Seems to be OK in Safe Mode but otherwise, constant crashes/freezing.

alexgrossman said:

Voiceover,

I strongly suspect that the glowing circle could because of failing or bad hard drive and would recommend you to replace it. Also, check out your memory sticks and ensure that it's not causing the problem. You can test it by running on single stick if you've two. In case you've only one RAM, then try spare or purchase a new one.

Good luck though!!

That's not good news! I hope that's not the case but if it is, I'll have no choice. I ran a disk check and it found some bad sectors and repaired them but there is no change in the computer's behavior.

It runs fine in Safe Mode.

If it runs fine in Safe Mode then the problem could be a driver.

Enable Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3) to Check For Updates, install all Important and Optional Updates except Bingware, with reboots, going back to check for more Updates until no more are offered.

Then you can go over the Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7
to see if it reveals the problem.

If this is still the factory install then that is the worst install of Win7 one can have, larded with bloatware and duplicate utilities that interfere with better versions built into Win7. So to save time I'd skip to doing a Clean Reinstall Windows 7 following the steps carefully, including how drivers are handled in a driver-complete OS, which will almost always result in a perfect install and stay that way as long as you stick with the tools and methods recommended.