Solved Intermittent freeze on start up- windows logo

[Rickykin]

Hi all,

Firstly like to introduce myself. I am 22 and have been using windows 7 for about a year and a half now.

After my last format of my hard-drive i used the supplied disc to install Vista, following which I upgraded to Windows.

My PC booted fine under Vista, but since the upgrade to Windows 7 I have been having intermittent start up issues; that is sometimes it will boot fine and othertimes it hangs at the the windows logo.

I have run start up repair countless times and no error was detected. At a loss to what is causing this, and why sometimes it works and others fails miserably.

Anyone had any experience of this?

Thanks in advanced,

Ricky

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Welcome to SevenForums.

Try to get your PC to boot again. Once you manage that, lets see if we can track down the issue:

1. Click Start Orb
2. In the search box type event, and then click on Event Viewer.
3. Under Windows Logs>Application, see if there are any items marked as critical (they usually have a red cross through them).
4. Note any, and reply back with them here and we can help with that.

Once other thing you could also try (although I'm not sure it will fix the problem since you have already tried a repair install) is the sfc /scannow command. Try running it from an elevated command prompt and see if it discovers any corrupted system files....it wont do any damage or hurt to give it a go.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Rickykin]

Golden, many thanks for the reply.

I have run both tests and no errors on either front. I have since reloaded Vista as I remember it working fine under Vista. However the hang still occurs around about the same point when I run Vista.

I remember reading on another forum that this kind of issue can be as a result of a memory issue. Could this be the cause?

Once again thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

 

[Golden]

Mmm....Ricky I'll see if I can get more experienced people to have a look atht his and come up with more suggestions.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Rickykin, welcome to Seven Forums!



I would suggest that after you have copied out or made back-ups of the data you need to save to external media you use Step One of this tutorial at the link below to do a wipe (secure erase) to the entire Hard Disk Drive, running this then using the outline in Step Two #2 to create and format a single 100GB partition using diskpart will get you a clean all and a chkdsk /r for the best possible space to install Windows 7 to.

Then do a clean upgrade install of Windows 7 and be sure not to enter the activation key for the install, that can be added later after the install completes.


SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

 

[Rickykin]

Thank you both for your time and answers.

I will attempt this tommorow night. however I would just like to check, that as I have already formatted and reinstalled Vista, is this not the same as what you are suggesting? I am not doubting or disregarding your advice, but just want to double check.

Once again thank you for your input and hopefully this will fix it.

Kind regards,

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

No it's not the same, first wipe clean all the HDD using Step One of the "Optimize" tutorial then do a clean install to the 100GB partition you create using Step Two #2 in the same tutorial.


This shows you how to install the upgrade Windows 7 without having to install Vista first.

Do a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

 

[Rickykin]

Ok,

Have cleaned disk and tried installing windows 7. however had same problem of it hanging on the windows logo on start up and it did not complete the installation. It did however work fine in safe mode, as it did previous to the clean install. So I am at a lost to this problem.

I should also mention the following;

I opened up the side of my computer and found my fan had come loose and was resting ontop of my graphics card! Nightmare! Could a damaged graphics card be the cause? is there a way of testing this theory?

 

[Golden]

Errrmm which fan? If you remove it and startup do you get the same problem?

 

[Rickykin]

The cooling fan, it was mounted above the graphics cards and has come detached, but the cards prevented it from falling fully, meaning they supported a good deal of the fans weight.

However it would seem strange that this would cause it to work fine some times and not at other times?

I removed the fan, and reconnected my crosswire cable (which I disconnected over a year ago due to some issues with it), and it loaded up fine. However I have since tried to restart it again and it stalls on the windows start up screen once again.

Thanks for the help so far guys!

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Which cooling fan? The CPU, or just a general case fan?

 

[Rickykin]

Just the general case fan.

Well I think I fixed it.... (touch wood).

After much hassling around and formating / reinstalling. It appeared to work fine each time until I updated my graphics drivers. I have since disabled my 2nd graphics card and it appears to be booting up fine each time (so far).

So thanks for all your help and input looks like we might have gotten to the bottom of it and it appears there is a cross-fire/graphics card issue here.

If it starts struggling to boot correctly again I will smash the tower up and claim of insurance- simple solution.

Thanks again guys.

 

[Golden]

OK. That could be the issue. Let us know how it goes.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Good to see you found the issue and thanks for the update.

 

[wmquack]

I was having a difficulty with install hangs of Windows 7 x64 on my custom system:
MB: Asrock 870 Extreme3
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955
Vid: PNY GeForce 9800GT

The hang would occur at the Windows splash screen, and all the words were pixelated and unreadable (looked like white blurs in the general block shape where they should be). I got Windows 7 to install twice previously - security settings, login, etc., but it would crash and hang on restart after I had it up and running, after several dozen fresh installs, and 200 hours of switching settings and hardware and various driver version installs.

I played with all the bios settings, I got a new video card, I switched out new hard drives, and nothing fixed the problem. On the last install I reset the MB bios, and disabled the quad core feature. BINGO - windows installed, and did not hang on restart. When I enabled the quad core feature Windows started installed AMD phenom drivers (four times in the driver install window) and then on the mandatory restart Windows 7 hangs again, this time before the splash screen comes up. And now it hangs even after disabling the quad core feature.

Hope this helps others who may have similar problems, but now I need advice on how to fix the quad core restart issue.