Toshiba Satellite Laptop Hangs after loading desktop randomly

[Riverstripe]

Hi, I recently purchased a new Toshiba Laptop with Windows 7 64bit installed, which worked pretty well until I ran into a random crash a few days ago. I'm not sure why it happened, but at the time, I was running a youtube video and then I got a post on Google Talk. At that point, the computer froze on the sound and I wasn't able to use the mouse anymore. It acted like a STOP error, even though no blue screen popped up or anything. It seems like it freezes like this when I leave the computer on for a long period of time or something. It's happened around three times, once with the Google Talk sound, and twice with the Skype sound, and all three times youtube was opened.

Anyway, ever since that initial crash, I've had a hard time starting up the computer. The first time, I attempted to run the Task Manager and click the "Show processes from all users" button, however after clicking the button, the computer seems to hang at loading consent.exe, and the CPU was around 4% or so. I was also trying to load Google Chrome, but it wouldn't load either. After waiting about 5 minutes, I pressed Ctrl-Alt-Delete, which then I got an error that the window couldn't load.
The second time I tried running the Task Manager, I noticed that the Networking and Sharing Center wouldn't work at all. I could run programs (that weren't internet browsers), as well as the control panel... but I couldn't open the Networking and Sharing window from either the Control Panel or the icon on the taskbar. Consent.exe was hanging in this instance as well.
After those two times, I was able to get the computer working again and didn't have too many problems as long as the computer was on.
I ran into the problem again after successfully shutting down Windows one night, then trying to turn it back on the next day. However, this was even more odd because Explorer.exe crashed on its own, but I hadn't done anything since I turned the computer on. I also couldn't get the task manager open for some reason.
Today, after leaving the computer off since last night, I tried turning on the computer again, and once again the computer hanged on trying to load Google Chrome and the Task Manager. This time, the Task Manager wouldn't load, but the icon would appear in the taskbar (frozen. Can't right click it or anything.) and Skype was working. I made a comment on Google Talk, but that froze after I got a response.
I was able to hit the shut down button in that instance, but after waiting 8 minutes, the windows logoff screen wouldn't show up, so I just shut it down and turned it on again.

The computer is working fine now, though it seems that the initial crash from about a week or two ago started this issue. I think it's related to either Google Chrome, Flash, HTML5, audiodg.exe, Catalyst Control Centre, or possibly a virus in Windows (which I doubt, since Avast has been pretty helpful since I had it on my last computer.) It seems that the hang happens after turning my computer on from a successful shut down, but suddenly goes away after forcibly shutting it down and turning it on again. So, I was wondering, could someone help me with this issue? It'd be nice to be able to start my computer without worrying about the desktop hanging at a small CPU percentage.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit (OEM)
Age: The model is probably a year old, but I just bought the computer new about a month ago. (A665D)
Programs recently installed (within the last month): Google Talk, Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9, Avast Antivirus, Skype, Steam, Dropbox, and Windows Live Essentials (Messenger).
There were no changes made to the system before the crashes began, outside of automatic updates.
Avast, Skype, Dropbox, Google Talk, and Steam are set to load on startup.

Thanks for anyone that can help. If you need more information, I'll try my best to give it!

 

[writhziden]

Even though you are not getting a crash, the http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html may help us find possible program conflicts, application hangs, system errors, etc. Please post the reports from those instructions when you are next able to do so.

In the meantime, there are a few things you can start with:

1. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html
   
   
2. Run Disk Check with both boxes checked for all HDDs and with Automatically fix file system errors checked for all SSDs. Post back your logs for the checks after finding them using http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html (you may need to search for wininit instead of chkdsk).
   For any drives that do not give the message:
   Windows has checked the file system and found no problems
   run disk check again as above. In other words, if it says:
   Windows has made corrections to the file system
   after running the disk check, run the disk check again.
   
   
3. Run the short and long tests with SeaTools for HDDs.
   SeaTools for Windows
   
   SeaTools for DOS​