Another Welcome Screen crash

Hi all,

First time posting here - hoping some of you experts can help me out. Apologies in advance for just registering to post a question - I did read through some of the old posts, but didn't manage to find a solution.

Just got a brand spanking new custom built laptop from HP about 4 weeks ago.

Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz
4GB DDR3
64bit Windows 7

Worked flawlessly until last night, when I started experiencing a hang at the welcome screen after logging in. Can get in through safe mode, and can log in properly with all services disabled (startup items enabled)...I tried systematically narrowing down all the services, but couldn't narrow it down - this morning I managed to get it working, with a select batch of microsoft services disabled, but tonight, once again, I can't get in, despite disabling the same batch of services as I did this morning.

I can tell now when it will freeze even before I login, because I notice the hard drive access light blinking with a certain frequency (3 seconds on, then a quick blink off..then 3 seconds on etc.) Not sure if this means anything, but when it was working, the light stopped blinking within 4-5 seconds after reaching the login screen. Now, it continues to blink for minutes, and when I get stuck at the welcome screen after logging in, I still see it blinking.

The only thing I can think of that may have changed things is that I installed winscp yesterday afternoon (since then, uninstalled). No other driver updates or changes I can think of.

Tried restarting manually in safe-mode to no avail. Did a startup repair (given the option after a hard reset from safe mode) and it didn't work. Tried a system restore to this morning's time point (the only one I have) and it didn't work either. Not sure what sort of troubleshooting to undertake as I'm not too experienced. Any advice/help would be highly appreciated, and any additional info needed, please let me know.

Thanks!

Thanks for the reply. I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials - I'll run a scan later today.

I once again systematically tried to narrow down the services involved in the screw up.

1) Works fine when all the services starting with 'W' (which includes all the windows services) are disabled.

2)First set tested enabled: Windows Audio, Windows Audio endpoint, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center Schedular Service, Windows Media Center Receiver service, Windows Update, Windows Time, Windows Search.

Result: Boots okay

3) Second set tested enabled (along with first set): Wired autoconfig, WLAN autoconfig, WWAN autoconfig, WinHTTP web proxy, WMI Performance adaptor, Windows Defender, Windows Firewall

Results: Boots okay

4) Third set tested enabled (along with first two sets): Windows installer, Windows Image acquisition, Windows Font Cache, Windows Modules Installer, Windows Driver Foundation, Windows Connect Now config-registrar, Windows Color System, Windows Backup

5) Remaining disabled services that I haven't touched yet:

• Windows Remote Management (WS-Management
• Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache
• Windows Event Log
• Windows Event Collector
• Windows Error Reporting Service
• Windows CardSpace
• Windows Biometric Service
• Web client

Not sure if this helps shed some light on the situation. Is it one of these services that are problematic?

I do notice that the status of some services are marked as 'stopped', even though the service is enabled. I'm hoping that the problem doesn't lie with one of these services (ie I'm wondering whether or not these services might turn on when I enable another service, causing a problem)...also, is it possible that services conflict with one another?

Hope to hear from more of you soon!