of the video, the hangs don't stop unless I restart.

Did you do a clean install (with format)?

Yes, it was a format/clean installation. I did have to reinstall all the programs. I had my steamapps folder backed up and restored, but everything else was manually reinstalled.

I am using the latest drivers for my hardware:

Latest intel chipset/sata drivers
ATI Catalyst 10.12 (I have a funny feeling this may be causing the problem. I will revert back to 10.11 and see if the problem persists.)
Realtek HD Audio 2.55
All Windows Updates

As I thought, the problem seems to have been the ATI Drivers. I reverted back to 10.11 and I haven't had a problem. I suspected it was the display driver because when I was having the problem, I uninstalled each driver one by one, testing after each. When I uninstalled the display driver, ctrl+alt+del and UAC prompts worked perfectly. I've watched an hour and a half of LOST on netflix without a problem. The hangs usually started after about 6 minutes.

I will do everything you listed, richc46, because it seems like a great way to ensure to overall health of my system. I haven't had any issues besides the system hangs since I reinstalled, but I want to be safe. :)

Awesome! Bookmarked!