Taskbar/Start-AllPrograms freeze.

[flicker455]

Hey there, long time reader, first time poster here.

I'll get right to it, ever since I got back from work earlier today my computer's been acting strange. Booting up now takes forever (4-5min) and during boot the CPU's seems to working at 110% judging by the sound they make. All seems fine when I get to the login screen however.

Anyways, the real issue is the taskbar/start menu, the taskbar tends to freeze whenever I alt-tab between multiple windows, and when opening the start menu and then hitting "All Programs" it freezes aswell. I can minimize windows, click on shortcuts and play games while it's frozen though. At first I thought it might be my second HDD which has slowly been getting worse since about a week ago. Thankfully I had nothing installed on it so I disconnected it. Turned out the HDD wasn't the culprit.

Anywho, I've been looking around, looking for people with similar issues for quite a while now, and I came across this thread http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/5955-start-menu-freeze.html . That guy had the exact same issue as I did but on a W7 build way back. (7048) All he had to do was update to a newer build and the issue fixed itself, unfortunately that won't work for me, seeing as I'm on 7600.

Anyways, here are my current specs;
Windows 7, home premium build 7600
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Intel Core Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz
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ASUS P5Q SE2, P45, Socket-775
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Corsair TWIN2X PC6400 DDR2 4GB KIT CL5
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Gainward GeForce 9800GT 1GB PhysX CUDA
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Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2
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Corsair TX 650W PSU

I really appreciate your time and hopefully you can make more sense of this than me. Now if you'll excuse me I'll continue searching the webs for more clues. Takecare!

(Ps If I've left something out, please tell me, I'm horribly bad at computers.)

 

[Jonathan_King]

Welcome!

I suggest a system restore to get to a point before the troubles. Particularly note which programs are affected; I suspect one of them is the cause.

 

[flicker455]

Hey mate, thanks for the reply! I did as you said and system restored to a point 3days back, unfortunately without success. The bootup still took forever and the comp is still acting wierd. :-/

 

[flicker455]

Read up on the boot issue, as mentioned booting up is taking forever and the cpu's are making way more noise than normal till I get to the windows login screen. Anyways, seeing as my other HDD went down the drain and I disconnected it, you reckon it might be the culprit? I sorta ruled it out too soon I think, I thought it was empty seeing as I never really installed anything on it, or so I think anyways - god knows what I did when I first installed the OS though.

You reckon there's a chance it's making my OS unstable? Should I give the boot cd a go and repair?

 

[hubris]

Hi,
BIOS looking for a HD not there anymore.?

CMOS reset (take battery out for a few minutes.?)

Thoughts flicker?

 

[flicker455]

Hm, come to think of it, drive B is still showing on my computer even though it's not plugged in and I'll have a look around the BIOS once I get home, thanks for the suggestion

 

[flicker455]

I did as you suggested mate, found no errors in the BIOS and I tried resetting the Motherboard, no good. Seeing as the issue started just as my faulty HDD went to hell I'm guessing that's the fault, anyways currently I'm copying the important stuff over to my IPod preparing for a clean format. Wish me luck guys!

(And thanks for the help)