Windows freezes shortly after startup

[xtff]

Hey, I'm currently having some trouble with Windows 7 almost completely freezing up (trying to shut it back down takes about 20 minutes) shortly after logging in and cannot find the cause of it. I tried restoring the system from a backup I did with DriveImage XML but unfortunately it runs out of memory everytime I try to load the image so my last option right now is reinstalling Windows from scratch without a backup of all my programs.

I ran memory and hdd tests, but both seem to be fine so I assume it is a software related issue.
I have also searched for any malware with both avast and Malwarebytes but didn't find anything, as well as an OTL log which didn't show any suspicious activity.
Starting Windows in Safe Mode or using the diagnostic system start feature in msconfig will make it start up without any issues, however starting it normally with everything but Microsoft services deactivated in msconfig will still cause it to crash.
I might also add that shortly before this happened, Chrome and later Thunderbird caused a similar crash when trying to start them, I didn't manage to fix it by reinstalling them, but when I deleted their respective profiles in the appdata folder, they both worked again. I don't know if this is related to my issue though.

If anyone has an idea how to find the cause/fix this problem without reinstalling windows or needs more info please let me know, I would greatly appreciate it.

Specs:
Samsung RC730-S07
Intel i7-2670QM
8GB RAM DDR3
Windows 7 Professional SP1 x64

 

[Jacee]

See if you might have 'adware', which could be "calling home".

Download AdWareCleaner AdwCleaner Download
or from here Téléchargements - Outils de Xplode - AdwCleaner
to your desktop
1.Right-click on adwcleaner.exe and select Run As Administrator to launch the application.
2.Click on Delete button.
3.Confirm each time with OK.
4.Your computer will be rebooted automatically. A text file will open after the restart. Please post the content of that logfile in your reply.
Note: You can find the logfile at C:\AdwCleaner[Sn].txt as well - n is the order number.

 

[roban]

A corrupt video driver might cause the symptoms you describe and would allow you to boot safely into safe mode. Try uninstalling and reinstalling your video driver. NVidia was having issues like this with one of their releases especially 64bit.

 

[gregrocker]

Work through the other http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220165-troubleshooting-steps-windows-7-a.html you haven't tried, double checking you have a Clean Boot with only MSE as your AV starting with Win7.

If you have problems running from desktop, switch to boot mode using the same tools but as described in http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html.

If this is still the Samsung factory preinstall it's one of the worst installs of Win7 you can have and you've never even experienced native Win7 perfect performance. So I'd strongly consider now investing my time in a perfect http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164 with our help.

 

[xtff]

Thanks guys, I'll try those suggestions.

@gregrocker: This is not the factory preinstall, installing a clean copy of Win 7 was the first thing I did when I got the laptop.

 

[gregrocker]

That's a good thing, but still look over the steps for getting a perfect install to compare with how you did it. Drivers are not handled at all like XP in Win7 - it is driver-complete. Users get in trouble when they provide a bunch of drivers and not let Win7 do it.

 

[xtff]

Reinstalling the video driver seems to have fixed it from what I can tell so far. Works fine for now about 2 hours. I'll keep watching it though, thanks for the help!

@gregrocker: I pretty much followed the same steps as in that guide, I just don't use CCleaner. I'm a bit confused about point 19 though, is it really that big of a deal if I don't run the preinstalled windows version? I might have to send it in due to some technical problems with the keyboard and I wasn't planning on restoring the factory install beforehand.

 

[gregrocker]

You'll have to feel out your OEM tech support to see how they view a Clean Reinstall nowadays. In the past some have stubbornly insisted you must have the factory install onboard to get support or service under warranty.

This was only to enforce the sponsored bloatware which makes up much of their profit margin on these rigs. Mr. MucAfee and Norton call the shots when they're not mass murdering OS's so they can buy a bigger yacht or new Rolls.

Even MS profits greatly off the Office preinstalls causing them to not fully respect the value of Clean Reinstalling their OS like they should since it is the only chance a customer has to experience native perfect Win7 performance.

 

[xtff]

And it crashed again.... It worked fine for a day but when I just tried connecting to the internet (via VPN) to update my AV and Windows it got stuck while trying to connect and crashed again. It even managed to log into the VPN but froze at "Registering computer to network". It also booted back up just fine, no crash at startup, very odd...
Could that be a corrupted network service maybe?

 

[gregrocker]

Can you try a LAN connection to the internet?

 

[xtff]

I also just checked the HDD with SeaTools (CHKDSK was fine), it found issues and told me to use SeaTools DOS to attempt to fix them, but that doesn't detect the HDD at all when I start it.

 

[gregrocker]

Use the bootable Seagate Seatools CD

 

[xtff]

The only way to get internet access is using VPN because I'm in my universities network. Only plugging in the LAN cable works fine but doesn't allow me to access anything beyond the internal network of the university.

As for SeaTools, that's exactly what I did, I booted it up but it didn't detect the drive.

 

[xtff]

So I've been without internet for a few days and the laptop has been running just fine, perfomance as always and no crashes whatsoever.
Right when I got into my homes WLAN network it attempted to connect and crashed again, so I can pretty safely assume that the internet connection causes the crashes. I've also tried direct connection via LAN cable as well as USB tethering with my phone and all of them cause the same crash.
All steps in the troubleshooting guide have failed up to the repair install so far, so I wanted to try the http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html but I get stuck at step 9 because accessing the internet again causes the same crash also in the setup screen. Would it be safe to skip the updates during the installation and install them afterwards after the issue has (hopefully) been resolved?

 

[gregrocker]

Yes, but I'd do a Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to get shed of the Samsung bloatware and duplicate utilties.

Plug in by ethernet during install to see what driver Win7 provides in installer, or import the one on the Samsung Support Downloads webpage for your model. Then go online, enable Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3) and install all rounds of Important and Optional Updates with reboots. Keep checking for more Updates. When there are no more Updates, which drivers are still missing in Device Manager?